CHAPTER I.

RAVENAU DE LUSSAN.

Joins De Graff--Cruises round Carthagena--Crosses the Isthmus--Hardships--Joins Buccaneer fleet--Grogniet--Previous history of the vessels--Fight with Greek mercenaries--Take La Seppa--Engagement off Panama--Take Puebla Nueva--Separate from English--Take Leon--Take Chiriquita--Take Granada--Capture Villia--Surprised by ambuscade--Treachery of Greek spy--Capture vessels--Behead prisoners--Burn the savannahs--Quarrel between French and English--Take Guayaquil--Love adventure of De Lussan--Retreat by land from North to South Pacific--Daring stratagem of De Lussan--Escape--River and torrents--Rafts--Arrive at St. Domingo.

For the cruises of Grogniet we are indebted to the pages of Ravenau de Lussan, a young soldier, as brave and as sagacious as Xenophon.

On the 22nd of November, 1684, Ravenau de Lussan departed from Petit Guaves with a crew of 120 adventurers, on board of a prize lately taken near Carthagena by Captain Laurence de Graff. Their intention was to join themselves to a Buccaneer fleet then cruising near Havannah. They had hitherto acted as convoy to the Lieutenant-General and the Intendant of the French colonies, who were afraid of being attacked by the Spanish piraguas. Soon after descrying the mainland, they were hailed by a French tartane, who, not believing that they were of his own nation, or had a commission from the Count of Tholouse, the Lord High Admiral of France, gave them two guns and commanded them to strike. The Buccaneers, thinking they had met a Spaniard, knocked out the head of two barrels of powder, intending to burn themselves and blow up the vessel, rather than be cruelly tortured and hung at the yard-arm with their commissions round their necks. A signal, however, discovered the mistake, and they were soon after joined by the vessels they sought. One of these was the _Mutinous_, formerly the _Peace_, commanded by Captain Michael Landresson, and carried fifty guns. The other was the _Neptune_, formerly the _St. Francis_, and carried forty-four guns. They had both been Spanish armadillas, had sallied out of Carthagena to take Captain De Graff, Michael, Quet, and Le Sage, and were themselves captured before the very walls. The four other boats belonged to Rose Vigneron, La Garde, and an "English traitor from Jamaica." They were then watching for the patache of Margarita, and a squadron of Spanish ships.

At Curaçoa they sent a boat ashore to ask leave to land and remast Laurence de Graff's vessel that had suffered in a hurricane, but were refused, although they showed their commission, and the men who landed were required to leave their swords at the gate. At Santa Cruz they saluted the fort, and the governor, finding 200 of them roaming about the town, commanded them by drum-beat to return to their ships, offering them two shallops for two pieces of eight a man to take them to their ships, but refusing to let them walk through the island. They found the reason of this was that Michael and Laurence's ships had lately taken 200,000 pieces of eight in two Dutch ships near the Havannah. This the freebooters did not touch, being at peace with Holland, but the sailors had stolen it and laid it to the French.

Arriving at Cape La Vella, they placed fifteen sentinels to watch for the patache, and sent a boat to the La Hache river to obtain prisoners, but, in spite of various stratagems, failed in the attempt. A dispute now arose among the crews, who were weary of waiting for the patache, such disputes invariably breaking out in all seasons of misfortune, when union was more than usually necessary.

Laurence de Graff, whom they accused of fraud, sailed at once for St. Domingo, followed by eighty-seven men in the prize, and Ravenau accompanied Captain Rose and Captain Michael to Carthagena, where they captured seven piraguas laden with maize. From the prisoners they heard that two galleons lay in the port, that the fleet was at Porto Bello, and that some ships were about to set out. Soon after this, finding themselves separated from Captain Rose and Michael, Ravenau determined to cross over the continent and get into the South Sea, as he heard a previous expedition some months before had done.

Near Cape Matance a remarkable adventure happened. A Spanish soldier, belonging to the galleons, who had been taken in one of the maize vessels, although treated with every kindness, attempted to drown himself by throwing himself into the sea; his body, however, floated on its back, although he did all he could to drown, till at last, refusing the tackle thrown him from very compassion, he turned himself upon his face, and sank to the bottom. On landing at Golden Island and fixing a flag to warn the Indians, they saw a pennon hoisted upon the shore, and discovered it to belong to three of Captain Grogniet's men, who had refused to follow the expedition, which had just started for the South Sea. Some Indians soon after brought them letters left for the first freebooters who should land, announcing that Grogniet and 170 men had gone into the South Sea, and that 115 Englishmen had preceded them. Soon after Michael and Rose, pursuing a Spanish vessel from Santiago to Carthagena, came in to water, and many of the crew resolved to join their march. 118 men left Michael, and the whole sixty-four of Rose's crew, reimbursing the owners, burnt their vessel and joined them. Ravenau's ship was left in the care of Captain Michael, and the united 264 men now encamped on shore.

On Sunday, March 1st, 1685, after recommending themselves to the Almighty's protection, the expedition set out under the command of Captains Rose, Picard, and Desmarais, with two Indian guides and forty Indian porters.

The country proved so rugged that they could only travel three leagues a day; it was full of mountains, precipices, and impenetrable forests. Great rains fell, and increased the hardship of the journey, and the weight of their arms and ammunition clogged them in ascending the precipices. On descending into the plain, which, though pathless, appeared smooth and level, they found they had to cross the same river forty-four times in the space of only two leagues, and this upon dangerous and slippery rocks. Arriving next day at an Indian caravansery, they remained some time shooting deer, monkeys, and wild hogs, flame-coloured birds, wild pheasants, and partridges that abounded in the woods. At length, after six days of painful and wearisome travel, the Buccaneers reached the Bocca del Chica river, that empties itself in the South Sea. Here, guided by the Indians, they fell to work making canoes, and bartered knives, needles, and hatchets, with the savages, for maize, potatoes, and bananas. Though well assured that their march had been impossible but for the friendliness of these savages, they still kept on their guard, fearing treachery. "They had," says Ravenau, with a pious sigh of pity, "no sign of religion or of the knowledge of God amongst them, holding that they have communion with the devil," and, indeed, as he declares, after spending solitary nights in the woods, often foretelling events to the Frenchmen, that came true to the minutest detail.

Just as they had finished making their canoes, Lussan heard that the English expedition, under Captain Townley, had captured two provision vessels from Lima, and soon after one of Grogniet's men, who had been lost while hunting, joined them. Hearing that Grogniet awaited them at King's Islands, before he attacked the Peru fleet, they started on the 1st of April in fourteen canoes, with twenty oars a piece, and with a score of Indian guides, who were sanguine of plunder. On the fourth they halted for stragglers, and mended their canoes, much injured by the rocks and flats of the river. In some places they were even forced to carry their boats, or to drag them over fallen trees that blocked the deeper parts by the flood. Several men died, and many were seized with painful diseases, produced by hard food and immersion in the water. They were now reduced to a handful of raw maize a day.

From some Indians sent forward to meet them, they heard that provisions awaited them at some distance, and that 1000 Spaniards had prepared an ambuscade on the river's banks. This, however, they avoided, by stirring only at dark, and then without noise. Surprised one night by the tide, the canoes were driven swiftly down the river, and some of them upset against a snag; the men were saved, but the arms and ammunition were lost. On approaching the Indian ambuscade at Lestocada, they placed their canoes one in the other, and telling the sentinels that they were Indian boats, bringing salt into the South Sea, escaped unhurt. On the 12th it grew so dark that the rowers could hardly see each other, and the heavy rain filled the boat so dangerously as to require two men to bale perpetually. At midnight they entered shouting into the South Sea, and found the provisions awaiting them at Bocca Chica, together with two barks to bring them to the fleet. Resting for a day or two, they repaired to the King's Islands to await the ships. These mountainous islands were the stronghold of Maroon negroes.

On the 22nd, Easter Day, the fleet arrived. It consisted of ten vessels, Captain David's frigate of thirty-six guns, Captain Samms, vice-admiral, with sixteen guns, Captain Townley, with two ships; Captain Grogniet, Captain Brandy, and Captain Peter Henry had also each a vessel, and the two small barks were commanded by quartermasters. Except Grogniet, who was a Frenchman, and David, who was a Fleming, the rest were all Englishmen. Their total force amounted to the number of 1100.

Of the different vessels, Ravenau gives the following laudatory account. The admiral's belonged to the English, who, at St. Domingo, had surprised a long bark, commanded by Captain Tristan, a Frenchman, while waiting for a wind. They took next a Dutch ship, and, changing vessels, went and made several prizes on the coast of Guinea, and, at Castres capturing a vessel from Hamburg, joined this expedition. They were, Ravenau declared, little better than pirates, attacking even, their own countrymen, which no true Buccaneer ever did. They had, a short time before, been chastised by a frigate, who, giving them a broadside and a volley of small shot, killed their captain and twenty men.

The vice-admiral's was a vessel they had forced to join them, and had lately taken a ship called the _Sainte Rose_, laden with corn and wine, bound from Truxillo to Panama, and this vessel Davis gave to the French. The others were all prizes captured in the South seas.

The holy alliance soon after took an advice boat that was carrying letters from Madrid to Panama, and despatches from the viceroy of Peru; but both the captain and pilot were bound by an oath rather to die than deliver up their packets or divulge any secret, and had thrown overboard the rolls as well as a casket of jewels. On the same evening 500 men, in twenty-two canoes, embarked to take La Seppa, a small town seven leagues to windward, of Panama. The next day, early in the morning, two armed piraguas, manned with Spanish mercenaries, seeing some of the Buccaneer canoes and forty-six men approaching them, ran ashore on an island in the bay and prepared to defend themselves. These troops were composed of all nations, and had been sent to defend this coast. One of the "Greek" boats split on the beach. The other the Buccaneers took, but the fugitives, planting their flag of defiance on a rising ground, fought desperately, and compelled the freebooters to land on another part of the island and take them in the rear. After an hour's conflict they fled into the woods, leaving thirty-five men dead round their colours and two prisoners.

The attack upon La Seppa proved a failure, for the Sea Rovers had to row two leagues up a river, where they were soon discovered by the sentinels. Yet for all this they fell furiously on, and took it with the loss of only one man; but the booty proved inconsiderable.

The fleet now anchored at the beautiful islands called the Gardens of Panama. All the rich merchants of the city had pleasure-houses here surrounded by rich orchards and arbours of jessamine, and watered by rills and streams. The hungry sailors revelled in the fruits, and reaped plentiful harvests of maize and rice, which Ravenau says "the Spaniards, I believe, did not sow with an intention they should enjoy."

On the 8th of May they passed the old and new towns of Panama in bravado with colours and streamers flying, anchored at Tavoga, another island of pleasure. Having caulked their ships, they sent out a long bark as a scout, and arranged a plan of attacking the Spanish fleet. Davis and Grogniet were to board the admiral; Samms and Brandy the vice-admiral; and Henry and Townley the patache; while the armed piraguas would hover about and keep off the enemy's fire-ships. The next day they put ashore forty prisoners at Tavoga; and the same day, the sound of cannon, which they could not account for, announced the unobserved arrival of the Spanish fleet at Panama. The whole Buccaneer squadron, expecting a battle soon, took the usual oath that they would not wrong one another to the value of a piece of eight, if God was pleased to give them the victory over the Spaniard.

They had scarcely discovered from a Spanish prisoner that the fleet had actually arrived, and was careening and remanning before they ventured out, when Captain Grogniet, raising his flag seven times, gave notice to make quickly ready. The Buccaneers doubled the point of the island where they had anchored, and saw seven great vessels bearing down upon them with a bloody flag to the stern and a royal one at their masts. The Frenchmen, mad with joy at the prospect of such prizes, and thinking them already their own, threw their hats into the sea for joy. It was now noon. The rest of the day was spent by both fleets in trying to obtain the weather-gauge, and at sunset they exchanged a broadside. In the night a floating lanthorn deceived the Buccaneers, and in the morning they found themselves all still to leeward, with the exception of two vessels which had no guns. Although terribly mauled by the Spanish shot, the English admiral and vice-admiral resolved to die fighting rather than let one vessel be taken, although both being good sailors they might have at once saved themselves. The Spaniards, refusing to board, battered them safely at a distance, and prevented Grogniet from joining them, while Peter Henry's ship, having received more than 120 cannon shot, sheered off and was taken by two piraguas.

The long bark, sorely handled, was deserted by her crew, who threw their guns overboard and left the Spanish prisoners to shift for themselves. These wretches attempted to rejoin their countrymen; but the Spanish admiral, mistaking them for enemies, sank them with his cannon.

Peter Henry's vessel reached the isle of St. John de Cueblo, twenty-four leagues from Panama, with five feet of water in the hold, and having repaired, rejoined his fleet in about a fortnight. They found that Captain Davis had been hard plied, having received two shots in his rudder, and six of his men were wounded, but only one killed. Captain Samms had been no less put to it. His poop was half swept off, and he had received several shots between wind and water. He had had three men wounded, and his mate had had his head carried off by a cannon ball. The smaller vessels had lost no men, but had a few wounded. The Spanish admiral, they found, had carried 56 guns, the vice-admiral 40, the patache 28, and the conserve 18. The fire-ships had also been mounted with cannon to conceal their real purpose. On considering the disparity of force, and the little loss his companions received, Ravenau seems to have no doubt that if they could have intercepted the Spaniards before they entered Panama, and could have got the weather-gauge of them, he should have returned through the straits with wealth enough to have lived all his life at ease, and have escaped three more years of danger and fatigue.

Not the least discouraged by this repulse, the freebooters landed 300 men, from five canoes, to surprise the town of Puebla Nueva. Rowing two leagues up a very fine river, they captured one sentinel, but another escaped and gave the alarm. They found the place deserted, but took a ship on their way back.

A quarrel broke out here between the French and the English. The latter, superior in numbers, would have taken Grogniet's ship away, and given it to Townley, had not the Frenchmen put on a determined front. Refusing to acknowledge this assumption of dominion, 130 of them banded themselves apart, and Grogniet's crew made them altogether 330 in number.

"Besides national animosity, one of the chief reasons," says Lussan, "that made us disagree was their impiety against our religion, for they made no scruple when they got into a church to cut down the arms of a crucifix with their sabres, or to shoot them down with their fusils and pistols, bruising and maiming the images of the saints with the same weapons, in derision to the adoration we Frenchmen paid unto them. And it was chiefly from these horrid disorders that the Spaniards equally hated us all, as we came to understand by divers of their letters that fell into our hands." We have no doubt at all that, but for these "horrible disorders," the Spaniards would have considered the death of their children and the loss of their money as real compliments.

Returning to the isle of St. John, both nations in separate encampments began to cut down acajou trees to hollow into canoes in place of those they had lost in the fight.

These trees were so large that one trunk would hold eighty men. Afraid of the English, the Frenchmen placed a sentinel in a high tree on the sea-shore, to watch both the camps, and also to give the signal if any Spanish vessel approached. A Buccaneer ship putting into the harbour, they discovered it to be commanded by Captain Willnett. Forty of his crew left him, and joined the English, but eleven Frenchmen remained with Grogniet. This vessel had just captured a corn ship near Sansonnat, and hearing of other brothers being on the south coast, had set out in search of them. The Frenchmen were now very short of food, having little powder, and not daring to waste it upon deer and monkeys when Spaniards were at hand, for in fifteen days the Englishmen had eaten or driven away all the turtle. They were reduced to an allowance of two turtle for 330 men in forty-eight hours. Many of the men wandering into the woods ate poisonous fruits. Others were bitten by serpents, and died enduring terrible pains, ignorant of the fruit which is an antidote to such wounds. Several were devoured by crocodiles.

While in this strait, the English sent a quartermaster to ask the French to join in an expedition against the town of Leon, being too weak by themselves. The wounded vanity of the French contended with their hunger. They knew that the English had plenty of provisions, brought in Willnett's ship, and thirty men, weary of fasting, left Grogniet and joined Davis. But Ravenau's party having but one ship asked for another, in order that they might keep together, and this being refused, broke off the treaty.

As soon as the Leon party had embarked, the French, commanded by Captain Grogniet, also started with 120 men in five canoes, leaving 200 in the island to build more canoes, and join them on the continent. Coming on the mainland to a cattle station, and afterwards to a sugar plantation, they took several prisoners whom they found ignorant of the disjunction of the French and English. Sending back a canoe with provisions to the island, they landed again about forty leagues to leeward of Panama, and at cock-crowing surprised a Spanish estantia, and took fifty prisoners, including a young man and woman of rank who promised ransom. These they carried to the island Ignuana, and received the money after a fortnight's delay.

On their return to St. John's they found that 100 men had been to Puebla Nueva, and taken the place, although discovered by the sentinels, and had remained there two days in spite of continual attacks. The commander of the place had come with a trumpet to speak to them, and inquired why, being English, they fought under French colours. But they, not satisfying his curiosity, fiercely told him to be gone from whence he came. Eight of them, having strayed from the main body, had been bravely set on by 150 Spaniards, who killed two of them, but, with all the advantage they had of numbers, could not hinder the other six from recovering the main guard, who fought and retreated with extraordinary vigour.

Once more reunited, these restless Norsemen started to the mainland in six canoes, 140 in number, to visit the sugar plantation near St. Jago, where they had been before. Two men were sent to the cattle station to obtain the ransom of the master, whom they kept prisoner, and others visited the sugar works in search of some cauldrons, which they needed; and, fired at hearing the governor of St. Jago, with 800 men, had visited the place since their departure, they sent to dare him to meet them.

Careening their ships and taking in water and wood, they would at once have sailed away, but were detained by eighteen days' rain, during which time the sun did not once appear. This part of the South Sea was proverbial for continual rains, and was called by the Spaniards "The Droppings." "These rains," Ravenau says, "not only rotted their sails, but produced dysentery among the men, and bred worms, half a finger long and as thick as a quill, between their skin and their flesh." Soon after leaving the island they were nearly cast away in a dreadful storm, and were compelled to repair their shattered sails with shirts and drawers, wherewith they were already very indifferently provided.

At Realegua, where there was a volcano burning, they landed 100 men in four canoes, and obtained some prisoners by surprising a hatto. They found the English had already taken Leon and burnt Realegua. In spite of Spanish reinforcements from eight neighbouring towns, they stayed at Leon three whole days, and challenged the Spaniards to meet them in the Race savannah. But the Spaniards replied, they were not yet all come together; "which means," says our friend Ravenau, "that they were not yet six to one." While here, one of their quartermasters, a Catalonian by birth, fled to the Spaniards, and compelled the French to abandon a design on the town of Granada. At Realegua six men tried to swim ashore to fill some water casks, in spite of the Spaniards on the beach, and one of them was drowned in the attempt. They landed at the port, and found the churches and houses and three entrenchments half burnt. Surprising the sentinels of Leon, they discovered that in spite of a garrison of 2000 men, the inhabitants, hearing the Buccaneers had landed, were hiding their treasure. They soon after put to flight a detachment of horse, and took the captain prisoner.

A few days after this 150 men left the vessels to take a small town of Puebla Vieja, near Realegua, which they found still deserted. It had become the custom now among the Spaniards, when the freebooters had frequently taken the same place, for the prelate to excommunicate it, and henceforward not even to bury their dead there. Discovered by the sentinel, the Buccaneers found the enemy entrenched in the church of Puebla, and about 150 horse in the market-place. A few discharges drove the horsemen away, and the defenders of the church fled through a door in the vestry. Staying a day and a-half in the captured town, the freebooters carried away all the provisions they could find on horses and on their own backs, taking with them a Spanish gentleman who promised ransom. The next day a Spanish officer brought a letter signed by the vicar-general of the province, written by order of the general of Costa Rica, declaring that France and Spain were at peace and leagued to fight the infidel, and offering them a passage to the North Sea in his Catholic Majesty's galleons. To this they returned a threatening answer, and, putting thirty prisoners ashore, proceeded to careen their ships, the Spaniards lighting fires along the coast as they departed.

An expedition, with fifty men in three canoes, against the town of Esparso failed, but the hungry men killed and ate the horses of the sentinels whom they took prisoners, for they had now tasted hardly anything for four days. At Caldaria they visited a bananery, and loaded their canoes with the fruit, and at Point Borica stored their boats with cocoa-nuts, which Ravenau takes care to describe as nuts unknown in Europe. Laden with gold, but nevertheless, like Midas, starving for want of food, they landed sixty men in three canoes and took some prisoners at a hatto which they surrounded, but finding they were very near Chiriquita, and a garrison of 600 men, retreated to their ships, forcing their way through 400 horse who reviled them, and challenged them to revisit the town, which they took care soon after to do.

On the 5th of January, 1686, they started 230 men in eight canoes to revisit this place, going ashore at night without a guide, and marched till daylight without being discovered. On the 7th they hid all day in a wood, and as night approached again pushed forward, the 8th they spent also hid in a covert, and then found they had gone ashore on the wrong side of the river. Fatigued as they were, they waited till night, and then, returning to their canoes, crossed the river. Surprising the watch, they found the Spaniards, even on the former alarm, had removed all their treasure. On the 9th, they reached Chiriquita two hours before day, and found the inhabitants asleep. The townsmen had been two days disputing with one another about the watches, and the Buccaneers ridiculed them by telling them they had come to spare them the trouble. The soldiers they discovered playing in the court of guard, and they found a small frigate ashore at the mouth of the river.

About noon, five of the Buccaneers, straggling into the suburbs to plunder a house and obtain prisoners, were set upon by an ambuscade of 120 men. Finding no hope of escape, rather than be taken alive they resolved to sell their lives dearly, and back to back fought the enemy for an hour and a-half, when only two remained capable of resistance. The main body, who thought they had been simply firing at a mark, came to their relief, upon which the enemy at once fled. Of this skirmish, at which Lussan was present, he says--"This succour coming in so seasonably, did infallibly save our lives; for the enemy having already killed us two men and disabled another, it was impossible we should hold out against such a shower of bullets as were poured in upon us from all sides; and so I may truly say I escaped a scouring, and that without receiving as much as one wound, but by a visible hand of protection from heaven. The Spaniards left thirty men dead upon the spot; and thus we defended ourselves as desperate men, and, to say all in a word, like freebooters."

The Buccaneers having burnt all the houses in the town, fearing a night attack, retreated into the great church, exchanging a shot now and then with the enemy. This town was built on the savannahs, and surrounded by hattoes, its chief trade being in tallow and leather. The men rested here till the tenth, rejoicing in plenty of provision after nearly four days' fast. They then removed their prisoners to an island in the river, where the Spaniards could only approach them openly in a fleet of shallops. The enemy, driven out of an ambuscade, sent to demand the prisoners, saying they would recover them or perish in the attempt; but grew pacified when Grogniet declared they should all be put to death if a single bullet was fired. Driving off a guard of 100 men, they also plundered the stranded vessel, and discovered by the letters that the admiral of the Peru fleet had lately been lost with his 400 men, by his vessel being struck by a thunderbolt. On the sixteenth, obtaining a ransom for their prisoners, they returned to the island of St. John.

The Spaniards, from fear of the freebooters, having put a stop to their navigation, no ships were to be captured, and having no sails, and their ship being useless without them, the French began to cut down trees and build piraguas. On the 27th they descried seven sail at sea, and put out five canoes to reconnoitre, suspecting it was the vanguard of the Peruvian fleet. Soon after discerning twelve piraguas and three long barks coasting in the distance, they retreated to their docks in the river, and ran their bark ashore to render it useless to the Spaniards, placing an ambuscade of 150 men along the banks. The enemy, suspecting a trick, disregarded the two canoes that were sent to draw them into the snare, but commenced to furiously cannonade the grounded ship, which contained nothing but a poor cat, and then, perceiving her empty, bravely boarded and burnt her for the sake of the iron work, and soon afterwards sailed away. They learnt afterwards that the Chiriquita prisoners had reported that they had fortified the island, and the fleet had been sent to land field-pieces and demolish the works. This alarm of the Spaniards had been encouraged by the Buccaneers having purposely asked at Chiriquita for masons, and obliged the prisoners to give bricks as part of the ransom.

On the 14th of March, they left the island of St. John, in two barks, a half galley of forty oars, ten large piraguas, and ten smaller canoes, built of mapou wood. Taking a review of their men, fourteen of whom had died in February, they found they had lost thirty since the departure of the English. To prepare for a long-planned attack on Granada, a half galley and four canoes were despatched to get provisions at Puebla Nueva. Entering the river by moonlight, the Buccaneers approached within pistol shot of a small frigate, a long bark, and a piragua, which they supposed to be their old English allies, but were received by a splashing volley of great and small shot that killed twenty men. The ships were, in fact, a detachment of the Spanish fleet left to guard some provision ships lading for Panama. Quickly recovering from their surprise, the adventurers, though without cannon, fought them stiffly for two hours, killing every man that appeared in the shrouds, and bringing down one by one the grenadiers from the main-top. But as soon as the moon went down, the Buccaneers sheered off with four dead men and thirty-three wounded, waiting for daylight to have their revenge. In the mean time, the enemy had retired under cover of an entrenchment, to which the country people, attracted during the night by the firing, had crowded in arms; against these odds, the Buccaneers were unwillingly compelled to retire, and soon rejoined their canoes at St. Peter's.

Landing at a town ten leagues leeward of Chiriquita, they obtained no provisions, and had, with the loss of two men, to force their way through an ambuscade of 500 Spaniards. Rejoining their barks they spent some days in hunting in the Bay of Boca del Toro, and obtaining nourishing food for the wounded men. Their next enterprise was against the town of Lesparso, which they found abandoned. While lying in the bay they were joined by Captain Townley and five canoes, who, with his 115 men, begged to be allowed to join in the expedition against Granada. Remembering the old imperious dealing of the English, the French at first, to frighten them, boarded their canoes, and offered to take them away. "Then," says Lussan, "we let the captain know we were _honester_ men than he (a curious dispute), and that though we had the upper hand, yet we would not take the advantage of revenging the injuries they had done us, and that we would put him and all his men in possession of what we had taken from them four or five hours before." The men were then assembled in a bananery island, in the bay, and an account taken of their supply of powder, for fear any should expend it in hunting. Orders were also enacted that any brother found guilty of cowardice, violence, drunkenness, disobedience, theft, or straggling from the main body, should lose his share of the booty of Granada.

On the 25th the French and English departed in piraguas and canoes, 345 men, and landed on a flat shore, following a good guide, who led them for two days through a wood. They were, however, seen by some fishermen, who alarmed the town, which had already received intelligence of their march from Lesparso. Great fatigue obliged them to rest on the evening of the 9th at a sugar plantation belonging to a knight of St. James, whom they were too tired to pursue.

On the 10th they saw two ships on the distant lake of Nicaragua, carrying off all the wealth of the town to a neighbouring island. From a prisoner they learnt that the inhabitants were strongly entrenched in the market-place, guarded by fourteen pieces of cannon and six patereroes, and that six troops of horse were waiting to attack them in the rear.

This information, which would have damped the courage of any but Buccaneers, drove them only the faster to the charge. At two in the afternoon they entered the town, over the dead bodies of a party that had awaited them in ambuscade, and sent a party to reconnoitre the fort. The skirmishers, after a few shots, returned, and reported that there were three streets leading to the fort, so they all resolved to concentrate in one of these.

Lussan describes the scene, of which he was an eye-witness, too graphically to need curtailing. "After we had exhorted one another," he says, "to fall on bravely, we advanced at a good round pace towards the said fortification. As soon as the defendants saw us within a good cannon-shot of them, they fired furiously upon us; but observing that at every discharge of their great guns, we saluted them down to the ground, in order to let their shot fly over us, they bethought themselves of false priming them, to the end we might raise our bodies, after the sham was over, and so to be really surprised with their true firing. As soon as we discovered this stratagem, we ranged ourselves along the houses, and having got upon a little ascent, which was a garden plot, we fired upon them from thence so openly for an hour and a-half that they were obliged to quit their ground, which our hardy boys, who were got to the foot of their walls, contributed yet more than the other by pouring in hand-grenades incessantly upon them, so that at last they betook themselves to the great church or tower, but they wounded us some men. As soon as our people, who had got upon the said eminence, perceived that the enemy fled, they called to us to jump over the walls, which we had no sooner done than they followed us, and thus it was that we made ourselves masters of the town, from whence they fled, after having lost a great many men. We had on our side but four men killed and eight wounded, which in truth was very cheap. When we got into the fort we found it to be a place capable of containing 6,000 fighting men; it was encompassed with a wall the same as our prisoners gave us an account of. It was pierced with many holes, to do execution upon the assailants, and was well stored with arms. That part of it which looked towards the street, through which we attacked it, was defended by two pieces of cannon and four patereroes, to say nothing of several other places made to open in the wall through which they thrust instruments made on purpose to break the legs of those who should be adventurous enough to come near it; but these, by the help of our grenadiers, we rendered useless to them. After we had sung _Te Deum_ in the great church, and set four sentinels in the tower, we fixed our court of guard in the strong-built houses that are also enclosed within the place of arms, and there gathered all the ammunition we could get, and then we went to visit the houses, wherein we found nothing but a few goods and some provision, which we carried into our court of guard."

The next evening 150 men were despatched to a distant sugar plantation, to capture some ladies of rank and treasure; but on the next day a monk came to treat about the ransom they would require to spare the town. Unluckily the Spaniards had captured a Buccaneer straggler, who told them that his companions never meant to burn the place, but intended to stop there some months, and return into the North Sea, by the lake of Nicaragua. The freebooters, being refused the ransom, set fire to the houses in revenge. Had the French indeed had but canoes to capture the two ships in the island and secure the treasure, they would undoubtedly have carried out this plan. To a handful of hungry men, without food and without ships, even the gardens of Granada appeared hateful.

On leaving the town the Buccaneers took with them one piece of cannon and four patereroes, drawn by oxen, having to fight their way for twenty leagues to the shore over the savannah, surrounded by 2,500 Spaniards thirsting for their blood. In every place the enemy fled at the first discharge of their pieces. From a prisoner they learnt that a million and a-half pieces of eight, kept for ransom, was buried in the wall of the fort, but the men felt no disposition to return. They were soon obliged to leave their cannon behind, the oxen choked with the dust, worn out with the heat, and dying of thirst; but the patereroes were still dragged on by the mules. At the little village of Massaya, near the lake, they were received with open arms by the Indians, who only entreated them not to burn their huts.

All the water in the village had been tainted by the Spaniards, but the natives brought them as much as they needed. While they lay here a Spanish monk came to them to obtain the release of a priest who had been taken armed and with pockets filled with poisoned bullets. They refused to surrender him but in exchange for one of their own men. The next day, passing from the forest into a plain, they were attacked by 500 men, drawn up upon an ascent, and commanded by their Spanish deserter. Each party displayed bloody flags, but the vanguard beat them with wonderful bravery, and took fifty horses. The enemy fled, leaving their arms and the wounded, and turned out to be auxiliaries from Leon. In three days more they reached the beach, and, resting several days to salt provisions, sailed to Realegua, where they collected provisions and 100 horses. They then burnt down the borough of Ginandego, in spite of 200 soldiers and an entrenchment, because the inhabitants had defied them to come. Even here they were, however, much straitened for provision, the corregidor of Leon having desired all men to burn the provisions wherever the Buccaneers landed.

The same day at noon the sentinels rang the alarm bell in the steeple, and gave notice that 800 men from Leon were advancing across the savannah to fight them. The men, bustling out of their houses, marched at once, 150 in number, under their red colours, and drove off the enemy after a few shots.

There now arose a dissension in the Flibustier councils. 148 Frenchmen and all the English, headed by Captain Townley, determined to go up before Panama to see if the navigation had yet been resumed. 148 Frenchmen, under Captain Grogniet, resolved to go lower westward and winter upon an island, waiting for some abatement of the rains and southerly winds. The barks, canoes, and provisions were then divided, and the chirurgeons brought in the accounts of the wounded and crippled. There were found to be four men crippled and six hurt: to the latter were given 600 pieces of eight a man, and to the former 1000, being exactly all the money then in store.

Ravenau joined the Panama division, which, touching again at their old quarters on the island of St. John, took off a prisoner who had made his escape when they were last there, and proceeded to land and capture the town of Villia with 160 men. Marching with great rapidity they reached the town an hour after sunrise, and surprising the inhabitants at mass, took 300 prisoners. They then attempted to capture three barks lying in the river, but the Spanish sailors sank one and destroyed the rigging of the other two. Gathering together all the merchandise of the town left by the fleet, the invaders found it to amount to a million and a-half, valued at 15,000 pieces of eight in good silver. Much treasure was, however, buried, the Spaniards submitting to death rather than confess their hiding-places.

The next day a party of fourscore men were sent to drive the pack horses to the river side to load the booty in two Spanish canoes. They despaired of obtaining any ransom for the town, as the alcalde major had sent to them to say that the only ransom he should give was powder and ball, whereof he had a great deal at their service; that as to the prisoners, he should entrust them to the hands of God, and that his people were getting ready as fast as they could, to have the honour of seeing them. Upon receiving this daring answer, the Buccaneers, in a rage, fired the town and marched to the river. As the Spanish ambuscades prevented the boats coming up to meet them, the adventurers put nine men on board the boats, the men marching by their side to guard them from attack. On the other side, unknown to them and hidden by the trees, marched 900 Spaniards. When they had proceeded about a league, an impassable thicket compelled them to make a diversion of some 200 paces, an accident which involved the loss of the whole plunder of Villia.

Before they left the boats, the captain ordered the crews to stop a little higher up, where the three Spanish barks lay, and endeavour to bring them away. On arriving there they were surprised by an ambuscade, and as they defended themselves against the Spaniards, the current drove them on beyond the three barks and far from the main body. Seeing them now helpless, the enemy discharged sixty musket shots at them, and killed four men and wounded one. The rest, abandoning the canoes, swam to the other side of the river, while a dozen Indians wading in brought the boat to the Spaniards; cutting off the head of a wounded man and setting it on a pole by the shore.

The Buccaneers who did not hear the firing, were astonished on returning to the river to see no canoes, and while waiting for them to come up, for they supposed they were behind, the rowers, who had escaped, broke breathless through the thicket, and told their story. Luckily in their flight through the wood they had discovered the rudders and sails of the three barks, in which the Buccaneers at once embarked, and sent fifty-six men on shore to recover the fittings, agreeing that each should fire three guns as a signal. Soon after they had landed, the report of about 500 guns was heard, but before they could reach the enemy the Spaniards had fled. Going ashore the next day, they found the two canoes dashed to pieces, and the bodies of the dead much mutilated--the head of one set upon a pole, and the body of another burnt in the fire. These objects so enraged the Buccaneers, that they instantly cut off four of their prisoners' heads, and set them on poles in the same place. Their own dead they carried with them to bury by the sea-side--the fitting burial-place for seamen. Three times they had to land to break through ambuscades at the river's mouth, in the last attack losing three men. With a Spaniard who came on board, they agreed for a ransom of 10,000 pieces of eight, but threatened to kill all the prisoners if the money was not brought in within two days. Upon the stubborn alcalde seizing the hostages who were sent ashore to obtain money to release their wives, the Buccaneers cut off the heads of two prisoners and sent them to the town, declaring that if no ransom was paid, they would serve the rest the same, and having put the women on an island, would come and capture the alcalde. The same evening came in a promise to pay all the ransoms, and to bring besides, every day while they stayed, ten oxen, twenty sheep, and 200 lbs. of meal. For a Buccaneer's fire-arms which the enemy pretended to have lost (for the Spaniards were fond of French arms), they paid 400 pieces of eight. They also bought one of the captured barks for 600 pieces of eight and 100 lbs. of nails, of which the adventurers stood in great need, but her tackle and anchors were not surrendered. They obtained also a Flibustier passport that the bark should not be retaken, although her cargo might be confiscated. Having then obtained a parting present of 100 salted beeves, from this long-suffering place the French set sail. Afraid to land on the continent, which was guarded by 4,000 men, they abstained, till, nearly dying with thirst, they made a descent with 200 sailors, driving off the Spaniards, whom they found lying on the grass about 100 paces from the sea.

Lussan says they saw "we were a people who would hazard all for a small matter."

Landing at midnight at a small island near Cape Pin, they were discovered by the pearl divers, but still contrived to capture a ship at daybreak. From their prisoners they heard that the Spaniards had lately defeated a party of thirty-six, French and English, from Peru, who were attempting to pass into the North Sea by the river Bocca del Chica. Two parties of English, forty each, on their way into the South Sea, had also been massacred all but four, who were prisoners at Panama. To balance these ill omens, tidings of prizes reached the Buccaneers on every hand. A bark was lying in the Bocca del Chica river, waiting for 800 lbs. of gold from the mines to bring to Panama. Two ships laden with meal and money for the garrison of Lima were also expected; and from a prisoner (a spy, it afterwards appeared), captured at the King's Islands, they learnt that two merchant barks and a piragua with sixty Indians lay in the river of Seppa, besides a frigate and scout galley under the guns of Panama.

Much in want of vessels, and not suspecting the prisoner, four canoes were sent at once to cut out the barks of Panama, the "Greek" soldier going with them readily as a guide. They arrived two hours before daylight, and the moon shining very bright they waited for a cloud to obscure it, seeing, as they thought, the anticipated prize lying near with her sails loose. By mere chance, the adventurers, to waste no time, pursued a vessel just leaving the port, thinking it was the scout galley, and took it without a shot. Upon examination, the captain confessed their guide was the commander of a Greek piragua, and had been promised a large reward by the governor of Panama to betray them into his hands. The ship they saw was a mere sham of boards and sails, built upon firm land, only a pistol shot from the port. They supposed that the Buccaneers, eager to take her, would row up, and so drive their canoes far on shore, and hoped to overpower them before they got off. The Greek captain being at once identified as a spy, was, says Ringrose, "sent to that world where he had designed to send us." The fleet then proceeded to take the islands of Ottoqua and Tavoga, losing two men in the Greek's second ambuscade at Seppa, but capturing in their way a bark from Nata laden with provisions, after a few discharges of musketry, the Spanish captain swimming to shore. From Tavoga they sent a message to the governor of Panama, to say that if he did not at once surrender his five English and French captives, they would at once put to death fifty Spanish prisoners.

They then anchored again at the King's Islands, and sent a galley and four canoes up the Bocca Chica river to see if the Indians were at peace with Spain or not, and to destroy an ambuscade of 100 Spaniards, who they heard were lying in wait on the banks for thirty freebooters, on their way from the South to the North Pacific. Carried swiftly up the river by the current, the guide, compelling them to row faster just before daybreak, brought them, much to their astonishment, at a bend of the river, opposite the camp fires of the enemy. The guide being hailed, replied they were from Panama; and being asked the name of the commander, hesitated about a fitting title, and received a volley in return. The Buccaneers driving off the enemy with two patereroes, passed them quickly, and, anchoring out of reach, waited for the ebb tide to return. Putting all their men under deck, the adventurers returned about an hour before daylight, saluting them with four paterero shots as they passed, and receiving no injury in return. The next day, taking a small Indian vessel, the Buccaneers landed lower down the river, intending to take the Spanish entrenchment in the rear; but seeing the enemy putting out a piragua to attack their galley, they returned in great haste and landed opposite the Spanish court of guard, killing a great many men and driving out the rest. They also shot an Indian, who, mistaking them for Spaniards, followed them and reviled them as they were re-embarking. The prisoners told them that the neighbouring town of Terrible was prepared for their coming. A letter to the camp-master of Terrible was found in the entrenchment. It concluded thus: "I have sent you 300 men to defeat these enemies of God and goodness; be sure to keep upon your watch; be afraid of being surprised, and your men will infallibly be gainers in defeating of them." The prisoners also put them on their guard as to many ambuscades and secret dangers. Having burnt the guard-house, and carried off the piragua with some pounds of gold-dust, the Buccaneers departed, dismissing the Indians to propitiate the nation who had received commission from the President of Panama to arm canoes against them. While descending the river, having put some Spanish prisoners on deck to deceive the Indians, some natives came and brought gold-dust to them, taking them for friends. A few days after this, forty Spanish prisoners put ashore at the King's Islands, met accidentally with some canoes, and escaped to Panama.

The French were now again surprised as they had been before, three of the enemy's vessels approaching under cover of an island. By venturing a dangerous passage between the island of Tavaguilla and a rock the Buccaneers at last obtained the weather-gauge. The fight lasted till noon, and the Spaniards were driven off in all attempts at boarding. Throwing grenades into the biggest ship, one of them set fire to some loose powder and burnt a great many men; and during this confusion, the adventurers boarded the enemy, who rallied in the stern, and made a vigorous resistance, but at last begged for quarter. The second was also at the same time carried and taken. The third, a kind of galley, pursued by three Buccaneer vessels, ran ashore and staved to pieces, few of the crew escaping, not more than a dozen, Ringrose thinks. In the frigate eighty men were killed and wounded out of 120 on board. The second ship had only eighteen unhurt out of eighty. All the officers were killed and wounded, and the captain received no less than five musket shots. He was the soldier that had received five wounds resisting them at Puebla Nueva, and he had also planned the ambuscade at Villia.

While busily employed in splicing the rigging and throwing the dead overboard, two more sail were seen bearing down from Panama. The English instantly put up Spanish colours to allure them, and placed the French and English beneath them. As the foe drew near, they received a volley, and, firing hurriedly, at once fled to the frigate which they supposed still theirs. The frigate replied by some grenades, which sent one to the bottom, and the piragua boarded the other, and, finding four packs of halters on board, put all the crew to death in revenge. They had been directed to spare none but the Buccaneer surgeons, and to send troops of horse to cut off all that escaped in canoes. On the very next day they took a shallop from Panama which the president had sent to pull up an anchor that the adventurers had left in the bay. Only one Buccaneer was killed in the fight, but Captain Townley and twenty men were wounded, and most of these died, for the Spaniards poisoned their bullets. They now sent a prisoner to the president, demanding his five captives and medicines for the use of his own people. The messenger was also told to complain heavily of the massacre of the three parties at Darien.

To these remonstrances the officer sent the following answer: "Gentlemen, I wonder that you, who should understand how to make war, should require those men of me that are in our custody. Your rashness hath something contrary to the civility wherewith you ought to treat those people that were in your power. If you do not use them well, God will perhaps be on our side." To this they returned a threat of beheading all their prisoners without mercy; and having done this, sailed at once to the isles of Pericòs, fearing the Spanish fire-ships. The Bishop of Panama, who, they knew, had stirred up the president to war, sent a letter, entreating them to show mercy, saying the president had the king's orders to restore no prisoners, and that the Englishmen, having turned Roman Catholics, did not wish to leave Panama.

Upon this the Buccaneers sent the president twenty Spaniards' heads in a canoe, threatening to kill all the rest, if the prisoners were not restored by the next day. Very early the next morning came the prisoners, four Englishmen and one Frenchman, with medicines for the wounded, the president leaving to their honour to give as many men as they chose in exchange. They at once sent a dozen of the most wounded on shore, accusing the president of being the murderer of the twenty they had killed, and threatening the death of the rest, unless 20,000 pieces of eight were paid for their ransom. The Spaniards at first tried to make it only 6000; but when the Buccaneers hung out their main flag, fired a gun, and prepared to enter the port, they hung out a white flag at a bastion, and promised the money shortly. The next day a Knight of Malta came in a bark with the money, and received the prisoners. While staying at Ottoqua to victual their ships, the Spaniards landed at night and murdered their Indian guides. The day after the French chased a provision vessel to the very guns of Panama, when the garrison hoisted the Burgundian flag on the bastion, and by mistake fired upon their own vessel, which the Buccaneers took. Putting nineteen prisoners on shore, they again attempted to surprise Villia, but failed, finding all the people in arms, and a reinforcement of 600 men newly come from Panama. They next took the town of St. Lorenzo, and surprising it at twilight, burnt it. They learned the Spaniards had orders to drive away the cattle from the sea-shore, to lay ambuscades, and to obtain from women intelligence of the Buccaneers' movements. A dreadful storm which overtook the fleet in the Bay of Bocca del Toro induced Lussan, with a naïve philanthropy, to tell his readers: "If you would enter into it with safety, you must keep the whip of your rudder to starboard, because it is dangerous to keep to the east side." While here the same writer gives us the following trait of Flibustier manners:--"On the 25th, being Christmas-day, after we had, according to custom, said our prayers in the night, one of our quartermasters being gone ashore in order to take care about our eating some victuals (for our ships being careening all our provisions were then put out), one of our prisoners, who served us as cook, stabbed him with a knife in six several places, wherewith crying out, he was presently relieved, and the assassin punished with death."

On the 1st of January, 1687, leaving their ships in the bay of Caldaira, the Buccaneers embarked 200 men in canoes and crossed to the island of La Cagna.

Their treacherous guide, under the pretence of hiding them in a covert, led them into a marsh, where the mud, in the soundest places, rose above their middles; five men sinking up to their chins were dragged out with ropes tied to the mangrove branches. The men, anxious for escape, lifted up their guide to the top of a tree, to discover by the moonlight where sound land commenced. But he, once at liberty, skipped like a monkey from tree to tree, railing at them and deriding their helplessness. They spent the whole night in marching a hundred paces round this marsh, and groped out at daybreak, bedaubed from head to toe, with their fire-arms loaded with mud. "When we were in a condition," says Lussan, "to reflect a little upon ourselves, and that we saw 200 men in the same habit, all so curiously equipped, there was not one of us who forgot not his toil to laugh at the posture he found both himself and the rest in. Inveighing against their guide, they returned to their canoes, and proceeded two leagues up a river to an entrenchment, where they found the remains of two vessels the Spaniards had some time before burnt, at the approach of Betsharp, an English freebooter. Guided by the barking of dogs, they surprised the borough of Santa Catalina, and, mounting sixty men on horses, entered Nicoya and drove out the enemy, carrying off the governor's plate and movables. They found here some letters from the President of Panama, describing the doings of "these new Turks," how they had landed at places where the sea was so high that no sentinels had been placed, and passed through the woods like wild beasts. The letters stated how much the Spaniards had been astonished by the Buccaneer mode of attack--"briskly falling on, singing, dancing, as if they had been going to a feast;" they were described also as "those enemies of God and His saints who profane His churches and destroy His servants." In one battle, it says, being blocked up, "they became as mad dogs. Whenever these irreligious men set their feet on land they always win the victory."

Landing at Caldaira the sentinels set fire to the savannahs, through which they marched to Lesparso, and towards Carthage, but retired, hearing of 400 men and an entrenchment. Hiding five men in the grass, they captured a Spanish trooper, who had reviled them, and putting him to the rack, laughing at his grimaces of pain, heard that Grogniet was in the neighbourhood, and soon after they heard cannons fired off, and were joined by him in three canoes.

He now told them his adventures at Napalla. Three sailors, corrupted by the Spaniards, who had taken them prisoners, persuaded him on his return to visit a gold mine, fourteen leagues from the sea-shore. They luckily got there before the ambuscade, and took some prisoners and a few pounds of gold, but 450 lbs. weight had been removed an hour before. At their return they found the traitors and prisoners all escaped. He then landed at Puebla Vieja and attacked an ambuscade and entrenchment of 300 men. Half of these fled, half were made prisoners, and their three colours taken, the freebooters losing only three men. Eighty-five of his men then determined to visit California, and he and his sixty men to return to Panama. Grogniet now consented to join in the French expedition, and, after taking Queaquilla, to force a way to the North Sea. They landed and burnt Nicoya a third time, and Lussan treats us here with an amusing piece of Buccaneer superstition. He says, "though we were _forced_ to chastise the Spaniards in this manner, we showed ourselves very exact in the preservation of the churches, into which we carried the pictures and images of the saints which we found in particular houses, that they might not be exposed to the rage and burning of the English, who were not much pleased with these sorts of precautions; they being men that took more satisfaction and pleasure to see one church burnt than all the houses of America put together. But as it was our turn now to be the stronger party, they durst do nothing that derogated from that respect we bore to all those things." On their return the French had to force their way through burning savannahs, but got safe to their ships, putting next day forty prisoners on shore who were too chargeable to keep.

A new division now arose between the English and French, and the former insisting on the first prize taken, the two parties again separated, Grogniet staying with the former: making in all 142 men, Ravenau's party being 162, in a frigate and long bark. Both vessels now tried to outsail each other and reach Queaquilla first, but the French, soon finding the English beat them in speed, resolved to accompany them, for they had so little food as to be obliged to eat only once in every forty-eight hours, and but for rain water would have died of thirst. Off Santa Helena, they gave chase to a ship, and found it to be a prize laden with wine and corn, lately taken by Captain David's men, for they had been making descents along the coast, at Pisca had beaten off 800 men from Lima, and had also taken a great many ships, which they pillaged and let go. Having got to the value of 5000 pieces of eight a man, they sailed for Magellan, and on the way many of the men lost all they had by gaming. Those who had won joined Willnett, and returned to the North Sea; but the losers, sixty English and twenty French, joined David, and determined to remain and get more spoil in the South. Henry and Samms had gone to the East Indies. The eight men of David's crew who commanded the prize joined them against Queaquilla. Furling their sails to prevent being seen, they anchored off the White Cape, and at ten in the morning embarked 260 men in their canoes. On the 15th they reached, at sunset, the rocky island of Santa Clara, and on the 16th rested all day, weak from long fasting, in the island of La Puna, escaping any detection from the forty sentinels. The 17th they spent on the same island, and arranged the attack. Captain Picard and fifty men led the forlorn hope, another captain and eighty grenadiers formed a reserve. Captain Grogniet and the main body were to make themselves masters of the town and port, and the English captain, George Hewit, with fifty men, were to attack the smaller fort; while 1000 pieces of eight were promised to the first ensign who should plant the colours on the great fort. They left their covert in the evening, and hoped to reach the town by dawn, but only having three hours of favourable tide, had to remain all day at the island, and at night rowing out, were overtaken after all by the light, when a sentinel seeing them, set a cottage on fire and alarmed his companions. Marching across a wood to the fire, they killed two of the Spaniards and captured a boy. Remaining in covert all day, they thought themselves undiscovered, because the town had not answered the fire signal, and at night they rowed up the river, the rapid current carrying them four leagues in two hours. All the 19th they spent under cover of an island in the river, and at night went up with the current, not rowing for fear of alarming the sentinels. They attempted in vain to put in beyond the town, on the side least guarded, but the tide going out forced them to land two hours before day, within cannon shot of the town, where they could discern the lights burning, for the Spaniards burnt lamps all night. They landed in a marshy place, and had to cut a path through the bushes with their sabres. They soon met with a sentinel, and were discovered by one of the men left to guard the canoes striking a light, against orders, to light his pipe. The sentinel, knowing that this was punishable by death among his countrymen, suspected enemies and discharged a paterero, which the fort answered by a discharge of all their cannon. The Buccaneers, overtaken by a storm, entered a large house near to light the matches of their grenades and wait for day, the enemy firing incessantly in defiance. On the 20th, at daybreak, they marched out in order, with drums beating and colours, and found 700 men waiting for them behind a wall, four feet and a-half high, and a ditch. Killing many of the Buccaneers at the onset, the enemy ventured to sally out, sword in hand, and were at once put to flight. In spite of the bridge being broken down, the pursuers crossed the ditch, and, getting to the foot of the wall, threw in grenades, and drove the enemy to their houses. Driven also from this, they fled to a redoubt in the Place d'Armes, and from thence, after an hour's fighting, to a third fort, the largest of all. Here they defended themselves a long time, firing continually at their enemies, who could not see them for the smoke. From these palisadoes they again sallied, and wounded several Buccaneers and took one prisoner. They at last retreated with great loss.

The Flibustiers, weary with eleven hours' fighting, and finding their powder nearly spent, grew desperate; but, redoubling their efforts, with some loss made themselves masters of the place, having nine men killed and a dozen wounded. Parties were then sent out to pursue the fugitives, and a garrison having been put in the great fort, the Roman Catholic part of the band went to sing _Te Deum_ in the great church.

Basil Hall describes Guayaquil as having on the one side a great marsh, and on the other a great river, while the country, for nearly 100 miles, is a continued level swamp, thickly covered with trees. The river is broad and deep, but full of shoals and strange turnings, the woods growing close to the water's edge, stand close, dark, and still, like two vast black walls; while along the banks the land-breeze blows hot, and breathes death, decay, and putrefaction.

The town was walled, and the forts built on an eminence. The houses were built of boards and reared on piles, on account of the frequent inundations. The chief trade of the place was cocoa.

The Buccaneers took 700 prisoners, including the governor and his family. He himself was wounded, as were most of his officers, who fought better than all the 5,000 men of the place. The place was stored with merchandise, precious stones, silver plate, and 70,000 pieces of eight. Upwards of three millions more had been hidden while the fort was taking. As soon as the canoes had come up, they were sent in pursuit of the treasure, but it was too late. They captured, however, 22,000 pieces of eight, and a vermilion gilt eagle, weighing 66 lbs., that had served as the tabernacle for some church. It was of rare workmanship, and the eyes were formed of two great "rocks of emeralds." There were fourteen barks in the port--the galleys they had fought at Puebla Nueva, and two royal ships unfinished on the stocks. As a ransom for all these things, the governor promised a million pieces of eight in gold, and 400 sacks of corn, requiring the vicar-general to be released to go to Quito and procure it.

The women of the town, who were very pretty, had been assured by their confessors that the Buccaneers were monsters and cannibals, and had conceived a horror and aversion to them. "They could not be dispossessed thereof," says Lussan, "till they came to know us better. But then I can boldly say that they entertained quite different sentiments of our persons, and have given us frequent instances of so violent a passion as proceeded sometimes even to a degree of folly." As a proof of the calumnies circulated against the ruthless conquerors, Lussan tells us the following:--"It is not from a chance story," he continues, "that I came to know the impressions wrought in these women that we were men that would eat them; for the next day after the taking of the town, a young gentlewoman that waited upon the governor of the place, happened to fall into my hands. As I was carrying her away to the place where the rest of the prisoners were kept, and to that end made her walk before me, she turned back, and, with tears in her eyes, told me, in her own language--'Senor, pur l'amor di Dios ne mi como'--that is, 'Pray, sir, for the love of God, do not eat me;' whereupon I asked her who had told her that we were wont to eat people? She answered, 'The fathers,' who had also assured them that we had not human shape, but that we resembled monkeys."

On the 21st, part of the town was accidentally burnt down by some of the men lighting a fire in a house, and leaving it unextinguished when they returned at night to the court of guard. Afraid that it would reach the place where they had stored their powder and merchandise, the French removed all the plunder to their vessels, and carried the prisoners to the fort; but not till all this was done endeavouring to save the town, a third part of which was, by this time, destroyed. Afraid the Spaniards might now refuse to pay the ransom, they charged them with the offence, threatening to send some fifty prisoners' heads if they did not pay them what they had lost by the fire. The enemy, surprised at this, attributed the incendiarism to traitors, and promised satisfaction. The stench of the 900 dead carcases, still lying unburied up and down the town, now producing a pestilence, the Buccaneers dismounted and spiked the cannon, and carried off the 500 prisoners to their ships, anchoring at Puna. Captain Grogniet died of his wounds soon after this removal. The Spaniards obtaining four days' further respite, and then still further delaying the ransom, the adventurers made the prisoners throw dice for their lives, and cutting off the heads of four, sent them to Queaquilla, threatening further deaths. They were now joined by Captain David and a prize he had lately taken. He was planning a descent on Paita, to obtain refreshments for some men wounded in a fight with a Spanish ship, the Catalina, off Lima. They fought for two days, David's men, being drunk, constantly getting to leeward, and failing twenty times in an attempt to board. The Spaniards, gaining courage from these failures, hoisted the bloody flag; but the third day, David, getting sober, got his tackle and rigging in good order, got properly to windward, and bore down with determination. The enemy in terror ran ashore, and went to pieces in two hours. Two men were saved by a canoe, and said that their captain had had his thigh shot off by a cannon ball. David's ship, wanting refitting, was employed to cruise in the bay to prevent surprises from the Spaniards. By a letter taken from a courier, they found that the people of Queaquilla were only endeavouring to obtain time.

The Buccaneers spent thirty days on the island of La Puna, living on the luxurious food brought from Queaquilla, and employing the prisoners with lutes, theorbos, harps, and guitars, to delight them by perpetual concerts and serenades. Lussan says, "Some of our men grew very familiar with our women prisoners, who, without offering them any violence, were not sparing of their favours, and made appear, as I have already remarked, that after they came once to know us, they did not retain all the aversion for us that had been inculcated into them when we were strangers unto them. All our people were so charmed with this way of living that they forgot their past miseries, and thought no more of danger from the Spaniards than if they had been in the middle of Paris."

Ravenau also treats us with his own personal love adventure, which we insert as a curious illustration of the vicissitudes of a South Sea adventurer's life. "Amongst the rest," he says, "myself had one pretty adventure. Among the other prisoners we had a young gentlewoman, lately become a widow of the treasurer of the town, who was slain when it was taken. Now this woman appeared so far comforted for her loss, out of an hard-heartedness they have in this country one for another, that she proposed to hide me and herself in some corner of the island till our people were gone, and that then she would bring me to Queaquilla to marry her, that she would procure me her husband's office, and vest me in his estate, which was very great. When I had returned her thanks for such obliging offers, I gave her to understand that I was afraid her interest had not the mastery over the Spaniards' resentments; and that the wounds they had received from us were yet too fresh and green for them easily to forget them. She went about to cure me of my suspicion, by procuring secretly, from the governor and chief officers, promises under their hands how kindly I should be used by them. I confess I was not a little perplexed herewith, and such pressing testimonies of goodwill and friendship towards me brought me, after a little consultation with myself, into such a quandary, that I did not know which side to close with; nay, I felt myself, at length, much inclined to close with the offers made me, and I had two powerful reasons to induce me thereunto, one of which was the miserable and languishing life we lead in those places, where we were in perpetual hazard of losing it, which I should be freed from by an advantageous offer of a pretty woman and a considerable settlement: the other proceeded from the despair I was in of ever being able to return into my own country, for want of ships fit for that purpose. But when I began to reflect upon these things with a little more leisure and consideration, and that I resolved with myself how little trust was to be given to the promises and faith of so perfidious as well as vindictive a nation as the Spaniards, and more especially towards men in our circumstances, by whom they had been so ill-used, this second reflection carried it against the first, and even all the advantages offered me by this lady. But however the matter was, I was resolved, in spite of the grief and tears of this pretty woman, to prefer the continuance of my troubles (with a ray of hope of seeing France again), before the perpetual suspicion I should have had of some treachery designed against me. Thus I rejected her proposals, but so as to assure her I should retain, even as long as I lived, a lively remembrance of her affections and good inclinations towards me."

After some negotiation with a priest, the people of Queaquilla brought in twenty-four sacks of meal, and 20,000 pieces of eight in gold. On their refusing more than 22,000 pieces of eight more for ransom, a council was held to decide upon putting all the prisoners to death, but at last, Ravenau being in the majority, decided to spare them. They then took fifty of the richest prisoners with them to the point of St. Helena, and surrendered the rest on 22,000 more being paid.

While at La Puna, the Buccaneers sallied out to attack two Spanish armadillas, but not having any piraguas to tow them to the windward, could only cannonade at a distance. The French vessels were much shattered, but no man killed. The next day they came to close fight, both sides using small arms and great guns, but no Buccaneer was killed. The Spaniards lost many men, and the blood ran out of their scupper holes, but they still cried at parting, "A la manana, la partida"--(to-morrow, again.) The next night the Buccaneers unrigged and sank one of their prizes, and fitted out another, manning her with twenty Frenchmen, who wanted to leave David. The same night four Spaniards seized one of the prizes, and escaped to Queaquilla. Being now within half cannon shot, the rival vessels pounded each other all day; the French had their tackle spoiled, and sails riven, and the frigate received five cannon-shot in the foremast, and three in the mainmast, but had not one man killed or wounded. The next day the Spaniards hoisted Burgundian colours, and poured in volleys of musket-shot, but neither party boarded. The ensuing day the Buccaneer musketry was so destructive, that the Spaniards closed their port-holes and bore up to the wind. That day the French received sixty shots in their sides, two-thirds between wind and water, the rigging was torn, and Ravenau and another man were wounded. At night the Spaniards failed in an attempt to board. We spent this night at anchor, says Lussan, to stop our cannons' mouths, which otherwise might have sent us into the deep. To his astonishment, the next morning the armadillas had fled. During these successive days' fighting, the governor and officers of Queaquilla had been brought on deck to witness the defeat of their countrymen.

They then set their prisoners ashore and divided the plunder, the whole amounting to 500,000 pieces of eight, or 15,000,000 livres, and in shares to 400 pieces of eight a man. The uncoined gold and the precious stones being of uncertain value were sold by auction, that those who had silver and had won in gambling might buy. All who expected an overland expedition were anxious for jewels, as more portable and less heavy than silver. They sought now in their descent for nothing but gold and jewels, quite disregarding silver as a mean metal and heavy to carry. They even left many things in Queaquilla, and neglected to send a canoe for the 100 caons of coined silver (11,000 pieces of eight in all) which had been sent to the opposite river side. Taking advantage of their indifference, Spanish thieves mixed with the Buccaneers, and pillaged their own countrymen. They landed at Point Mangla, and surprised a watch of fifteen Spanish soldiers who had been placed to guard a river abounding in emeralds. A few days after they took a vessel from Panama going to Porto Bello to buy negroes off the point of Harina. The French fleet was next attacked by a Spanish galley and two piraguas. From a prisoner they heard of 300 Frenchmen, who had defeated 600 Spaniards and killed their leader in the savannahs. While careening in the bay of Mapalla they were joined by these men, who proved to be part of Grogniet's men, who had left their companions on the coast of Acapulco, refusing to go further towards California.

The adventurers next landed in the Bay of Tecoantepequa, and dispersing a body of 300 Spaniards, drawn up upon an eminence, marched inland towards the town, sleeping all night in the open air. Nothing but hunger and despair could have induced this attack. The town was intersected by a great and very rapid river, encompassed by eight suburbs, and defended by 3000 men. The Buccaneers forded the river, the water up to their middles, and after an hour's fighting forced the Spaniards from their entrenchment. In two hours these men, enraged with hunger, took the place by hand-to-hand fighting, and eighty sailors then dislodged the enemy from the abbey of St. Francis, whose terraces commanded the town. Finding the river overflowing and no ransom coming, the Buccaneers departed the next day, and landing at Vatulco, took the old governor of Merida prisoner, and obtained some provisions. They also landed at Muemeluna and victualled, the Spaniards having strong entrenchments, but making little resistance. They found upon the shore the musket and dead body of a sailor of a frigate that had attempted to land a month before. The Spaniards had not seen the body, or they would have cut in pieces or burnt it, as they were in the habit of even digging up the Buccaneers buried on their shores. At Sansonnat they landed in the face of 600 Spaniards to fill their water-casks, being faint from thirst. One of the men, more impatient than the rest, and goaded by four days' drought, swam ashore and was drowned, without any being able to help him.

They now held serious councils about the return by land. The prisoners declared their best way was by Segovia, where they would _only_ meet 5000 or 6000 Spaniards, and that the way was easy for the sick and wounded. The French determined to land and obtain more certain information, and this was one of the most daring of their adventures. They landed seventy men, and marched two days without meeting anybody, upon which eighteen, less weary than the rest, tramped on and soon got into a high road. Capturing three horsemen, they learnt that they were but a quarter of a league distant from Chiloteca, a little town with about 400 white inhabitants, besides negroes, Indians, and mulattoes, who were not aware of their approach. Afraid to waste time in running back after their companions, they entered the town, frightened the Spaniards, and took the Teniente and fifty others prisoners. Had there not been horses ready mounted, on which they made their escape, the enemy would, every man, have submitted to be bound, being overcome with a panic fear, and believing the enemy very numerous. They learned from the prisoners that the Panama galley lay waiting for them at Caldaira, and the _St. Lorenzo_, with thirty guns, at Realegua. They also said that 600 men would be in the town by the next day. The Spaniards now began to rally, and compelled the Buccaneers to entrench themselves in the church. The prisoners, seeing them hurry in, and thinking them hard pressed, ran to a pile of arms and prepared to make a resistance; but the Buccaneers, retreating to the doors, fired at the crowd till only four men and their wives were left alive. They then mounted horses and retreated, carrying off four prisoners of each sex, and firing at a herald who tried to parley. Joining their companions, whom they found resting at a hatto, they made a stand and drove back 600 Spaniards.

The statements of the prisoners increased their fears of the overland route, but determining rather to die sword in hand than to pine away with hunger, they at once resolved upon their design. Running all the vessels ashore but the galley and piraguas, which would take them from the island to the mainland, leaving no other means of escape to the timorous, they formed four companies of seventy men, choosing ten men from each as a forlorn hope, to be relieved every morning. Those who were lamed were to have, as formerly, 1000 pieces of eight, the horses were to be kept for the crippled and wounded. The stragglers who were wounded were to have no reward, whilst violence, cowardice, and drunkenness were to be punished. While maturing their plans, a Spanish vessel approached, and anchoring, began to fire at the grounded vessels, and soon put them out of a condition to sail. Afraid of losing their piraguas, the Buccaneers sent their prisoners and baggage to some flats behind the island. The next day, the Frenchmen, sheltering themselves behind the rocks that ran out to the sea, kept the vessel at a distance; but now afraid of total destruction, the Buccaneers sent 100 men to the continent at night to secure horses, and wait for them at a certain port. On the next day, the Spanish ship took fire, and put out to sea to extinguish the flames. The next day the Buccaneers escaped by a stratagem. Having spent the whole night in hammering the vessel, as if careening, to prevent all suspicion of their departure, they charged all their guns, grenades, and four pieces of cannon, and tied to them pieces of lighted matches of various lengths, in order to keep up an alarm throughout the night. In the twilight they departed as secretly as they could, the prisoners carrying the surgeons' medicines, the carpenters' tools, and the wounded men.

On the 1st of January, 1688, the Buccaneers arrived on the continent. On the evening of the same day the men joined them with sixty-eight horses and several prisoners, all of whom dissuaded them in vain from attempting to go by Segovia, where the Spaniards were fully alarmed. The men, nothing deterred, packed up each his charge, and thrust their silver and ammunition into bags. Those who had too much to carry, gave it to those who had lost theirs by gaming, promising them half "in case it should please God to bring them safe to the North Sea." Ravenau de Lussan tells us his charge was lighter but not less valuable than the others, as he had converted 30,000 pieces of eight into pearls and precious stones. "But as the best part of this," he says, "was the product of luck I had at play, some of those who had been losers, as well in playing against me as others, becoming much discontented at their losses, plotted together to the number of seventeen or eighteen, to murder those who were richest amongst us. I was so happy as to be timely advertised of it by some friends, which did not a little disquiet my mind, for it was a very difficult task for a man, during so long a journey, to be able to secure himself from being surprised by those who were continually in the same company, and with whom we must eat, drink, and sleep, and who could cut off whom they pleased of us in the conflicts they might have with the Spaniards, by shooting us in the hurry." To frustrate this scheme, Ravenau therefore divided his treasure among several men, and by this means removed a weight both from his mind and body.

On the 2nd of January, after having said prayers and sunk their boats, the Buccaneers set out, resting at noon at a hatto. On the 4th they lay on a mountain plateau, the Spaniards visible on their flanks and rear. On the 5th the barricades began, and on the 6th, at an estantia, they found the following letter lying on a bed in the hall: "We are very glad that you have made choice of our province for your passage homewards, but are sorry you are not better laden with silver; however, if you have occasion for mules we will send them to you. We hope to have the French General Grogniet very quickly in our power, so we will leave you to judge what will become of his soldiers."

On the 7th the vanguard drove off an ambuscade, and lay that evening in a hatto. The Spaniards burnt all the provisions in the way, and set fire to the savannahs to windward, stifling the French horses with smoke and scaring them with the blaze. While their march was thus retarded and they waited for the fire to burn out, the enemy threw up intrenchments and erected barricades of trees. On the 8th the French set fire to a house at a sugar plantation, and, hiding till the Spaniards came to put it out, captured a prisoner, who told them that 300 auxiliaries were on the march to meet them. "These 300 men," says Lussan, "were our continual guard, for they gave us morning and evening the diversion of their trumpets, but it was like the _music of the enchanted palace of Psyche_, who heard it without seeing the musicians, for ours marched on each side of us, in places so covered with pine trees that it was impossible to perceive them."

During this march the Buccaneers never encamped but upon high ground, or in the open savannah, for fear of being hemmed in.

The advanced guard was now strengthened by forty men, who discharged their muskets at the entries and avenues of woods, to dislodge the ambuscades, but they did not shoot when the plain was open and free from wood; although the Spaniards, who were lying on their bellies on each side of them, opened their fire and killed two stragglers. On the 10th they repulsed an ambuscade and captured some horses. On the 11th they dispersed another ambuscade, and entered Segovia, but all the provisions had been burnt, and the Spaniards fired upon them from among the pine trees that grew on the hills around the town. Fortunately at this spot, where the old guides grew uncertain of the way, they captured a new prisoner, who led them twenty leagues to the river they were in search of.

The road now grew wilder, and dangers thickened around them. They had to creep with great danger to the tops of great mountains, or to bury themselves in narrow and dark valleys. The cold grew intense, and the fogs lasted for some hours after daybreak. In the plains no chill was felt, but the same heat that prevailed on the mountains after noon. "But," says Lussan, "the hopes of getting once more into our native country made us endure patiently all these toils, and served as so many wings to carry us."

On the 12th, they ascended several mountains, and had incredible trouble to clear the road of the Spanish barricades, and all night long the enemy fired into their camp. On the 18th, an hour before sunrise, they ascended an eminence which seemed advantageous for an encampment, and saw on the edge of an eminence, separated from them by a narrow valley, what they believed to be cattle feeding.

Rejoiced at the prospect of food, forty men were sent to reconnoitre. They returned with the dismal intelligence that the supposed oxen were really troopers' horses ready saddled, and that the mountain on which they stood was encircled by three intrenchments, rising one above another, commanding a stream that ran through the valley. They had no other way but this to pass, and there was no possibility of avoiding it. They added, that one of the Spaniards had seen them, and shook his naked cutlass at them from a distance. Every man's heart fell at this news, and their pining appetite sickened at the loss of its expected meal. There was no time for delay, for the Spaniards from the adjacent provinces were gathering in their rear, and if any time was lost they must be surrounded and overpowered by numbers. Ravenau de Lussan, the Xenophon of this retreat, did not attempt to conceal the extent of the danger. He confesses himself that they were hard put to it, and that escape would have seemed impossible to any other men but to those who had been hitherto successful in almost every undertaking. He addressed his companions, and artfully persuaded them to agree to his plans, by first elaborating the extent of their difficulties. He said that 10,000 men could not force their way through such intrenchments, guarded by so many men as the Spaniards had, judging from the number of their horses. Nor could they pass by the side of it, with all their horses and baggage, seeing that the path could only be entered in single file. Except the road, all was a thick, pathless forest, full of quagmires, and encumbered by fallen trees; and even if these impediments were passed, the Spaniards would have still to be fought with. The Buccaneers agreed to these as truisms, but cried out that it was to no purpose to talk of difficulties so apparent, without proposing some method of surmounting them, and suggesting some means for its execution. Upon this hint De Lussan spoke. He proposed to cross those woods, precipices, mountains, and rocks, how inaccessible soever they seemed, and gaining the weather-gauge of the enemy, take them at once in the rear, suddenly and unexpectedly. The success of this plan he would answer for at the peril of his life. The prisoners, horses, and baggage he resolved to leave guarded by eighty men, to keep off the 300 Spaniards who hovered around them at day and at night, encamped at a musket-shot distance. These eighty men could answer for four times as many Spaniards. After some deliberation, De Lussan's plan was agreed to, and the execution at once resolved upon. Examining the mountain carefully with the keen eyes of both hunters and sailors, they could see a road winding along the side of the mountain, above the highest intrenchment. This they could only trace here and there by light spots visible between the trees, but once across this they were safe. Full of hope, and with every faculty aroused, some of the men were sent to a spot higher than the main body, to cover another party who had on previous occasions proved themselves ingenious and expert, and who were sent to pick out the safest and most direct spots by which they could get in the rear of the enemy before day broke. As soon as these scouts returned the men made ready for their departure, leaving their baggage guarded by eighty men. To prevent suspicion, the officer in command had orders to make every sentinel he set or relieved in the night-time fire his fusil and to beat his drum at the usual hour. He was told that if God gave them the victory they would send a party to bring him off, but that if an hour after all firing ceased they saw no messenger, they were to provide for their own safety.

The immediate narrative of this wonderful escape we give in De Lussan's own words:--"Things being thus disposed," he says, "we said our prayers as low as we could, that the Spaniards might not hear us, from whom we were separated but by the valley. At the same time, we set forward to the number of 200 men by moonlight, it being now an hour within night; and about one more after our departure we heard the Spaniards also at their prayers, who, knowing we were encamped very near them, fired about 600 muskets in the air to frighten us. Besides, they also made a discharge at all the responses of the litany which they sang. We still pursued our march, and spent the whole night (in going down and then getting up) to advance half a-quarter of a league, which was the distance between them and us, through a country, as I have already said, so full of rocks, mountains, woods, and frightful precipices, that our posteriors and knees were of more use to us than our legs, it being impossible for us to travel thither otherwise. On the 14th, by break of day, as we got over the most dangerous parts of this passage, and had already seized upon a considerable ascent of the mountain by clambering up in great silence, and leaving the Spaniards' retrenchments to our left, we saw their party that went the rounds, who, thanks to the fogs, did not discover us. As soon as they were gone by, we went directly to the place where we saw them, and found it to be exactly the road we were minded to seize on. When we had made a halt for about half an hour to take breath, and that we had a little daylight to facilitate our march, we followed this road by the voice of the Spaniards, who were at their morning prayers, and we were but just beginning our march, when, unfortunately, we met with two out-sentinels, on whom we were forced to fire, and this gave the Spaniards notice, who thought of nothing less than to see us come down from above them upon their intrenchments, since they expected us no other way than from below; so that those who had the guard thereof, and were in number about 500 men, finding themselves on the outside, when they thought they had been within, and consequently open without any covert, took the alarm so hot, that falling all on them at the same time, we made them quit the place in a moment, and make their escape by the favour of the fog."

The sequel is soon told. The defenders of the two first lines of wall drew up outside the lowermost, the Buccaneers firing at them for an hour under cover of the first intrenchment. But finding they gave no ground, and thinking the fog interfered with the aim, the French rushed forward and fell upon them with the butt ends of their muskets, till they fled headlong down the narrow road. Here they got entangled in their own impediments, and the Buccaneers, commanding the road from the redoubt, killed an enemy at every shot. Weary at last of running and killing, the French returned to the intrenchments and drove off the 500 Spaniards, who had now rallied, and were attacking the garrison. The pursuit ceased only from the fatigue of the conquerors and their weariness of slaughter. The Spaniards neither gave nor took quarter, and were saved in spite of themselves. De Lussan says, either from pride or a natural fierceness of temper, the Spanish soldiers, before an engagement, frequently took an oath to their commander neither to give nor receive quarter. The Buccaneers, struck with compassion at the quantity of blood running into the rivulet, spared the survivors, and returned a second time into the intrenchment with only one man killed and two wounded. The Spaniards lost their general, a brave old Walloon officer, who had given them the plan of their intrenchment. It was only at the solicitation of another commander that the rounds had been set, and the sentinels placed at the top of the mountain. The general had consented, but said there was no danger if the French were only men. It would take them eight days to climb up, and if they were devils, no intrenchment could keep them out. In his pocket were found letters from the Governor of Costa Rica, who had intended to send him 8000 men, but the Walloon asked for only 1500. He advised him to take care of his soldiers, as no glory could be gained by such a victory. The letter concluded thus:--"Take good measures, for those devils have a cunning and subtlety that is not in use amongst us. When you find them advance within the shot of your arquebuses, let not your men fire but by twenties, to the end your firing may not be in vain; and when you find them weakened, raise a shout to frighten them, and fall on with your swords, while Don Rodrigo attacks them in the rear. I hope God will favour our designs, since they are no other than for his glory, and the destruction of these new sort of Turks. Hearten up your men, though they may have enough of that according to your example they shall be rewarded in heaven, and if they get the better, they will have gold and silver enough wherewith these thieves are laden."

Having sung a _Te Deum_ of thankfulness to God, Ravenau de Lussan mounted sixty men upon horseback, as he words it, "to give notice to our other people of the success the Almighty was pleased to give us." They found them about to attack the 300 Spaniards, who seeing the night-march the main body had made, and believing them defeated at the intrenchments, had sent an officer to parley with the residue. He told them that the 1500 Spaniards were lying ready to surround their troops, but promised them good terms if they surrendered; saying that, by the intercessions of the almoner, and for the honour of the holy sacrament and glorious Virgin, they had spared all the prisoners they had hitherto taken. The Buccaneers, somewhat intimidated at these threats, took heart when they saw their companions coming, and returned the following fierce answer: "Though you had force enough to destroy two-thirds of our number, we should not fail to fight with the remaining part; yea, though there were but one man of us left, he should fight against you all. When we put ashore and left the South Sea, we all resolved to pass through your country or die in the attempt; and though there were as many Spaniards as there are blades of grass in the savannah, we should not be afraid, but would go on and go where we will in spite of your teeth." The officer at Ravenau's arrival was just being dismissed, and seeing the new allies were booted and mounted on Spanish horses, he shrugged up his shoulders and rode back as fast as he could to his comrades, who were not more than a musket-shot off upon a small eminence commanding the camp, to tell them the news. As soon almost as he could get to them, the Buccaneers advanced with pistols and cutlasses, and without firing fell on them and cut many to pieces before they could mount, but let the rest go, detaining their horses. They then, with the loss of one killed and two maimed, rejoined the main body at the intrenchments.

The enemy now lit a fire upon the top of a neighbouring mountain to collect the scattered troops, in order to defend an intrenchment six leagues distant; but the Buccaneers lying in wait cut off their passage, then hamstringing 900 horses, took 900 others to kill and salt when they arrived at the river. On the 15th they passed the intrenchment unfinished and undefended, and on the 16th day came very joyfully to the long desired river. Immediately they entered into the woods that covered the banks, and fell to work in good earnest to cut down trees and build "piperies," or rafts. These were made of four or five trunks of the mahot trees, a light buoyant wood, which they first barked and then bound together with parasite creepers, which were tough and of great length. Two men, generally standing upright, guided each of these frail barks, the decks sunk two or three feet under water. They were built purposely narrow, to be able to thread the rocky passes of the river even then in sight. These rafts were dragged to the river-side and then launched, the boatmen having furnished themselves with long poles to push them off the rocks, against which they were sure the current would drive them. De Lussan, who never exaggerates a danger, cannot find words to express the terrors of this stream. "It springs," he says, "in the mountains of Segovia, and discharges itself into the North Sea at Cape Gracias à Dios, after having run a long way, in a most rapid manner, across a vast number of rocks of a prodigious bigness, and by the most frightful precipices that can be thought of, besides a great many falls of water, to the number of at least a hundred of all sorts, which it is impossible for a man to look on without trembling, and making the head of the most fearless to turn round, when he sees and hears the waters fall from such a height into those tremendous whirlpools."

To this dangerous river and its merciless falls, these way-worn men trusted themselves on frail rafts, and sank up to their middles in water. Sometimes they were hurried, in spite of all their resistance, into boiling pools, where they were buried with their rafts in the darkness beneath the foam, at others drifted under rocks and against fallen trees. Some tied themselves to their barks. "As for those great falls," says Lussan, "they had, to our good fortunes, at their entrances and goings out, great basins of still water, which gave us the opportunity to get upon the banks of the river, and draw our piperies ashore to take off those things we had laid on them, which were as wet as we were. These we carried with us, leaping from rock to rock, till we came to the end of the fall, from whence one of us afterwards returned to put our pipery into the water, and let her swim along to him who waited for her below. But if he failed to catch hold (by swimming) of those pieces of wood before they got out of the basin below, the violence of the stream would carry them away to rights, and the men were necessitated to go and pick out trees to make another."

The rafts at first went all together for the sake of mutual assistance; but at the end of three days, finding this dangerous, Ravenau de Lussan advised their going in a line apart, so that, if any were carried against the rocks, they might get off before the next pipery arrived, which at first occasioned many disasters. De Lussan, being himself cast away, found much safety in this plan; for, uncording his raft, he straddled upon one piece and his companion upon another, and floated down, till, reaching a place less rapid, they got on land and reconstructed the raft. By his advice, those who went first put up flags at the end of long poles, to give notice on which side to land, not to signal the falls, for their roar could be clearly heard a league off.

During all these dangers the men lived on the bananas that they found growing by the river side, some of which the Indians had sown, and others floated down and self-planted during the inundations. The horse-flesh they had brought the water had spoiled, compelling them to throw it away after two days; and although game abounded on the land, they could kill none, for their arms were continually wet and their ammunition all damaged.

It was at this crisis the conspirators we have before mentioned chose to carry out their cruel plot. Hiding behind some rocks, they killed and plundered five Englishmen, who were known to be rich. Lussan whose raft came last of all, and followed the English float, found their bodies, and thanked God he had given others his treasure to carry. When the Buccaneers were all met together, lower down the river, Lussan told them of the murder, of which they had not heard, but the murderers were seen no more. On the 20th of February the river grew wider, slower, and deeper, the falls ceased, but the stream was encumbered with trees and bamboos, drifted together by the floods. These snags frequently overturned the rafts, but the water being, though deeper, much slower, none were drowned. Some leagues further, the stream became gentle and free from all impediment, and they determined for the next sixty leagues to the sea to build canoes. Dividing themselves into parties of sixty men, they landed and cut down mapou trees, and, working with wonderful diligence, built four canoes by the first of March. Leaving 140 men still working, 120 embarked, eager for home, ease, and rest. The English, too impatient to make canoes, had long since reached the sea-shore in their piperies. They here met a Jamaica boat lying at anchor, and attempted to persuade the captain to return, and obtain leave for them to land, as they had no commission. The captain refused to go without receiving £6000 in advance, which they could not afford, as many of them had lost all by the upsetting of the piperies. The sailors, therefore, resolved to remain with the friendly Mosquito Indians, who dwelt about the mouth of this river, and to whom they had often brought trinkets from Jamaica. The English, unable to buy the boat, determined to send word to the French, hoping to get to St. Domingo by their aid. Two Mosquito Indians were despatched in a canoe, forty leagues up the river, to bring down forty Frenchmen, as the vessel was small and short of provision, and could not hold more. But, in spite of all this, 120, instead of forty, hurried down to get on board, waiting five days for the ship that had gone to the Isle of Pearls. Great was the delight of the French to pass Cape Gracias à Dios, and enter the North Sea.

The Mulattoes that lived on this cape, Lussan says, were descended from the crew of a negro vessel, lost on a shoal. They slept in holes dug in the sand, to avoid the mosquitoes, which stung them till they appeared like lepers. Lussan speaks much of the fiery darts of this mischievous insect. He says, "It is no small pain to be attacked with them, for, besides that they caused us to lose our rest at night, it was then that we were forced to go naked for want of shirts, when the troublesomeness of these animals made us run into despair and such a rage as set us beside ourselves." At last the longed-for vessel arrived, and, regardless of lots that had been drawn, fifty of the more vigilant, including Lussan, crowded in, one on the top of the other, and instantly weighed anchor, engaging the master for forty pieces of eight a head to take them to St. Domingo, afraid of venturing to Jamaica. At Cuba they landed, and surprising some hunters, compelled them to sell them food, uncertain whether France and Spain were at war or peace.

On the 4th of April they rode at anchor at Petit Guaves, hoping to hear news from France. De Lussan relates a curious instance here of the effect of habit and instinctive imagination. "There were some of our people," he says, "so infatuated with the long miseries we had suffered, that they thought of nothing else but the Spaniards, insomuch that, when from the deck they saw some horsemen riding along the sea-side, they flew to arms to fire upon them, as imagining they were enemies, though we assured them we were now come among those of our own nation." De Lussan, at once going on shore, demanded of Mons. Dumas, the King's lieutenant, in the Governor Mons. de Cussy's absence, indemnity and protection, by favour of an amnesty granted by the French king to those who, in remote places, had continued to make war on the Spaniards, not hearing of the peace that had been concluded between the two nations.

De Lussan relates with much unpretending pathos the feelings of himself and his Ulyssean friends upon once more landing in a friendly country. "When we all were got ashore," he says, "to a people that spoke French, we could not forbear shedding tears for joy that, after we had run so many hazards, dangers, and perils, it had pleased the Almighty Maker of the earth and seas to grant a deliverance, and bring us back to those of our own nation, that at length we may return without any more ado to our own country; whereunto I cannot but further add, that, for my own part, I had so little hopes of ever getting back, that I could not, for the space of fifteen days, take my return for any other than an illusion, and it proceeded so far with me, that I shunned sleep, for fear when I awaked I should find myself again in those countries out of which I was now safely delivered."

From the preface to De Lussan's book, we learn that he returned to Dieppe, with letters of introduction from De Cussy, the Governor of Tortuga and St. Domingo, to Mons. de Lubert, Treasurer-General of Marine in France. Of the end of this brave man we know nothing. He had many requisites for a great general.