In a few days they reached the house of a young Spanish Indian, who had lived with the bishop of Panama, and who received them kindly. Here, while resting to dry their arms and powder, their surgeon, Mr. Wafer, had his knee burnt by an accidental explosion. After dragging himself along with pain for another day, he determined to remain behind with two or three more. He stayed five months with the Indians, and the published account of his experiences still exists.
The rainy season that frightened Mr. Ringrose had now set in, and the thunder and lightning was frequent and violent. The valleys and river banks were overflowed, and the Buccaneers had to sleep in trees or under their shade, instead of building warm and sheltering huts. In the very height of their misery, the slaves fled and carried away all they could. Dampier, whose only anxiety was to preserve his journal, placed it in a bamboo, closed at both ends with wax. In fording one of the rivers, a Buccaneer, who carried 300 dollars on his back, was swept down the stream and drowned, but the survivors were too hopeless and weary to look for either body or gold.
In eighteen days the English reached the river Concepcion, and, obtaining Indian canoes, rowed to Le Sound's Key, one of the Samballas islands, where Buccaneers rendezvoused. Here they embarked on board a French privateer, commanded by Captain Tristian, dismissing their Indian guides with presents of money, beads, and hatchets. At Springer's Key, Tristian joined them with other vessels, and would have attacked Panama had not Dampier and his men deterred them. For a week the council deliberated about the available towns worth plundering from Trinidad to Vera Cruz. The French and English could not agree, but at last all sailed for Carpenter's River, touching at the isle of St. Andreas. The ships separated in a gale; and Dampier taking a dislike to his French commander, induced Captain Wright, an Englishman, to fit out a small vessel and cruise for provisions along the coast. While the sailors shot pecary, deer, parrots, pigeons, monkeys, and cuvassow birds, their Mosquito Indians struck turtle for their use.
On returning to Le Sound's Key they were joined by Mr. Wafer, who had escaped from the Darien Indians, but he was so painted and bedizened that it was some time before they could recognize him. An Indian chief had offered him his daughter in marriage, and he had only got away by pretending to go in search of English dogs for hunting. Passing Carthagena, they cast wistful eyes at the convent dedicated to the Virgin, situated on a steep hill behind the town. There was immense wealth hoarded in this place, rich offerings being frequently made to it, and many miracles worked by our Lady. Any misfortune that befel the Buccaneer was attributed to this Lady's doing, and the Spaniards reported that she was abroad that night the Oxford man-of-war blew up at the isle of Vaca, and that she came home all wet, and with clothes soiled and torn.
Captain Wright's company pillaged several small places about the Rio de la Hache and the Rancherias pearl fisheries, and captured, after a smart engagement, an armed ship of twelve guns and forty men, laden with sugar, tobacco, and marmalade, bound to Carthagena from Santiago, in Cuba. The Dutch governor of Curaçoa, having much trade with the Spaniards, would not openly buy the cargo, but offered, if it was sent among the Danes of St. Thomas, to purchase it through his agents. The rovers, declining this, sold it at another Dutch colony, and then sailed for the isle of Aves, so called from the quantity of boobies and men-of-war birds. On a coral reef, near this island, Count d'Estrees had shortly before lost the whole French fleet. He himself had first run ashore, and firing guns to warn the rest of the danger, they hurried on to the same shoal, thinking, in the darkness, that he had been attacked by the enemy. The ships held together till the next day, and many men were saved. The ordinary seamen died of hunger and fatigue, but the Buccaneers, hardier, and accustomed to frequent wrecks, made the escape an excuse for revel and debauchery. As Dampier says, they, "being used to such accidents, lived merrily, and if they had gone to Jamaica with £30 in their pockets, could not have enjoyed themselves more; for they kept a gang by themselves and watched when the ships broke up, to get the goods that came out of them, and, though much was staved against the rocks, yet abundance of wine and brandy floated over the reef where they waited to take it up." * * "There were about forty Frenchmen on board one of the ships, in which was good store of liquor, till the after part of her broke, and floated over the reef and was carried away to sea, with all the men drinking and singing, who, being in drink, did not mind the danger, but were never heard of afterwards."
This wreck having left the Bird Island a storehouse of masts and spars, the Buccaneer vessels had begun to repair thither to careen and refit. Among others, a Captain Pan, a Frenchman, had been there. A Dutch vessel of twenty guns, despatched from Curaçoa to fish up the sunken cannon, observing the privateer, resolved to capture him before he began his diving. Pan, afraid of the Dutchman's superior force, abandoned his vessel, and, landing his guns, prepared to throw up a redoubt. While thus engaged, a Dutch sloop entered the road, and at night anchored at the opposite end of the island. In the night, Pan, with two canoes, boarded the ship, and made off, leaving his empty hulk for the Dutch man-of-war.
At this island, Dampier's men careened their largest vessel, scrubbed the sugar prize, and recovered two guns from the wreck. At the island of Rocas, a Knight of Malta, captain of a French thirty-six gun ship, bought ten tons of their sugar. Failing to sell any more sugar at Petit Guaves, they sailed for Blanco, an uninhabited island, full of lignum-vitæ trees, and teeming with iguanas, that were to be found in the swamps, among the bushes, or in the trees. Their eggs were eaten by the Buccaneers, who made soup of the flesh for their sick.
While cruising on the Caraccas coast, they landed in some of the bays, and took seven or eight tons of cocoa, and three barks laden with hides, brandy, earthenware, and European goods. Returning to the Rocas, they divided the spoil, and Dampier and nineteen others embarking in one of the prizes, reached Virginia July 1682.
Dampier's next voyage was with a Creole, named Cook, who arrived at Virginia with a French vessel he had captured by a trick at Petit Guaves. He had been quartermaster, or second in command, under a French Flibustier named Gandy. By the usual Buccaneer law, he had been made captain of a large Spanish prize. The French commanders in the same fleet, jealous of this promotion, seized the ship, plundered the English prize crew, and sent them ashore. Tristan, another French captain, took ten of them with him to Petit Guaves. Cook and his nine companions, taking advantage of a day when Tristan and many of his men were absent, overpowered the rest of the crew, sent them ashore, and sailed to the Isle à la Vache. Here he picked up a crew of English Buccaneers, and steered for Virginia, taking two prizes by the way, one of which was a French vessel, laden with wines. He then sold his wine and two of the ships, and equipped the largest, the Revenge, with eighteen guns. Amongst the crew were Dampier, Wafer, and Cowley, all of whom have written narratives of their voyages. They sailed from the Chesapeak on the 23rd of August 1683, and captured a Dutch vessel, laden with wine and provisions. At the Cape de Verd islands they encountered a dreadful storm, that lasted a week. While the ship scudded before wind and sea under bare poles, she was suddenly broached to by order of the master, and would have foundered but for Dampier and another man who, going aloft and spreading out the flaps of their coats, righted the ship. At the isle of Sal, the sailors feasted on flamingo tongues. These birds stood in ranks round the feeding ponds, so as to resemble a new brick wall. They purchased here some ambergris, which Dampier says he had in a lump of 100 lbs. weight. Its origin was at that time unknown; it is now believed to be a secretion of the whale. The governor and his court at this island rejoiced in rags, their revenues being small, and drawn principally from the salt ponds, from which the island derives its name. Having dug wells, watered, and careened, they went to Mayo to obtain provisions, but were not allowed to land, as only about a week before Captain Bond, a pirate of Bristol, had carried off the governor and some of his people.
Steering to the Straits of Magellan, they were driven to the Guinea coast, and there captured a Danish ship by a stratagem. Captain Cook, concealing his men under deck, approached the Dane like a weak, unarmed merchant vessel. When quite close, he commanded in a loud voice the helm to be put one way, while by a preconcerted plan the steersman shifted into another, and fell on board the Dane, which was captured with the loss of only five men. She was double their size, carried thirty-six guns, and was equipped and victualled for a long voyage.