versity of California Southern Regional Library Facility THE SPANISH GALLEON LIBRARY THE SPANISH GALLEON THE SPANISH GALLEON BEING AN ACCOUNT OF A SEARCH FOR SUNKEN TREASURE IN THE CARIBBEAN SEA BY CHARLES SUMNER SEELEY CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 1891 COPYRIGHT, BY A. C. McCLURG AND CO. A. D. 1891. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. THE ISLAND 7 II. THE FOOD SUPPLY 17 III. HOUSE-BUILDING '. . . 28 IV. PiG-HUNTIXG 41 V. BOAT-BUILDING 53 VI. "DUKE 2D, PROPERTY OF H. SENLIS " . 67 VII. THE WATER-GLASS So VIII. BREAD-MAKING 93 IX. THE GALLEON FOUND 105 X. THE CASTAWAYS 116 XI. ALICE AND HER FATHER 129 XII. THE PROBLEM 143 XIII. THE ABANDONED PLANTATION .... 153 XIV. A REMARKABLE CURE 166 XV. LOST AND FOUND 180 XVI. A BAD PORT 192 XVII. THE WAVES IN HARNESS 204 VI * CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XVIII. EMBAYED 218 XIX. THE PEARL-FISHERS 231 XX. THE CAPTAIN OF THE GANG .... 245 XXI. SELF-BETRAYED 259 XXII. THE CAPTAIN'S FATE 272 XXIII. TREASURE TROVE 283 THE SPANISH GALLEON. CHAPTER I. THE ISLAND. MY name is William Morgan, and I am a lineal descendant of that William Morgan who was a brother of the famous Welsh buccaneer, Henry Morgan. I mention this in no spirit of pride, quite the contrary, but because some may choose to trace in these ad- ventures evidence of hereditary tendencies. On the eighteenth day of August, 1886, as the sun was setting, I was floating in the Caribbean Sea. You may mark the place on the map as being approximately N. latitude 15, and W. longitude 62 from Greenwich; or in other words, between one hundred and two hun- dred miles west of the French island of Martinique. A chest, well corded but partly filled with water, was all that kept my head above the surface. Without food or drink I had been floating thus since shortly after sunrise of the previous morning. At that time the sloop in which I was voyaging, capsized and sunk in a squall, drowning the negro captain and owner, and his son, who constituted the crew. In this little vessel I was bound for a small uninhabited island known as " Key Seven," which was in plain sight when the disaster occurred. For two days and a night, without sleep or refreshment, I had been struggling to push the floating chest toward this land. 8 THE SPANISH GALLEON. Now as the sun was just about to sink exactly behind the trees on the island, I was so near that the sound of the waves on the beach reached my ear. The tide would soon turn, and I must gain a foothold on the sand before the ebb got fairly under way, or continue the struggle another night. My hands and arms were sore in places from chafing in the salt water against the chest, every muscle ached, cramps and pains shot incessantly through every limb, my eyes were on fire, the wolf of hunger gnawed at my stomach, my lips and mouth and throat were parched and dry. The fever of utter ex- haustion and fatigue drove delirious dreams and fancies through my aching brain. Still on, on, on, compelling the unwilling and rebellious muscles to their automatic work, made sickening to the very soul by long continued repetition, I fought until at last my feet rested on the bottom. One final struggle and the wave left me with the chest upon the beach. But it was not until the last ounce of energy had been expended, that I staggered and fell on the dry sand among the parched bladder- weed that streaked the shore. There I lay for half an hour, completely exhausted. When I rose to secure the chest by dragging it a little way a very little way beyond the reach of the waves, the sun had just sunk, night with tropical sud- denness had fallen on the scene, and the stars burst out in all their brilliancy in the clear dark vault of heaven. Here then I was at last at the end of my voyage, but in what a plight. Food and drink and sleep I must have, and that speedily, or death would shortly claim me. It was starlight, but too dark to see more than the dim outlines of things. I lay down again on the warm dry sand and tried to think what was best to do ; but I could not think, for my dry tongue rattled in my THE ISLAND. 9 mouth and my head ached as though it would burst with every feeble throb of the heart. As I lay with my face turned toward the sea, listening in despair to the soft, monotonous lip-lipping of the waves, varied at regular intervals by the long, foaming crash of the swell as it broke and swept up the sands, there came presently in the eastern sky a faint silvery glow, and the full moon stole up from out the glistening water until it shone full and broad, making a burnished path down to the shore at my feet. No doubt, this saved my life. In an hour it was almost as light as day. I untied my shoes, which I had fastened to the chest while swimming, put them on to guard my feet, and started in search of drinking-water. Fortunately it was close at hand. A little brook flowed down to the sea not more than forty rods to the north of my landing-place. Had I been in condition to remember anything, I should have known this fact, because while floating in the sea I noted this stream by the low foliage that marked its course near the beach, and longed for a draught of the water which I knew must be there. Stumbling along the sands, I reached the stream, and lying down, buried my face in the clear, sweet water, and drank until I could drink no more. This was possibly an imprudent thing to do. Indeed it was followed by dreadful nausea. But this did not hinder me from taking another draught, almost as deep as the first. He who has not experienced real thirst can never know how delicious is pure, sweet water, taken when every fibre and pore of the body is suffering for it. Each capillary and duct seemed to expand, and the heart soon began to beat stronger and fuller as though under the lash of a stimulant. Though I had fancied food was what I needed most, it was really the water that my system demanded, and I felt at once so much IO THE SPANISH GALLEON. stronger and better that a desire to sleep came upon me, the fever left my veins, and I felt as though I could wait until morning before breaking my fast. On the way back to the chest I picked up half a dozen shell-fish of some bivalve species, on the sands at the edge of the surf, and ate them. They tasted sweet as a nut to me, but were probably of little nutritious value, and possibly more or less indigestible. But they brought no harm, and seemed partly to fill what void the water had left. At the landing-place I drew and rolled the chest still farther up the beach, took off my wet clothing, spread it out to dry, and buried my body in the warm sand, put- ting the chest between me and the gentle wind which was breathing steadily and softly in from the sea. Ex- hausted as I was, the sense of bodily rest and warmth was delicious ; but as is apt to be the case when one is over-fatigued, sleep did not come to my eyelids. I was free from pain with the exception of the smarting of the raw wounds on my hands and arms, and lay listening to the rustling of the breeze, the sound of the sea, and the lonesome call of a night bird or a small animal of some sort that occasionally broke the stillness. I thought over my desperate situation ; of the dis- astrous ending of the voyage, from which I had hoped so much ; how and when, if ever, I could get off the island and back to civilization to take a fresh start, for as to giving up the great object of the expedition, that thought was not once entertained either then or at any other time. But now without a boat or the many neces- sary appliances for carrying out my plans, I could not hope to accomplish that object, though I was upon the very island that I had travelled over a thousand miles to reach. It would be necessary to go back at least to Martinique, if not to New York, to obtain what I needed. THE ISLAND. II Diving apparatus is not to be found everywhere. Be- sides the assistance of at least one person seemed abso- lutely necessary, and here I was alone. Yes, I must somehow go back and start over again, that seemed clear. But how, and when ? These questions were not easy to answer. Should I be able even to obtain food while a prisoner here, waiting such deliverance as chance might bring? These and a thousand other thoughts passed through my mind while I lay looking at the stars as they paled before the silver shield of the moon. I thought of my plans so carefully laid, and now, at least for the time being, so utterly defeated. Thus I reviewed mentally the whole history of the enterprise I had undertaken. And perhaps this is a proper place to give the reader an account of what he will doubtless conceive to be the wildest scheme that ever was seriously contemplated. Listen, that you may judge. On my twenty-first birthday, now only a few weeks past, I sailed from New York in one of the steamers plying to the Windward Islands, bound for Martinique and thence by country sloop to Key Seven, for the pur- pose of finding a Spanish galleon that sank in the open sea near that island, July 9, 1665, after a bloody battle with two vessels commanded by the buccaneer Welsh- man, Captain Henry Morgan. This galleon contained pieces of eight, gold and silver in bars and plate, and jewels, to the value of over three hundred thousand dollars. It had lain thus at the bottom of the sea, as I believed, for more than two hundred years. To find this sunken wreck and secure the treasure was the object of my expedition. How I succeeded in such a wild un- dertaking will appear hereafter. Several years before, while I was at college, a desul- tory course of reading had awakened in me a deep 12 THE SPANISH GALLEON. interest in the early printed accounts of the lawless buccaneers and maroons who infested the waters and coasts of the Caribbean Sea, besieged and sacked the Spanish forts and cities, crossed the isthmus of Darien, and followed down the coast of South America, captur- ing the vessels and laying waste the towns of the Span- iards. Bartholomew Portuges, Brasiliano, John Davis, Francis Lolonois, and Henry Morgan, the brother of my ancestor, were noted leaders of these buccaneering crews and armies. Perhaps the last-named adventurer, who led the desperate expedition across the isthmus and captured the fortified city of Panama, was the most noted of all, as he was also not the least cruel, bloodthirsty, and avaricious. Fragmentary accounts by various au- thors, some of whom were actors in the scenes described, have been published in Dutch, French, Spanish, and English. So far as I could do so I had sought and studied these accounts. A translation into English, made more than a hundred years ago, of the most con- siderable Dutch and French accounts had enabled me to absorb them, and the numerous original reports of Spanish officials made to their government, and which are still preserved in the archives at Madrid, were ren- dered accessible to me by a fortunate circumstance. Many years ago most of the documents bearing upon the history of America, from the time of Columbus down to the present century, had been collected and trans- cribed through the efforts of an American author whose charming histories have delighted all English readers. This mass of material had since its transcription been made use of by many others, and being in the charge of the college librarian, I obtained access to it. My en- thusiasm may be imagined, when I say that in order to consult these transcriptions I actually learned to read Spanish. It was in one of these papers that I found the THE ISLAND. 13 report of Don Jo~>ef Isabel del Velo y Campo, admiral of the Spanish fleet and at the time in command of the Spanish galleon La Magdalen. The admiral gave a full account of the loss of this galleon, of the desperate battle, of the tremendous bravery of the Spaniards under his command, and of his own escape with two others by swimming to the island of Trebucino near by. The vessel sank about a mile from the northern extremity of the island, bearing a little east of north from the point of rocks. The report was accompanied by an account of the cargo on board, as nearly correct as his memory and knowledge could serve him to give, and by a like statement of the money and treasure lost, concluding with a pious congratulation that if lost to Spain it at least had not fallen into the hands of Morgan and his murderous hereticos. At the time of reading this report, it was to me a mat- ter of idle wonder, to conjecture whether the noble galleon still held together at the bottom of the sea, and if the treasure was still there ; to picture the many curious things that possibly lived and grew near the blackened and corroded silver and the untarnishable gold, the monsters of the sea that swam and crept over and about it, the seaweed, the sponge and the coral, the tides and the currents which swept by it, and the drowned sailors and cavaliers whose spirits pos- sibly guarded it through the slow ages of decay and change. Although I had looked up the island of Trebucino on the old charts, and had identified it as the bit of land now marked " Key Seven " on modern maps, yet at that time I had no thought of the possibility of recov- ering the treasure, much less of engaging in such a hair- brained enterprise myself. It was not until long after- ward that the idea entered my mind of seeking the 14 THE SPANISH GALLEON. treasure, and then it was suggested by a serious misfor- tune that befell me. Both my parents were dead, and I had no living rela- tives nearer than an uncle, my mother's brother, who was my guardian, and who from time to time sent me money as I needed it. When my father died he left his estate, consisting of valuable farming lands in the beau- tiful Mohawk valley, heavily encumbered with debt. The money sent me for expenses at college came from a small property that had belonged to my mother. I had always looked forward to the day when, free from school life, I could undertake the management and control of my father's farms, and return to live at the home farm, where I was born and where my early boyhood days were passed. The old Dutch-built brick house with its noble elms, the brook that ran through the meadow, so near that its murmur could be heard on still summer nights from my open bedroom window, the broad fields stretching up and down the valley as far as the eye could reach, the thousand acres under cultivation, and the thousand more of woodland and pasture, the sleek herds, the dairy, and all the joys of a farmer's life, made up the picture which was ever in my mind. To live this life had been my ambition, and I had tolerated school only because I was told it would better fit me for the work. But all my hopes were suddenly dashed by a letter from my uncle advising me to be economical and saving with my money, as there was only seven hundred dollars left of the fund devoted to my education, and the whole of which he would in six months turn over to me in one sum. He told me I was now old enough to be in- formed of my exact prospects. It was better, he said, I should know that my father's estate would not sell for nearly enough to clear the mortgages on it, that it would THE ISLAND. 15 require at least a hundred thousand dollars to meet and pay a debt due in three years. He offered to manage the property for me up to that time ; but warned me that I could hope to realize but little from it, and that it would then have to go under the hammer. By this sad and unexpected news, my prospects in life were wholly changed. The thought of losing my old home and all the familiar surroundings was so dismal and distressing that I had no heart left to finish my college work. Could I not somehow get the necessary money to redeem the property ? This thought came to me over and over. To get a hundred thousand dollars in the short space of three years ! Alas ! the accomplishment of such a feat must involve some extraordinary circumstances as well as great good-fortune. It was while thus cudgelling my brains in despair, that the idea of the Spanish galleon recurred to me. After weighing the whole matter coolly, and without any enthusiasm or prejudice^ I concluded that there was a bare chance of raising this sunken treasure from the sea. I resolved to take that remote chance, and to spend my money and the three years, if necessary, in the endeavor. It would be six months before I could get the seven hundred dollars that remained to me. This period I spent in planning and studying the enterprise, and in such physical preparation as I was able to make. Every day I visited the natatorium and gymnasium to practise swimming and to train and develop the muscles; so that when the six months had passed I was an expert swimmer and diver and my muscles were hard as steel. The money came duly to hand, and I left college at once for New York City. There, after writing to my uncle that I was about to go on a voyage that might last three years, and bidding him an affectionate farewell, I bought such articles and 1 6 THE SPANISH GALLEON. appliances as I had determined would be necessary, and took passage for Martinique with exactly two hundred dollars in my pocket. Then came, as we have seen, the wreck of the sloop, the drowning of my negro assistants, and my long struggle in the sea. CHAPTER II. THE FOOD SUPPLY. ' I "HE sun was well up the eastern sky when I awoke X in the morning, so numb and stiff that I could with difficulty unbury myself from the sand, the weight of which had almost stopped the circulation in some parts of the body. My clothing, which I had spread on the sand, had completely dried. After some chaf- ing and rubbing I dressed myself and felt more comfort- able than at any time since the loss of the sloop. The first thing to do was to get something to eat. I walked to the brook, bathed my face, and took a long drink of water, and began to be more and more impressed with the fact that the diet was thin. There were a number of co- coanut palms near by, growing within a few rods of the sea, and plenty of nuts on them, as could be plainly seen. But though I searched the ground with hungry glance I could find only one nut that had not been operated on by the land crabs, which are able in an ingenious manner to extract the contents through the three little eyes or holes in the shell. This one nut, the exterior husk of which had not been disturbed, I broke open by pounding it upon a rock, and found it to my bitter dis- appointment blackened, rancid, and quite unfit for food. I had noticed a flock of gulls, or some species of shore birds, wheeling about and lighting and running on the beach near by. With a shotgun it would have been an easy matter to creep near and bag half a dozen 2 1 8 THE SPANISH GALLEON. at a shot. I watched them a little while and concluded that though it might prove a tough and unpalatable dish I must have one, or starve. It would be a good plan, I thought, to gather a dozen pebbles weighing three or four ounces apiece and try the effect of a shot into the thick of the flock from as near a point as I could reach. But as there would be no chance for more than one trial, I determined to fire the stones in a volley. To do this effectively I gathered some tough reeds and tied one to each stone until I had half a dozen stones so provided. By swinging these missiles at the end of the reeds they could be thrown a considerable distance with great velocity. Trembling with expectation and excitement, I crept down toward the flock, keeping out of sight behind some rocks until I was as near as it was possible to go, when I let fly my volley of improvised slung-shots as well as I could direct them into the thickest of the birds. Run- ning forward immediately, I found two lying on the sand struggling. One was hit squarely on the wing with a stone, and the other had a reed wound once around its neck. I secured both and wrung their necks. The idea at once occurred to me that the next time I had occasion to hunt gulls, I would contrive a bolas by ty- ing a stone to each end of a cord ; it seemed to me that this would prove even a more effectual instrument of destruction than the sling volley, as it would be almost certain to entangle one or more of the flock. These birds were nearly as large as a guillemot, but of what species I do not know. As I had no fire to cook with, I immediately ate one of them raw. The other I cut into strips and shreds and laid them on a rock in the hot sun to dry. The experience of eating a raw unseasoned gull was such as to turn my thoughts forcibly to the necessity of some means for procuring THE FOOD SUPPLY. 1 9 both fire and salt. The salt would not be difficult to obtain, for if it could not be found somewhere along the shore or in the salt marsh near by, it would not be diffi- cult to make some sort of a salt pan provided I could find clay or other impermeable soil with which to con- fine a shallow pool of sea water somewhere in the sun- shine. The evaporation would speedily give the small quantity I should require. In my vest pocket was a small metal match-box half full of matches, such as every smoker carries. But on examination it proved, as might be expected, that all the matches were wet and useless. Nevertheless when I got back to the landing-place, I laid them carefully out in the sun on a stone to dry, thinking that possibly one of them might be made to light. I now turned my attention to the chest. This chest was one of four that contained my baggage ; but which one of the four, or what this particular one contained, I could not conjecture. So I set about untying the rope wound around it, and soon had it free. There was fully forty feet of strong hempen halyard stuff in the line, and this in itself was a possession of value. The bunch of keys in my pocket enabled me without trouble to open the lock. When I raised the lid I found to my bitter disappointment that the chest con- tained those articles which would be of least value to me under the present circumstances. The contents consisted chiefly of books, stationery, sketching appli- ances, drawing tools and materials, and a photographic camera and outfit. Everything was, of course, soaked with water, and I hardly had the heart to take the things out to dry. The books and paper, as well as the photo- graphic plates, were in a sad condition. The bellows of the camera came to pieces. I spread out the contents of the chest on the hot sand to dry, putting stones on 2O THE SPANISH GALLEON. such things as might blow away when they became dried. The lens of the camera I unscrewed, intending to use it as a burning-glass to start a fire, so that there might be no further need to eat raw gull. The burning-glass, which was of priceless value to me, and the rope were practically all the chest yielded that could be put to use, as I then supposed. The chest itself would of course be useful to me. Eager to try the burning-glass, I collected some dry branches, leaves, and other fuel. In a ball or nest of dry grass, of the size of my two fists. I placed a little bunch of silky seed fibres collected from a weed. Upon this fibre I brought to bear the focus of the lens, con- centrating the sun's rays to an intense white spot, which almost immediately began to smoke with the heat. Presently the material commenced to burn, and I whirled the ball rapidly around through the air, where- upon the whole burst into a flame, which being placed among the fuel was speedily a roaring fire. In this manner I obtained fire as long as I remained on the island. As a mere matter of curiosity I tried some of the matches which had been laid out so carefully to dry, but, as might have been expected, not a single one would light. It was very fortunate, therefore, that I had the lens, as otherwise I should have been reduced to the necessity of rubbing sticks together in the manner of the savages, and probably without being able to get fire as they are said to do. Of course I did not need the fire to keep me warm, for the air was excessively hot. But it seemed so like a new-found friend that I built it high, and when there was a mass of embers, carefully covered them with sand and ashes that they might last and be ready for future use. It was now nearly noon and my stomach became more clamorous than ever. I therefore cooked and ate THE FOOD SUPPLY. 21 the flesh of the other gull, which had been laid on the rocks to be cured. Although the flies had begun to at- tack the meat, it was, as yet, in no wise tainted, nor very dry. By dipping *he pieces into the sea water I gave it, as I fancied, a perceptible flavor of salt. At any rate, though tough and a little rank in flavor, it tasted good enough and my only regret was that there was not more of it. I could perceive the gulls in great numbers flying about out at sea, but none on the shore, and con- cluded that they came to the land only at certain stages of the tide, probably at low tide, when their food would be exposed. Determined to lay in a store of provisions, I next turned my attention to the cocoanut palms and made another search for fallen nuts, but without any success, though I sought the whole length of the beach beneath the trees. It became quite evident that to get the nuts I should have to climb for them. As the nut-bearing trees were from fifty to seventy-five feet high, without a branch on their cylindrical stems from the base up to the feathery crown, the climb was likely to prove a dif- ficult if not a dangerous task. However, selecting a palm with plenty of nuts on it, I made the attempt to " shin " as the sailors call it, up the stem. It was hard work, and the heat was so oppressive that I had to stop several times and rest on the way up and was very glad when I found myself at the top. I broke off and threw down a score of the nuts in all stages of ripeness, and then descended in safety. The fruit of the cocoanut palm grows in clusters of a dozen to twenty nuts in each bunch, which hang imme- diately under the crown of leaves. Upon the trees they by no means present the globular hard-shelled appear- ance which is familiar to our eyes. Each nut is encased in a thick fibrous rind or husk ; exteriorly this husk is 22 THE SPANISH GALLEON. of a sub-triangular form, about twelve inches long and six inches broad. Of the fibre of this exterior husk the well-known cocoanut matting is made, and also the coarse yarn called coir ; it is ilso used for cordage. I carried the nuts to a shady place and stripped off the husk by means of a pointed piece of rock set up- right in the ground. The smaller ones not yet entirely ripe were full of a sweet liquid, and the meat was soft enough to have been scooped out with a spoon ; the older ones were also very good, not nearly so dry and hard as we find them in our northern markets. For the first time since the shipwreck I ate until my hunger was fully appeased. What the result of a long-continued diet upon such food would be I could not of course forecast, but it seemed probable that I need not starve while the nuts were plentiful. Those which were left from this meal I carried to the landing-place and laid them on the chest, where the land crabs would probably not get at them. With this ample supply of food, presumably nutritious and certainly quite palatable, my anxiety was greatly relieved. Animal food I could probably obtain from time to time as the island appeared to abound with birds of various kinds, if I could have time to contrive some method of ensnaring or killing them. Then too there were doubtless fish to be caught, and probably turtle. In some of the islands, I knew, there were wild pigs, as it was a common thing for the people of Martinique to come to these small isolated islands on pig-hunting expedi- tions. I sincerely hoped that these animals might be found on Key Seven ; for I felt quite confident of my ability to think of some plan for killing or capturing them. But there was no immediate need to go fishing or hunting for birds or pigs. I determined to find, if possible, some means of get- THE FOOD SUPPLY. 2$ ting a supply of salt before I sought for flesh food of any kind. With this end in view, as the afternoon was still young, I began looking about for a suitable place to serve as a salt pan. I walked along the beach for a mile each way, but could find no suitable spot. The require- ments were a shallow basin near the sea, with the bottom impervious to water, which should hold in a shallow depth at least five or ten barrels of water. There was plenty of rock of a coralline limestone variety, and an abundance of shells ; and the idea occurred to me that I might burn a supply of lime and thus make a mortar or cement of slaked lime and sand. With this material it would be possible to construct just above high-water mark such a pan or cavity as I desired. If I used shells to make the lime, there would probably be no need of erecting a kiln, as heat enough could be attained in a large open fire, by building it of several alternate layers of dry wood and shells. I immediately set about collecting shells with which the beach was most plentifully strewn in all directions. As I had nothing in which to carry them, I adopted the expedient of throwing them one at a time into heaps. This was very hard and fatiguing work, and it was four o'clock or later in the afternoon before I had gathered into about twenty different heaps the four or five bushels of shells which I thought enough for a burning. It still remained for me to collect the scattered heaps together, and gather the wood for fuel. But it was high time now to stop work and prepare for the night. Some sort of sleeping-place must be contrived in the two or three hours of daylight that remained, for I had no fancy to try again the sort of couch I had last slept in. I went to the stream and drank a good draught of water, a welcome refreshment after my exertion in the hot sun. I then gathered a 24 THE SPANISH GALLEON. quantity of dry grass for a bed and carried it down to the sand near the landing-place, which seemed a sort of home to me, although I had resolved speedily thereafter to move my property nearer to the brook. The con- tents of the chest were now dry excepting the books, which presented a sad appearance. I gathered all of these things together and covered them up as well as I could with the focussing-cloth that belonged to the camera, piling stones around the edge to secure it. The empty chest I turned up on its side, hinges uppermost, and propped up the lid in a nearly horizontal position. This would afford me shelter for the upper portion of the body. Under the shelter thus improvised I piled the dry grass for a couch, and my sleeping-place was ready. I then gathered a fresh supply of fuel and built up a fire on the landward, which would presently be the leeward side of my shelter. By the time these arrangements were all complete, the sun was setting. Tired out, I lay down and watched the fire, thinking over my situation and planning what to do and how to do it. No doubt, sooner or later some vessel would pass in sight or land on the island and take me off. It was not as though I were on a remote or inac- cessible place ; the native sloops and small vessels oc- casionally visited these islands for wood or turtle, or on pig-hunting expeditions, and I fancied it would not be long before an opportunity offered for my escape. In the meantime, while thus a prisoner, be the time long or short, it would be necessary to keep up my health and strength. For this purpose food and shelter were neces- sary, and occupation, too, that I might not brood over my situation and worry at the delay in my plans. There was likely to be plenty of occupation, however, in providing myself with the bare necessities of life. If there should be any spare time on my hands I would THE FOOD SUPPLY. 2$ devote it to the construction of a boat, a raft, or a vessel of some other sort, with which to get away. But with only a pocket knife how could I expect ever to build a boat capable of navigating more than a hundred miles of sea? How could I carry fresh water enough to last during the voyage? These problems were indeed difficult of solution. I ran over in my mind, as far as I could recollect them, all the different kinds of boats, canoes, kayaks, etc., known to primitive man. There was the ancient coracle, used by the old Britons, woven in basket fashion from willows and coated with clay or lined with a hide, a thing good enough in an emergency to ferry one over a stream, but utterly useless to me. There was the canoe or pirogue, hollowed from a single tree -trunk, called also the dugout. Possibly by the aid of fire I might with patience construct such a thing by months of hard work ; and by adding an outrigger log or float, after the manner of the South-Sea islanders, such a canoe could possibly be rendered capable of navigating the sea in favorable weather. Then again there was the whole class of skin boats such as the Esquimaux use ; the Greenlander's kayak made of skins stretched over a framework, and " decked over " like a modern canoe. But how could I build a boat without tools to work with ? I lay thus for an hour or two watching the embers and thinking over one plan after another, until I felt in- clined to sleep. When I turned over with my back to the fire, I could see along the beach where the moon- light glinted and sparkled on the sand and shells and pebbles, tinging each wave with liquid silver, as it ran up in graceful curves upon the sand. I was looking on this scene of magic beauty with the soft fingers of sleep just ready to press down my eyelids 26 THE SPANISH GALLEOW. when I saw what I thought was a rock just in the wash of the breakers, begin slowly to move. Was this a fancy or was it a fact? I roused myself and watched the object intently. Yes, it was slowly moving out of the water upon the sand. I realized instantly that it was a turtle making for the sand in order to lay her eggs. Here was a good supply of meat which could be kept an indefinite time, to be obtained by the simple process of turning the creature on its back. I watched the creature crawl slowly up in the moon- light until it was four or five rods from the water, and waited a minute to see if it would go further. Then I quietly reached for a piece of wood which might be used as a lever to help me turn it over, and ran as swiftly as I could for about three hundred yards so as to get between it and the sea. But the turtle did not seem to comprehend the situation, at least it did not move until I ran close up to it and thrust the stick beneath it. Then it began to walk away, and as it did so it rose up on its fins to such a height that my lever slipped and turned, and I could get no purchase on it. I immedi- ately made up my mind that turtle are not to be turned with a lever. So dropping the stick, I seized the shell with both hands and with a mighty effort heaved the creature over on its back as skilfully as though I had been a veteran turtle-turner. As soon as I had regained my breath. I scraped away the stones and sand until there was a level space around the turtle, so that it could not possibly work itself over again, and then contemplated my prize. It was a mag- nificent specimen of the hawk's-bill variety of sea turtle, and would doubtless weigh one hundred and fifty pounds. Visions of turtle soup and steaks floated through my mind. But I could not afford to kill this THE FOOD SUPPLY, 2J great creature until I had salt with which to preserve the meat ; otherwise I could not hope to consume a tenth of it before it would spoil. Quite content with this piece of good-luck, I returned to my shelter and, lying down, kept watch for another such prize ; but none came, and after an hour or two my eyelids grew heavy again, and the glitter of the moon- light on the sand, and the ceaseless motion of the waves, seemed to mingle together in a swimming confusion, until I lost myself and the moonlit waves and shore to- gether in a dreamless sleep. CHAPTER III. HOUSE-BUILDING. BRIGHT and early the next morning I awoke to what I felt must be a busy day. A plunge in the sea, a good bath in the brook, and a frugal breakfast of cocoanuts consumed but a few minutes of the time, which, being now practically my sole capital, must be ex- pended with due regard to economy. The turtle was lying safe on its back, and as the sun would soon be very hot, my first care was to break off some shrubs and erect a shade for the creature. I should have been glad to pour a few buckets of sea water over it, but buckets were not among my present conveniences. The first work on hand was of course the lime-burn- ing. I found a great piece of bark, which I loosened from a fallen and partially decayed log, and used as a sort of tray on which to carry the separate heaps of shells to the spot where the burning was to be done. To economize time and labor, I concluded to burn the lime at the spot where I should subsequently want it. I selected for this purpose a flat piece of smooth sand free of stones and just above high tide, where the waves could not in ordinary weather wash into it. With my hands and pieces of bark I scooped out a basin about ten feet square and a foot in depth, throwing the sand up all around in a low bank. In this basin I piled dry wood and the shells in layers until the pile was five or six feet high. This took me until noon, working hard every minute, with the perspiration streaming from every pore. Then HOUSE-BUILDING. 29 I discovered that my fire was out. But I had no trouble to start another with the burning-glass, as the sun was shining fiercely and so directly overhead that I had to search for my shadow. Presently the great flames were roaring and leaping high in the air and casting out such a heat that I was glad to retire to the brook for a drink and a cocoanut lunch while waiting for the fuel to burn out. As I rested in the shade, I employed myself in twist- ing or rudely spinning some cord out of the fibre of the cocoanut husks. I first pounded the husk between two stones until the fibre was reduced to a mass resembling coarse hemp, and then began to draw it out and twist it as one twists a hay band, only into a slenderer thread. As fast as it became twisted, I wound the thread on a short stick about six inches long and a quarter of an inch in diameter. With the cord wound smoothly on this stick, and a half-hitch taken around one end, I could roll the cord and stick between my hand and leg to give the twist necessary for the spinning operation, and at the same time use the other hand to manipulate the entangling fibres. By this simple process it was pos- sible to produce the thread, or coir, quite rapidly. In about an hour and a half my great fire was burned to the ground, and as a result there lay in the shallow excavation a mingled mass of embers, ashes, lime, frag- ments of partly burned shells, wood, and charcoal. Of course the ground beneath was very hot, and I could not work among the embers and hot fragments. The tide was now beginning to come in, and I dug a trench from the pit to the sea, through which the water flowed till it quenched the fire and slaked the lime, and partly sinking in the porous sand, left a muddy compound of lime, ashes, and sand, all over the bottom of the pit. I filled and plastered up the trench except a narrow gate- 30 THE SPANISH GALLEON. way, cleaned out the sticks and fragments, and sprinkled dry sand over the mud, raking it well in and smoothing the surface as much as possible with the aid of sticks and a great clam-shell. It now remained for me only to let the cement or mortar set and dry, and then, I hoped, it would prove impervious to water. There were still some hours of daylight, which could not be better employed, I thought, than upon the con- struction of some better shelter than the upturned chest had afforded. All day I had been turning over in my mind a plan for a hut or shanty that I fancied might be quickly and easily built. There was no telling how long the fair weather, which had now lasted for several days, might continue, and the utter wretchedness of existence if a storm should find me without a shelter was not to be patiently contemplated. In gathering fuel near the edge of the forest I had noticed a great quantity of dead stalks standing six or seven feet high, straight as an arrow and perhaps an inch and a half in diameter except where they tapered at the top. The plant looked like some species of hibiscus. Any quantity of these stalks was to be had, and they were light yet strong enough for my purpose. I selected a nice level piece of dry sand near the stream and fifty yards or so from the sea as a site for my proposed house. The shadow from a clump of cocoanut palms fell upon the spot for a part of the day, and near by was a bit of rock where I had sat at noon spinning coir. Two young palms grew there about eight feet apart, the trunks of which would serve for the main supports of the structure. I hunted about in the forest until I found a reasonably straight stick, that would reach from one of these trees to the other, to serve as a ridgepole, and lashed it firmly to them with some of my cocoanut cord, about eight feet from the HO USE-B UILDING. 3 1 ground. Then I brought hibiscus stalks, taking care to cut their butts diagonally. They were easily severed by a single blow. These stalks I set upright in the sand ; as firmly as possible, for the four walls of the hut, each wall consisting of two rows, the inner row being planted close together and the outer row parallel to it at a distance of about an inch and a half, the stalks of the outer row being separated from one another three or four inches. When they were set up, which did not take long as I made no effort to drive them very firmly in the sand, I cut off the tops of the stalks forming the end walls to the shape that the roof was subsequently to take, and reduced the side walls to a common level. In the side next the sea I left an opening for a doorway. The space between the rows of stalks it was my intention to fill with dry grass laid horizontally, and to lay in at intervals stalks of hibiscus, finishing off the top of the walls with a good stout stalk of the same, laid in all around and lashed to both rows with cord. This, I thought, would make a reasonably stout and weather- proof wall, and so it subsequently turned out. But as night came on at this stage of the work, I could not complete even the walls of my hut before dark, and was fain to content myself with my bed under the chest. I was awakened from a sound sleep by something crawling over me. Forgetful of where I was, I sprang up erect, and my head, coming violently in contact with the chest, overturned it, while I fell back half stunned with the blow. The moon had gone down and the stars were shining brightly, but there was not light enough to see anything distinctly except on the water, where a phosphorescent gleam lighted up the breaking waves with a pale greenish glow which ran in streaks along the surface. 32 THE SPANISH GALLEON. As soon as I could collect my scattered senses and get upon my feet, I began to grope around in search of the cause of the disturbance. Presently a loathsome, warty, tuberculous land crab scuttled over my naked foot, and I could then make out literally hundreds of shadowy forms sidling over the sand. There was no more sleep for me that night, and I was glad to think from the appearance of the sky that it was not more than two hours before the dawn. As I had already been sleeping for eight or ten hours I felt rested, but was faint with hunger. Cocoanut no longer had an attrac- tion for me, but as there was nothing else at hand I forced myself to eat enough to relieve my faintness. A good cup of coffee or even a bowl of hot soup would have seemed a fortune to me then, but I was obliged to be satisfied with a deep draught of water, which lay in my stomach sensibly cold and heavy. It was evident that there was no time to lose in getting more nutritious food than cocoanuts, if I was to keep my strength. This determined me to kill the turtle that very morning, without waiting for the slow operation of the salt pan even if it proved ready to fill with sea water that day ; for the evaporation of such an amount of water might take several days before the residue was salt enough for brine. I went to look at the captive and found it as I had left it the day before. I watched the eastern horizon patiently for signs of dawn. Finally a gray pale glow lit up the sky and slowly changed to a tender pink and primrose, then suddenly the golden rim of the sun shot up and daylight as suddenly took the place of night. The streaks and wreaths of mist that lay sleeping in the hollows of the waves floated away and dissolved. It did not take me long to kill and dress the turtle, and to pack the meat, both callipash and callipee, as HOUSE-BUILDING. 33 the two sorts composing a turtle's anatomy are termed, into the upper shell and to cover it up with the breast plate. I now resolved to have some hot tuitle soup. Among the photographic apparatus were two shallow developing-trays, made of sheet iron and lined with porcelain. They were about an inch in depth and six by ten inches in their lateral dimensions. While these would serve well enough perhaps to stew or fry the meat in, they did not hold enough to make soup. There was, however, a large glass bottle holding a gallon, filled with a solution of hyposulphite of soda to be used as a fixing solution for photographic negatives. This I emptied and washed thoroughly with sand and water until it was perfectly clean. Cutting some of the meat into small fragments, I put them into the bottle until it was a third full, then filled it with equal parts of sea water and fresh water, as this proportion seemed to taste about salt enough. I then set the bottle in the hot ashes until the contents were warm, gradually moving it nearer and nearer the fire, until finally all was so hot that I no longer feared the heat would crack the glass ; so, drawing out some embers, I set the bottle boldly upon them, where the water soon began to simmer and gently boil. In the mean time, I stewed some of the meat with sea water in a developing-tray for immediate consumption, and of this made a good breakfast. After breakfast I examined the salt pan to see if the cement had set sufficiently, but found that the mortar was still somewhat friable and not hard though seemingly quite dry. I concluded, therefore, to let it harden for another twenty-four hours before putting it to the test ; but to obtain a small supply of salt for immediate use I filled the two developing trays with sea water and set them on the fire to boil. 3 34 THE SPANISH GALLEON. When these operations were fairly under way, I re- sumed the house-building. First I gathered a great quantity of coarse, dry grass in the bottom land of the creek and laid it in the walls in the manner already described. When this was completed to my satisfaction, I began the construction of the roof after the following fashion : From the ridgepole to the side walls I laid at intervals of six inches hibiscus-stalk rafters, securing them in place at both ends by hay bands twisted out of the dry, tough grass, the lower ends of the rafters pro- jecting to form eaves. On these rafters and parallel to the ridgepole I tied in like manner other stalks, at in- tervals of six inches. Here was a light and reasonably strong framework ready to receive a thatching of grass or palm leaves, but I concluded that grass would be preferable as it would make a roof better calculated to resist the wind. Night was now approaching, and as, the weather seemed as settled as ever, the lack of the thatch would be no special hardship. I hurried therefore to drag my chest up to the house and arrange my bed of grass within the walls, guarding against another intrusion of the land crabs by means of a row of short hibiscus stalks across the doorway. The result of the day's boiling of sea water in my developing-trays was some- thing over a tablespoonful of salt. The soup which had been simmering all day in the bottle was delicious, and I made a hearty supper of part of it and some of the boiled meat. With the photographic apparatus were two chemist's graduated glasses, one of eight and one of four ounces. These made capital drinking-cups. The larger one I used for that purpose, and into the smaller put the precious, hard-earned salt. As I had no notion to go to bed with the sun, I cast about for something to occupy the two or three hours HOUSE-BUILDING. 35 before bedtime, and concluded to fry up a store of turtle meat in my trays. By nine o'clock I had thus prepared fully twenty pounds of the meat, which I piled upon a pavement of clam-shells in one corner of the house. The land crabs being duly fenced out, I turned in and slept soundly all night. In the morning I was up at break of day, and ate a breakfast of hot soup. Immediately after breakfast I began to thatch my roof. For this purpose I carefully cut bundles of the long, dry grass, and beginning at the eaves, laid a row, butts down, in a layer about three inches in thickness. On this, near the tops of the grass, I tied a stalk of the hibiscus ; then another layer of grass, covering the first down two thirds of its length and covering also the hibiscus stalk; and so on, layer after layer, on both pitches of the roof, until the ridge- pole was reached. At the comb of the ridge I finished all by bending down the grass at each side and securing it with a couple of the stalks, one at each side. I then heaped up the sand around the bottom of the walls on the outside, to give greater stability to the structure, and dug a ditch to prevent the water from flooding the in- terior if it should come down faster than the sandy soil could absorb it. The next thing to make was some sort of door, and the planning and fashioning of this gave me occasion for no little thought and trouble. Finally, after trying other methods unsuccessfully, I rigged up a sort of roll- ing blind out of the stalks by cutting a number of them of a length a little greater than the width of the door- way and tying them close together by a cord at each end and one in the middle, so that the whole would be flexible like a curtain. This I hung over the doorway and attached a loop at each lower corner to secure it when it was down. When the door was to be opened 36 THE SPANISH GALLEON. this curtain could be rolled up and held in position by pulling a cord, or could be swung aside when ingress or egress merely was desired. Along the walls inside I made some rude shelves of hibiscus stalks, so that I might have my small possessions handy and safe. I intended as soon as convenient to spin a good sup- ply of cord and make a hammock to swing from one of the palm pillars to the other. In the mean time, as a temporary expedient for a bed, I laid a platform of hibiscus stalks in one corner, and covered them with a thick layer of grass. For ventilation and light, I cut under the projecting eaves four openings, or windows, into which, so sheltered, the rain would not be likely to drive. The chest answered for a seat or table as occasion required. Here was a reasonably comfortable dwelling where I should be safe from the rain. And, indeed, it was com- pleted none too soon, for even as I was sitting in the house on the chest, resting and contemplating my work, I heard the wind rustling among the palm leaves and was sensible of a darkening of the sky, which betokened a storm. The swaying of the two young palms which held the ridgepole at once warned me that the motion was likely to rack and weaken the whole structure. The tops of these two trees must come off at once. By hauling out the chest and using it as a scaffolding, I could reach the palm trunks at a point above the ridge- pole ; but when I tried to cut the tree with my knife, I found it would take too long to sever it. Therefore, the only way was to climb the slender trunk and break off its branches. One of the trunks bent so under my weight as to break short off above the ridgepole, drop- ping me on the sand, but without harm. The other one I succeeded in denuding of its crown of leaves. The storm was coming up grandly from the southeast. HOUSE-BUILDING. 37 The sea in that direction was of an indigo tint streaked with flashes of foam, and above hung a leaden mass of clouds with a touch of copper-color here and there, where the internal fires flashed and glowed. The wind sank to a perfect calm, and occasionally a great drop of rain fell warm as blood. I had brought all the contents of the chest up near the hut, and I now hurried to get them under the shelter. The fire was smouldering near by, and there was a good supply of wood piled near it. I hurriedly carried this into the house, and also four or five charred and ignited sticks, which I placed in the middle of the room on the sand together in such man- ner that they would smoulder slowly there and keep alight. The smoke might be an annoyance, but as soon as there was a draught of air, it would drift out through the ventilators, and I could keep to windward of it. Finally I ran out and dragged in my turtle shell with its store of meat, and put that also under shelter. The calm still continued deathlike and dark. When all was under shelter and I had returned from the brook with my goblet filled with fresh water, I stood at the open door, looking at the sea. Suddenly, without any further warning, down came the rain in bucketfuls, fall- ing in vertical lines, such a shower as is rarely seen. The roof held tight, the water streaming from it like a cataract, but not a drop coming through to the interior. In about twenty minutes the rain as suddenly ceased. Looking out over the ocean, I saw on the surface a streak of blue-black water, parallel with the horizon and flecked with tiny streaks of white, advancing. The squall was coming. Hurriedly I unrolled my door- curtain and fastened it securely at the bottom. I was just in time. As the blast struck the house, the whole structure trembled and swayed, but held fast. I could 38 THE SPANISH GALLEON. hear the shrieking of the wind as it swept through the neighboring palms, and the occasional crash of a break- ing stem mingled with the dashing rain which now drove violently against the roof and walls, and I thanked my good-fortune that this shelter was ready. This gale continued to blow until long after dark. Indeed it was still raging when I fell asleep, to dream of shipwrecks and hurricanes. When I awoke early in the morning and looked out through the ventilator, I found that the wind had fallen to a moderate breeze and had veered around to the northeast, bringing a dense fog, and that a fine rain was falling with a settled appearance such as betokened a wet day. My first care was to look after my fire. It was almost out, and to rekindle it from the few smoul- dering sparks was a matter requiring very tender man- ipulation. But at last I had it going again, and my pans of turtle meat stewing and frying on a gentle blaze, that demanded to be watched constantly. This was a good time to overhaul my stock of books to see what they were, and to find out whether the salt water had left them in condition for use. They were now perfectly dry, but the bindings were warped and loosened. The leaves were in many places stuck to- gether, and yellow and brown leather stains had crept in about the margins. But they still held together and were legible. The books consisted of a dozen well- selected novels, a manual of photography, the United States Dispensatory, a student's manual of botany, a school geology, and a German word-book. Looking over these books while I lay on my couch, with an occasional glance at the cooking, I passed the time very pleasantly all the morning. At noon the rain still continued ; so, not to be idle, HOUSE-BUILDING. 39 I ran out and picked up some freshly fallen cocoanuts both to vary my diet and to obtain a supply of fibre for spinning. The whole afternoon was spent in preparing the fibre and spinning it into cord, and by night I had accumulated quite enough to make me a hammock. This, I resolved, should be my next task if the foul weather continued. The smoke from the smouldering fire was a source of great annoyance, by getting into my eyes. I determined to remedy this as soon as I could, by erecting a fireplace and chimney of some sort. But in the mean time I utilized this annoying guest as much as possible by hanging several sticks full of strips of the turtle meat in the peak of the roof, where the smoke collected thickest, that it might become partially cured. This, I hoped, would preserve it, as it had been lying in sea water in the shell ; and so it proved. For after this smoking the meat dried without taint, and, as I subse- quently found, made most excellent eating. With melted turtle fat, a clam-shell, and a wick made of fibre, I improvised a light, and after it grew dark, fell to looking over my library until bedtime, the rain still pattering on the thatch when I retired. The next morn- ing the weather was still boisterous, the rain driving and the heavy mists sweeping along the sea. The leaden clouds still hung low and dark. This day I spent in- doors working at my hammock and varying the monot- ony by hanging up the last of the meat to smoke, look- ing over my books and wishing for fair weather. I finished the hammock, but could not use it on account of the smoke, and was obliged to sleep on my pallet as before. As the turtle fat was all gone and therefore no light was to be had, I turned in early and awoke in the morning at dawn. On going out I found the sky clear and the sun rising fair. All the foliage looked fresh and 4O THE SPANISH GALLEON. bright after the rain, and the birds were cheerfully sing- ing in the forest. It was a glorious change, and my confinement in the house for two days gave added zest to it. This would be a good day for an explor- ing trip, and I thought I would spend it in such an expedition. CHAPTER IV. PIG-HUNTING. AMONG the photographic appliances there was a sort of haversack or bag with a shoulder-strap, designed to contain plate-holders. This I emptied and stored with a supply of fried turtle meat and a small bottle of water. About seven o'clock I started up the bed of the brook, as affording the easiest path by which to pene- trate the forest that, coming down nearly to the beach, extended on each hand as far as I could see. To the south was a stretch of low land, perhaps twenty acres in extent, covered for the most part with grass, and in the lowest portion with reeds and rushes. Just as the brook emerged from the forest it was shadowed by a dense mass of tall canes. The grass I had used in the con- struction of my house was a coarse variety growing from two and a half to three feet in height. On the higher ground grew a slenderer variety with heavy seed heads, a sample of which I gathered as it seemed to resemble canary seed, and might serve as food. Great quantities of this grass grew thickly on the knolls and higher parts of the upland. The water deepened where I waded through the canebrake, and ran with a sluggish current. I gathered a great bundle of rushes, and laid them on the bank, intending to pick them up on my return. They would be useful in weaving me a substitute for a hat, a convenience which I lacked at that time. Just at the farther border of the canebrake, there was a muddy place where pigs had evidently been wal- 42 THE SPANISH GALLEON. lowing, for I found thousands of tracks about. Here was a favorite resort for them, not above a quarter of a mile from my house ; but I wasted no time then hunting for this game, as I had formed no plan for its capture. One thing I wanted to find was a bed of clay, which could be put to many valuable uses, especially the build- ing of a fireplace and chimney. There was reason to believe that plenty was to be had on the island, which was of volcanic formation, and moreover the water of the brook, swollen by the recent rain, was stained as though with clay. As I neared the line of cliff and rocks that formed the central ridge or back-bone of the island, the course of the stream bent to the north, and the forest was inter- spersed with small open glades where the great butter- flies floated across through the sunshine, the metallic satiny blue of their lustrous wings glancing in the light. A flock of parrots with green, red, and blue plumage were chattering and screaming noisily in the bordering trees, and an occasional little green lizard would dash along the fallen trunks or over the rocks like a flash of emerald light. In one of these glades I found a quan- tity of shrubs growing about ten feet high and loaded with berries about the size of pepper-corns. The out- side of these berries seemed covered with a greenish white wax. The leaf was somewhat like the myrtle. A sample of this, and of several other varieties of vegeta- tion which were strange to me, I gathered to take home for identification in my manual of botany. I may here state that this berry-bearing shrub turned out to be the wax myrtle (Myrica cerifera of the botanists), and that the waxy coating of the berries was what is known as bay-berry tallow. This wax can be readily collected by boiling the drupes and skimming it off as it rises to the surface of the water ; and a bushel of the berries will PIG-HUNTING. 43 yield from four to five pounds of the wax, which can be employed to make excellent candles. Near the cliffs I came upon a fine bed of clay, and I was so delighted with this discovery that I immediately began casting about for means of transporting a good supply to my house. The bed was distant from the house, as nearly as I could judge, about two miles, and the labor of carrying such heavy material would be very great. The best plan would be to knock together a raft of dry wood and float the clay down stream as a cargo. Vines and creepers to serve as cordage to tie the dead wood together were abundant, nor did it take me long to collect the wood and fashion the raft. Indeed, the harder task proved to be the digging out of the tough clay, as the only implements I had for this purpose were pointed sticks. But I finally cut a sharp, heavy stake of hard wood, and by driving this into the clay, was able to pry off large chunks, and soon had a load ready. On the raft I laid some broad leaves and pieces of bark to serve as a deck, and on this placed the clay in a great heap, as much as the raft would carry in the shallow water. Tying a long creeper to the raft, by which to pull, guide, or hold it back, as the navigation might re- quire, I started it off into the current, and wading in the shallow stream, followed it down, holding on to the line as it floated away. Barring an occasional grounding in the shallow places, my raft floated serenely along at a good pace, and soon reached port, where I unloaded the clay and drew out the raft to serve as firewood. This was a good job well done, and I more than once regretted the time I had wasted in the lime-burning task, for had I found this clay sooner, a much better salt pan could have been made with it than with the mortar. This thought caused me to go and examine the salt pan. I found the mortar on the bottom dry 44 THE SPANISH GALLEON. and hard, so I opened the gate that the sea water might flow in at the next tide and fill it. The first use to be made of the clay was in the build- ing of a fireplace and chimney for the house. My plan was to build up the structure of sticks, cob-house fash- ion, and then chink and plaster it with a good coating of clay. Before this could be done, however, it would be necessary to put the clay through some pugging process by which it could be rendered soft and plastic. This I accomplished by trampling the clay with my naked feet, adding a sprinkling of water now and then, until I had a mass of soft, mortar-like consistency. Then on the outside of the house I built up the fireplace close against the wall, and carried the chimney up about a foot above the highest part of the roof, plastering the sticks inside thoroughly with the soft clay. When this was done I cut through the wall to the fireplace, and plastered clay on the jambs to make all tight. The hearth I formed of harder clay, well pounded down and mixed with the sand. If no wind came until the struc- ture was dry, it would become hard and strong enough to resist anything short of a hurricane. That the drying might be more rapid, I immediately built a good fire in it, and was rejoiced to find the draught excellent and the effect of the bright firelight upon the interior quite pleasant and homelike. This work occupied the whole day. In the evening I brought a good supply of clay into the house, and using the chest as a work-bench, busied myself until bedtime with moulding several vessels of different shapes and sizes for use in cooking and about the house. I fashioned a rude pot capable of holding about five gallons ; a smaller one to hold a gallon or thereabouts ; a water-jar with two handles by which it might be swung with a cord from the ridgepole, PIG-HUNTING. 45 to contain drinking-water ; and others of various shapes and sizes. All these I dusted over inside and out with dry sand and set aside where they might dry ready for burning. That night I slept for the first time in my hammock, and the change was a comfortable one, though in the early morning hours I felt the need of some warm covering. For however hot the days might be, the nights on the island were always cool. However, when it got chilly I turned out and heaped the dry grass of my former bed into the hammock, and was soon warm enough. In the morning, after setting my vessels out in the sun, I turned to the careful examination of all the sam- ples of vegetation which I had collected, carefully look- ing them up in the Botany to find their names and properties, and also in the Dispensatory. The seed- bearing grass was undoubtedly canary grass. Besides this and the wax-bearing myrtle, the only other notable sample was a species of india-rubber-bearing artocarpus. As the canary grass was ripe, I thought I could not do better than to harvest a good supply of it at once. The whole of that day and the next were spent in gathering it and stacking it up near the house. The labor was very great, as my knife was a poor substitute for a sickle ; but the necessity of some sort of farinaceous food spurred me on. I gathered in all a great stack ten feet in diameter and twelve feet high at the peak. This I thatched with grass, just as I had seen grain stacks thatched at home, that it might be protected from the wet. Great flocks of small birds were feeding upon this seed where it grew, and I trapped a dozen or more by unhinging the chest lid and using it propped up with a stick as a trap. To try the character of the seed as food, I parched a 46 THE SPANISH GALLEON. pint of it over the fire and then crushed it in a great bivalve shell with a round stone into a coarse meal. This meal I mixed with water and salt, and it made a very good sort of cold gruel. This, with the birds broiled on the coals, made quite the best meal I had so far eaten on the island. The salt pan had already begun to yield salt, which was crystallizing along the edges as the water evaporated. The smoked turtle meat continued good, and I relished it very much. The weather remained fine from day to day, and I had strong hopes that a vessel might heave in sight at any moment. As a preparation for such a chance I laid a pile of wood ready to make a signal fire, and as a per- manent signal selected an isolated palm-tree and denud- ing it of its leaves, tied a great stick across it near the top, an arrangement which, I hoped, might attract the attention of a passing vessel should I fail to see it. Of material to make a flag I had nothing to spare except the square of black focussing-cloth belonging to the camera, and this I needed every night as a covering, as it was all I had for that purpose. As soon as my pots and other vessels were thoroughly dry I built a great pile of dry wood over them and set fire to it. I greatly feared some of them might crack with the heat, but fortunately they all came out in a ser- viceable condition though by no means very hard. Now that I had a large vessel in which water could be boiled, I bethought me of the wax berries and made several trips to gather a store of them. These I boiled in my large pot, and skimmed off the wax until I had collected fully forty pounds of it, the product of about ten bushels of the berries. Of this wax I made candles, or rather rushlights, by dipping dry rushes into the melted wax and letting it cool on them. When one coat of wax set I would dip the rush again, and so on, until PIG-HUNTING. 47 each rush had four good coats. One of these candles would burn about four hours and give a good steady light without sputtering or guttering, though the rush wick required occasional snuffing. These lights were a great comfort to me at night, for I could read and do light work until bedtime without the necessity of keep- ing up a hot fire. It was by candle-light that I made me a hat out of rushes as follows : Selecting about fifty of the cleanest and slenderest I could find, and all of about equal length, I tied them firmly together by a cord wound tightly around near the butts. Then I interwove stalks of the tough, heavy grass, spreading the rushes out into a conical shape until large enough to fit comfortably on my head. This was the body of the hat. The brim was produced in the same manner by bending out the ends of the rushes to a common horizontal plane and then interweaving the grass as before, finishing the edge of the brim with a grass selvage. This made a light, cool structure, sufficient to keep the sun off my head, and far more comfortable than the handkerchief I had worn wound about it as my sole head-covering up to this time. Now that the salt pan was doing its work, and a supply of salt within a few days was considerably more than a mere possibility, I felt justified in endeavoring to obtain a store of meat. My mind turned to the turtle and the pigs, especially the latter ; for if I could by any means capture a pig, there would be several weeks' rations, at least, of fresh, salted, and smoked pork. Visions of broiled ham and bacon troubled my dreams. I made an effort to capture another turtle, watching the beach for the good part of a night ; but I saw none. The next morning, I determined to go upon a regularly organized pig-hunt. The only method of capturing 48 THE SPANISH GALLEON. them was by means of a lasso or the bolas. The forty- foot line that came ashore around the chest would make an excellent lasso, and I rigged it at once with a slip noose. I also cut a hard-wood pole about eight feet in length, charred the end in the fire to harden it, and made it sharp for use as a lance. A bolas was contrived out of two stones tied, one at each end, to a stout cord six feet long. Thus accoutred, I struck off from the creek and made a detour through the dense jungle so as to force the game into the stream, or at least to be upon higher ground if they should prove to be in the mud, as I hoped would be the case. The labor of penetrating the dense scrub was very great, and the heat intense ; not a breath of air could reach these fastnesses, and perspiration poured from me as though I were in a Turkish bath. After a two-hours struggle I found myself nearing the place, and it became necessary to move with the great- est caution. Every few minutes I would stop and listen. Presently I could hear the murmur of the brook, and crawling along cautiously, I came to a fallen tree, the trunk of which reached quite to the stream. By follow- ing this down carefully, I came to a point where I could see the wallowing-place. There, sure enough, were the pigs, a score or more in number, mostly lying asleep and half buried in the mud. I studied the whole situation rapidly but thoroughly. It seemed probable from the lay of the ground that if something could frighten the animals from the other side, they would naturally rush under the fallen tree just below me. Indeed, there was a well-beaten track at this place going under the trunk, which was at this point about five feet from the ground, and the stream, the canebrake, and the dense jungle made this by far the easiest route for the pigs. My plan was made instantly, thus : I would throw PIC-HUNTING, 49 the bolas at a half-grown pig that was rooting about near the jungle on the farther side of the group, and take my chance of the herd coming this way when they broke. I unrolled my lasso and laid it ready for instant use, placed my lance where it could be grasped, and cautiously rising, that I might have free play, swung the bolas around twice and let it fly. Gyrating like twin planets, the stones sped fairly through the air, true to the mark ; one passed under the pig, and the other swung behind him, wrapping the cords around the hind-quar- ters and legs, and bowling him over like a ten-pin. The little fellow set up a squeal, and then, whoof! whoof! with a grunt and a squeal, the whole herd sprang up, looked around, saw their overturned and struggling companion, and started directly toward my place of concealment. In the mean time I had crouched down out of view, and spread my noose ready for busi- ness. Underneath they ran squealing and snorting in great panic, and I let them pass as I had my eye on a great boar who was very deliberate in his movements and appeared to disdain undignified flight. He slowly advanced, however, champing his tusks until they frothed, and shaking his great head. I thought it best, in view of his great size and weight, to take a turn of the lasso around a limb and give it a hitch as a holdfast, as my own strength would not be enough to stop the brute. I had scarcely done this when his head came under the tree, and I swung the noose deftly over it as he emerged, and then hauled in the slack. The astonished beast sprang forward with a great bound and jerked the rope from my hands with such violence that I was thrown to the ground. When I scrambled up I saw the rope tighten until it sung in the air like a bowstring, and then slacken again. I could not see the boar, as he was hidden in 4 5