The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer

by Harry Collingwood

That day and the one that followed it were days of strenuous labour indeed, not only for the crew of the Nonsuch, but also for their black allies, who turned up on the beach in full strength, and with most commendable punctuality, under Lukabela, and were promptly taken aboard. For there was a very considerable amount of heavy work to be done: sails were to be loosed and dried, unbent, rolled up and stowed away below; yards and topmasts to be sent down, scraped and thoroughly greased before they, too, were stowed below; gear unrove, overhauled, made up in coils and labelled; the ordnance dismounted, and, in short, the ship dismantled to her three lower masts, and every movable thing stowed away out of reach of covetous hands—for George felt that it would be unwise to trust his black allies too far or too implicitly. Then every anchor and cable belonging to the ship was used to moor her securely, for it was impossible to estimate how long she would have to lie there at the mercy of the elements. And all this had to be done in a small land-locked cove, hemmed-in on every side by high, densely-wooded land, where the trade-wind could not penetrate, and where the land and sea-breezes were represented by merely fitful breathings of suffocatingly hot air drifting by at infrequent intervals. And this, too, with a blazing sun almost immediately overhead; for it was now mid-August, and the cove lay almost immediately under the ninth parallel of north latitude.

Then, when all this was done, there was the fixing up of the framework for a roof or awning of palm-leaf thatch for the protection of the deck and hull of the ship from the sun’s rays; but Lukabela assured George that there was no need to delay the departure of the expedition until the roof had been thatched, for he undertook that the women of his village, who were, according to him, experts in the art of thatching, should attend to that part of the business.

The evening of the second day witnessed the completion of the preparations for the Englishmen’s daring descent upon Panama; and within an hour after sunrise on the following day the entire party, with fifty Cimarrones under Lukabela, and a train of twenty mules, also furnished by the Cimarrone chief, mustered on the beach of the little secret cove and made their final preparations for the march. These merely consisted in loading the indispensable baggage of the party upon the mules; and as this work was performed by the deft hands of the Cimarrones, twenty minutes sufficed for the accomplishment of the task, when the expedition at once started, taking the way, in the first instance, toward Lukabela’s village.

Until the adventurers reached the village the march was accomplished in a very loose and happy-go-lucky fashion, half the Cimarrones leading the way, with the Englishmen following in small chattering parties of twos and threes as the path through the bush would permit, while the mule train, in charge of the other half of the Cimarrones, brought up the rear. But with their departure from the village silence and strict military discipline became the order of the day, because although Lukabela was going to lead them, not by the Gold road, upon which they would be liable to encounter travellers at any moment, but by a devious and secret path, known only to the Cimarrones, they would still be passing through the

enemy’s country, and would be liable to detection unless the utmost caution was observed. Therefore the order of march was thus arranged: In the lead went, as guide and scout, fully armed with bow and spear, the Cimarrone who of the whole tribe was most intimately acquainted with the route which was to be followed. Then, in single file, distant from each other about fifty yards, went five other Cimarrones in the track of the leader, their duty being to watch for and transmit to the main body any signals which the leader might make. Then, some fifty yards in the rear of the rearmost of these five, marched twenty Cimarrones whose duty it would be to make a stand should the enemy by any chance appear in force, while the main body retired upon the nearest defensive position. Fifty yards to the rear again followed the aforesaid main body, consisting of half the Englishmen, the mule train, and the other half of the Englishmen, while the remainder of the Cimarrones constituted the rear guard.

The route lay almost entirely through dense, lofty forest, and wound hither and thither in the most bewildering fashion; for in addition to the giant trees which constituted the forest proper, there was a vast quantity of thick, tangled undergrowth, through which a man might indeed have forced his way with difficulty, but which was absolutely impassable for laden mules; therefore it was necessary to follow the sinuosities of the thinner parts of the jungle where a few occasional strokes of a machete were all that were required to enable the laden animals to pass. Under such circumstances progress was necessarily slow, and also fatiguing; but the Englishmen forgot not only the snail-like nature of their progress, but also the oppressive heat and fatigue of the march, for they were now in a new and wonderful world, more strange and beautiful than anything that the most fanciful imagination among them had ever pictured. To men like themselves, seamen, accustomed day after day, for months at a time, to the sight of the open sky, the boundless sea, the invigorating breath of the salt wind, and the feeling of a heaving deck beneath their feet, it was a novelty to be trudging upon firm ground along a forest path, enveloped in the mystery of soft green twilight, with dense masses of foliage overhead shutting out all sight of the sky except at infrequent intervals, their horizon bounded by the leafy brake within arm’s reach of them on either hand, and to breathe the hot, close atmosphere of the woods, pungent with many strange odours; to listen to the silence of the forest, accentuated rather than broken by the sounds of their passage, and the low singing hum of innumerable myriads of invisible insects; to start as a sudden whirr of wings directed their attention to some brilliant plumaged bird seen for an instant flashing athwart their ken like a living gem and then vanishing they scarcely knew whither; to behold the countless strange forms and curious colours of the flowers that sprang beneath their feet or hung in festoons from the lofty branches overhead; to hear the mysterious sounds that occasionally came to them from the forest on either hand; and to slake their thirst by devouring the strange but luscious fruits indicated by their friends the Cimarrones and partaken of at first doubtfully and with extremest caution. And it was only when they suddenly emerged from the forest gloom into some brake open to the sky, and halted for a moment until their eyes grew accustomed to the dazzling daylight, that they were able to realise how intense that gloom had been. But the novelty of the journey was not all pleasurable, for apart from the breathless, oppressive heat, and the annoyance caused by the pertinacious attacks of mosquitos, gnats, and other fiercely stinging insects, there was a certain element of danger, as was manifested by the frequent low warning cry raised by a Cimarrone, of “Culebra, culebra; guardarse!” (snake, snake; beware!)

It was close upon noon when, after a gentle ascent of about four hours’ duration, followed by a somewhat steeper descent of rather less than half that time the expedition emerged from the forest and found itself in a small, open, grassy space, bordered on the one hand by the high woods and on the other by a small stream of crystal clear water flowing over a gravelly bed; and here Lukabela gave the welcome announcement that he proposed to call a halt for two hours in order that men and animals might rest and refresh themselves during the hottest part of the day. Accordingly arms were piled, armour put off, and most of the Englishmen indulged in the unwonted luxury of a fresh water bath, while the faithful Cimarrones—or Maroons, as some of the mariners began to call them—unloaded the mules, watered them, and then hobbled them to feed upon the rich, short grass, lighted a fire, cut down sweet, balsam-like boughs and built little arbours with them in the shadow of which their white friends might sleep. And when, after a refreshing bath and a still more refreshing sleep, the Englishmen were awakened about two o’clock, behold! those faithful and indefatigable allies the Cimarrones had provided a delicious hot meal for their delectation, consisting of the choicest portions of two freshly-killed deer, which, having been first wrapped in clay, were afterwards baked in the embers of the fire, thus completely retaining all the natural juices of the meat and rendering it incomparably delicate, tender and tasty. Then, the meal finished, the Cimarrones—always the Cimarrones—produced certain dried golden-brown leaves, which they deftly fashioned into cigarros for the delectation of themselves and such of the Englishmen as were adventurous enough to test the seductive effects of tobacco; and when the cigarros had duly been done justice to the mules were rounded up, loaded, the order of march arranged, and the journey resumed.

The afternoon march was, in all essential respects, similar to that of the morning, and continued until about five o’clock in the evening, when another open, grassy glade, very similar to that of the noontide halt, was reached, and here Lukabela announced his intention of halting for the night. Then occurred a repetition of the principal events of the previous halt, except that after the Englishmen had bathed to their satisfaction they found a hot meal awaiting them without the preliminary of the two hours’ sleep. As before, the meal was followed by cigarros, accompanied by a little desultory conversation; but this did not continue long, for the Englishmen, at least, were dead weary with their unwonted labours, and one after another they stretched themselves out where they sat and, careless of the saturating dew, at once sank into dreamless slumber, surrounded by their faithful allies, four of whom kept watch over the sleeping camp until another day dawned. And so the march continued day after day with little variation, sometimes climbing upward and at other times descending, but on the whole the tendency was distinctly to rise.

Toward the close of the third day, and in a still more marked degree during the fourth day of their march, the breaks in the forest became more frequent, and of greater extent, occasionally permitting them to get a glimpse of their more immediate surroundings, when it became apparent, as might indeed be judged by the up-and-down character of the way which they had already traversed, that they were in the midst of hilly country, a dip in the forest occasionally revealing a blue peak breaking the sky-line in the far distance. And when they halted at mid-day on the fourth day it was in a glade that formed part of the very crest of a mountain spur, so that, even as they partook of their mid-day meal they were able to look out over a vast extent of country both ahead of and behind them. In the latter direction they saw mile after mile of undulating woods stretching away into the distance, the outline gradually softening and the infinite variety of green tints gradually merging into filmy grey; and beyond it the Caribbean shimmering beneath the tropic sun; while ahead of them, to the south-east, and almost within a stone’s throw, as it seemed, rose a lofty ridge, which Lukabela informed George was the backbone of the range, from the summit of which could be seen Panama and that—to Englishmen—almost fabulous ocean, the Southern Sea, the very existence of which the Spaniards were guarding as a priceless secret.