William Dampier

by William Clark Russell

CHAPTER III

1681-1691

DAMPIER'S FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD [8]

“April 17, 1681,” writes Dampier, “about Ten a Clock in the morning being 12 leagues N.-W. from the Island Plata, we left Captain Sharp and those who were willing to go with him in the Ship, and imbarqued into our Launch and Canoas, designing for the River of Santa Maria in the Gulf of St. Michael, which is about 200 leagues from the Isle of Plata.” The boats which carried them were a launch and two canoes; and their provisions consisted of a quantity of flour mixed with twenty or thirty pounds of powdered chocolate. That no man should venture the crossing of the Isthmus on foot who, by health or feebleness of will, might prove unequal to the march, it was settled at the start that any one who faltered on the journey overland should be at once shot to death: “For,” says Dampier, “we knew that the Spaniards would soon be after us, and one man falling into their hands might be the ruin of us all by giving an account of our strength and condition; yet this would not deter 'em from going with us.” When abreast of Cape Passao they captured a small vessel and sailed to Cape St. Lorenzo, where they disembarked, after removing their provisions and clothes and scuttling their little ship. It was now May 1st, 1681.

The march of Dampier and his companions across the Isthmus of Panama is a feat that ranks amongst the most memorable of the traditions of travel and adventure. The qualities of the climate of that part of the world have found emphasis in our time in published accounts of the mortality among the people employed out there on the great French engineer's scheme of a canal. The land is watered by numbers of rivers filled with alligators; it is darkened and often rendered impenetrable by dense growths of tropical vegetation crowded with snakes; and in many places it is blocked by barriers of hills and mountains belted with miasmatic vapours. Our little company of buccaneers crossed the Isthmus in twenty-three days, in which time, according to Dampier's account, they travelled one hundred and ten miles. Their adventures were few, but the hardships constant and severe. For the most part they slept all night in the open, and repeatedly arose in the morning from their beds of mire with clothes saturated by storms of rain. Their surgeon, Lionel Wafer, was badly hurt in the knee by the explosion of a parcel of gunpowder,—an accident that gave his companions much anxiety, “being lyable ourselves every moment to misfortune,” says Dampier, “and none to look after us but him.” On several occasions many of them were nearly drowned whilst fording rivers swollen with rains. The difficulties in the road of their progress may be gathered from a single incident. They had arrived at the banks of a river which they were obliged to cross. The water was deep and the current ran swiftly. It was proposed that those who could swim should assist those who were helpless in this way to the opposite bank; but then, how were they to transport the guns, provisions, and other articles that they carried? They decided to send a man over with a line, who, by means of it, would be able to haul the goods across, and then drag those ashore who could not swim. A fellow named Gayny secured the end of the line around his neck and plunged into the river, but the current kinked and entangled the rope in some way and threw the swimmer on his back. He had slung a bag containing three hundred dollars over his shoulder, and this weight, helped by the drag of the line, drew the unfortunate man under, and he was seen no more. They finally succeeded in crossing by felling a tall tree, which happily spanned the river and served them as a bridge. Their food consisted of fish and such animals as they could contrive to shoot, particularly monkeys, whose flesh they ate with relish. It was not until May 23rd that they came in sight of the Atlantic, which it was then the custom to speak of as the North Sea, and the next day they went on board a French privateer commanded by a Captain Tristian. Some of their comrades had died by the way, and some had been left behind. Amongst the latter was Wafer, the surgeon, who a few weeks afterwards was met by Dampier while cruising in the neighbourhood of La Sound's Key. Some Indians came aboard, and brought with them the surgeon and survivors of the others who had been left on the Isthmus. “Mr. Wafer,” says Dampier, “wore a clout about him, and was painted like an Indian; and he was some time aboard before I knew him.” [9]

Captain Tristian, having Dampier and his comrades in the ship, set sail, and arrived in two days at Springer's Quay, where they found eight privateers lying at anchor. Four of them were English; two of ten guns each, and both carrying one hundred men; a third of four guns and forty men. The others were less formidable. The Dutch vessel mounted four guns and carried sixty men, and was commanded by one Captain Yanky. The Frenchmen were respectively of eight guns and forty men, and six guns and seventy men. Here, by guessing at the crews of the smaller ships, we arrive at a body of pirates numbering between five and six hundred fearless, determined, ferocious ruffians! It is conceivable that the Spaniards in those waters should have lived in a state of terror. The wonder is that the swarms of miscreants who preyed upon them should have left them a house to dwell in or a ducat to conceal.

After many debates it was agreed amongst the masters and crews of these vessels to attack a town the name of which Dampier says he has forgotten. The vessel into which our hero found himself drafted was a French craft of eight guns and forty men, commanded by a man named Archemboe. The fleet weighed, but during the night they were scattered by a hard gale, and when day broke Archemboe's ship was alone. Dampier, with others of his comrades who were with Archemboe, speedily learnt to hate their French associates. The sailors were utterly worthless in bad, and lazy, lounging loafers in fine, weather: “The saddest creatures that I was ever among,” writes Dampier, “but though we had bad weather that required many hands aloft, yet the biggest part of them never stirred out of their hammocks but to eat.” Later on they fell in with Captain Wright, who belonged to the fleet, and Dampier's English shipmates induced this man to fit out a prize of his for them; Dampier himself joining Wright, whose vessel, a barco longo, mounted four guns and carried fifty men. Shortly after this Wright, in company with the Dutchman, Captain Yanky, started on a cruise along the coast of Cartagena.

Dampier's narrative here is a very close, curious, and interesting description of the islands of this part of the sea and of the shores of the mainland. He also prints pages of notes about the birds common to those parts, the pearl-fishery, and other matters of a like kind. The charm of a sailor-like simplicity is in everything he says. “I have not been curious,” he writes in his preface to a New Voyage Round the World, “as to the spelling of the Names of Places, Plants, Fruits, Animals, etc., which in many of the remoter parts are given at the pleasure of Travellers, and vary according to their different Humours: Neither have I confined myself to such names as are given by Learned Authors, or so much as enquired after them. I write for my Countrymen, and have therefore for the most part used such names as are familiar to our English Seamen and those of our Colonies abroad, yet without neglecting others that occur'd.”

Let Dampier's literary defects be what they may, assuredly unintelligibility is not one of them.