Chapter XIII · IN THE TRACK OF PLATE-FLEETS AND BUCCANEERS

“O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,

Our thoughts are boundless and our souls as free,

Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,

Survey our empire and behold our home!

These are our realms, no limits to their sway,

Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.

Ours the wild life in tumult still to range

From toil to rest, and joy in every change.”

—Byron, The Corsair.

Barranquilla, a city of about sixty-five thousand inhabitants, is notable for being the chief port of entry of Colombia. It is estimated that two-thirds of the commerce of the republic converges at this point. To us, coming from the interior of the country, where comparatively little business is transacted, the place seemed to be a marvel of activity and business enterprise. It counts a large number of important business houses, the chief of which are controlled by foreigners. It is provided with tram-ways, electric lights, telephones, a good water supply and, in many respects, reminds one of our progressive cities on the Gulf Coast. Many of the private residences, especially in the more elevated quarters of the city, are models of comfort and good taste. The average annual temperature is 80° F., but the refreshing breezes from the Caribbean make it seem less. At no time during our sojourn of more than a week in the city, had we reason to complain of the excessive heat of which so much has been said and written.

Although Barranquilla was founded in 1629, it is only within the last third of a century that it has come to the front as the leading entrepot of the republic. Before this time, Cartagena and Santa Marta were Colombia’s principal ports and busiest marts. This change in the relative importance of these three ports was effected by the construction of a great pier at Savanilla and connecting it with Barranquilla by rail. After this both Cartagena and Santa Marta rapidly dwindled in importance as distributing centres, while the growth of Barranquilla was correspondingly rapid. Were it not for the banana industry, controlled by the United Fruit Company, an American corporation, Santa Marta’s trade would now be little more than nominal.

But why, it will be asked, do not ocean vessels dock at Barranquilla instead of unloading so far away from the city? The usual answer given, and in a way the correct one, is that the Magdalena is not deep enough to permit the passage of so large vessels. We saw one venturesome ocean liner stranded near the mouth of the river on a sand bar, where it had been washed and pounded for nearly two years. Many attempts had been made to float her but without success, and it seemed as if she was destined to remain a captive of the treacherous shoal that had so long held her in its unyielding grasp. The real reason, however, for not having the landing place where it should be—in the city itself—is the lack of the capital that would be required to dredge the river, and enlarge the canal, and keep them both in a condition that would insure the safe passage of vessels of heavy draft. Given an engineer like James B. Eades, of Mississippi jetties fame, and the necessary capital, the improvement would soon be effected.

Before leaving Bogotá we had planned to reach Barranquilla in time to take an English steamer from Savanilla—Puerto Colombia—to Colon. We then flattered ourselves that, after reaching the mouth of the Magdalena, we should have no difficulty in making connection for any part of the world, and that delay in continuing our journey was the last thing to be apprehended.

But alas and alack! Where we least expected it, we were doomed to disappointment. We had crossed the continent without a single failure to connect, as we had anticipated, except at Barrigón, where we were detained a day, and had not experienced a single disagreeable delay, and now, when we had reached the world lines of travel, we were informed that the steamer we had intended to take had been laid up for repairs, and that we should be obliged to wait a week before another would arrive.

There was nothing to do but resign ourselves to the inevitable. Barranquilla is not a place where a traveler would care to remain long as a matter of choice, but we managed to make ourselves comfortable. The time passed more quickly and pleasantly than we anticipated, but, just as we began to make preparations for our departure, we found ourselves the victims of a new disappointment. The steamer that we were to take was forbidden to land at Savanilla, in consequence of having stopped at Trinidad, which was then reported to be infected by the bubonic plague.

“Truly,” we said, “we are getting into the region of mañana—delay and disappointment—just at the moment when we thought we were leaving it.”

We had been so fortunate thus far, and that too in lands where, we had been assured, everything would be against us and where the best-laid plans would be frustrated, that we were ill prepared for delay where it was least expected. Happily for us, however, a steamer, having a clean bill of health, but belonging to another line, was due in a few days, and this we determined to take, for we did not know when we should be able to get another one. When once the plague appears in the West Indies, or on the mainland bordering the Caribbean, quarantine regulations are strictly enforced, and the luckless traveler may find himself a prisoner for weeks, and even months, in a place that is practically destitute of the commonest comforts and conveniences of life. Then, indeed, his lot—especially if he is not familiar with the language of the country—is far from enviable. I have met with many people who, under such untoward conditions, had to endure the greatest privations and sufferings.

By the greatest good fortune, it seemed to us, we finally got aboard a good, comfortable vessel. It was not, however, bound for our objective point—Colon—but for Puerto Limon, in Costa Rica. This, although we did not know it at the time, was a blessing in disguise. Had we gone directly to Colon, we should have been obliged to spend some time in quarantine. By going to Costa Rica, we escaped this and were able, during a week, to combine utile dulci—study with pleasure—under the most favorable and delightful circumstances.

From Puerto Colombia we went directly to Cartagena—a city that, in some respects, possessed a greater interest for us than any we had hitherto visited in South America. We entered this famous harbor, large enough to hold all the navies of the world, early in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to impart a subdued roseate glow to the tiled roofs of the loftier buildings of the once flourishing metropolis of New Granada.

The picture of Cartagena, as it first presented itself to our view, was one of rarest loveliness. As we then saw it, it was not unlike Venice as seen from Il Lido or from the deck of a steamer arriving from Trieste. From another point as we advanced into the placid bay, we discerned in it a resemblance to Alexandria, as viewed from the Mediterranean. As Venice has been called the Queen of the Adriatic, so also, and justly, did the beauteous city of Pedro de Heredia long bear the proud title of Reina de las Indias y Reina de los Mares, Queen of the Indies and Queen of the Seas.

One of the first cities built on Tierra Firme, it was also, for a long period, one of the most important places in the New World. Its fortifications and the massive walls that girdle it have long been celebrated. Even now these are the features that have the greatest attraction for the visitor. Stupendous is the only word that adequately characterizes them. Their immensity impresses one like the pyramids of Ghizeh, and this impression is fully confirmed when one learns their cost and the number of men engaged in their construction. It is said that from thirty to one hundred thousand men were employed on this titanic undertaking, and that it cost no less than fifty-nine million dollars—a fabulous sum for that period. This reminds one of what historians relate regarding the building of the pyramid of Cheops, the greatest and most enduring of human monuments, as the walls of Cartagena are the grandest and most imposing evidence of Spanish power in the western hemisphere. So great was the draft made on the royal exchequer by the construction of these massive walls that Philip II, so the story runs, one day seized a field glass and looking in the direction of Cartagena, murmured with disenchanted irony: “Can one see those walls? They must be very high, for the price paid?”

No wonder that Charles V was always in need of money, and that, to secure it, he was forced to mortgage a large tract of land in Venezuela to the Welsers, the German bankers of Augsburg. No wonder that Philip II, despite the stream of gold and silver that flowed into his coffers from his vast possessions beyond the sea, was, during the second half of his reign, forced to see his royal signature dishonored by bankers who refused him further credit!

Cartagena in Colombia was named after Cartagena in Spain, as the Spanish city, founded by Hasdrubal as an outpost to serve in future Punic campaigns, was named from the celebrated Tyrian emporium that was so long the rival of Rome. And when the sons of the Caribbean Carthage sailed up the Cauca to establish new colonies and extend the sphere of Spanish influence and enterprise, they commemorated their triumph, and exhibited their loyalty to the land of their birth, by founding still another Carthage—the Cartago of the Upper Cauca.

Everywhere within the city, which during colonial times enjoyed the monopoly of commerce with Spain, are evidences of departed grandeur. Churches, and palaces and monastic institutions, beautiful and grandiose, still retain much of the glamour of days long past. In the charming plazas, shaded by graceful palms and adorned with richest tropical verdure and bloom; along the narrow streets flanked by spacious edifices and ornamented with multi-colored balconies and curiously grated windows, one feels always under the spell of a proud and romantic past, of an age of chivalry of which only the memory remains. The architecture of many of the buildings, erstwhile homes of wealth and culture and refinement, is Moorish in character and carried us back to many happy days spent in fair Andalusia in its once noble capitals, Granada and Seville.

Strolling along the grass-grown pavements of Cartagena, we note in the former flourishing metropolis what Wordsworth observed in Bruge’s town,

“Many a street

Whence busy life has fled.”

But we also discern unmistakable signs of an awakening to a new life, and of the dawn of a new era of prosperity and mercantile greatness. Notwithstanding the venerable years in which she is at present arrayed, we can, without being horoscopists, safely presage that the benignant stars are sure to bring

“What fate denies to man,—a second spring.”

To enjoy the best view of Cartagena, one must ascend an eminence to the east of the city called La Popa, from its fancied resemblance to the lofty stern of a fifteenth century ship. There, seated under an umbrageous cocoa palm, fully five hundred feet above the beautiful iris-blue bay that washes the walls that encircle the city, one has before him one of the most charming panoramas in the world; one which during more than three centuries, was the witness of some of the most stirring events in history. In the broad, steep harbor, protected on all sides by frowning fortresses, the Spanish plate-fleets long found refuge from corsairs and sea rovers. It was here, when pirates and buccaneers made it unsafe to transport treasure by the Pacific, that gold and silver were brought from Bolivia to Peru, Ecuador and New Granada by way of the Andean plateau and the Cauca and Magdalena rivers.

One is stupefied when one considers what an expenditure of energy this implied. Think of transporting gold and silver ingots a distance of more than two thousand miles, over the arid deserts of Bolivia and Peru, and across the chilly punas and paramos of the lofty Cordilleras; of securing it against loss in passing along dizzy ravines, across furious torrents, through the almost impenetrable forests of New Granada, often infested by hostile Indians. And remember, that, for a part of this long distance, these heavy burdens had to be carried by human beings, for no other means of transportation were available.

But even then the treasure was not safe. It was, indeed, much more exposed on the way from Cartagena to Palos and Cadiz than it had been from the time it had been dispatched from the smelter until its arrival at the great stronghold on the Caribbean. For then, suddenly and without warning, like a flock of vultures that had scented carrion from afar, there gathered from all points of the compass English buccaneers, French filibusters, and Dutch freebooters and harassed the galleons until they succumbed. So successful did these daring sea robbers eventually become that no galleon dared to venture alone on the waters of the Indian seas, and only strongly guarded plate-fleets could hope to escape capture by their alert and venturesome enemies, who swarmed over the Caribbean from the Lesser Antilles to Yucatan, and terrorized the coast of the Spanish Main from one end to the other.

One loves to conjecture what might have been if Charles V or Philip II had been endowed with the genius of a Napoleon or a Cæsar. Masters of the greater part of Europe, and undisputed sovereigns of the major portion of the Western Hemisphere, with untold wealth continually pouring into their treasury, then was the time—the only time, probably, in the history of the modern world—to realize Dante’s fond dream of a universal monarchy. But neither Charles nor Philip had the genius required, and the one opportunity, that ever presented itself, of making Spanish possessions coextensive with the world’s surface, was lost and lost forever.

The sun was rapidly approaching the western horizon when we took our departure from the beautiful and picturesque harbor of the Queen of the Seas. In a short time the coast of what was once known as Castilla del Oro—Golden Castile—had disappeared from our view and the prow of our vessel was directed towards the historic land of Costa Rica—the Rich Coast—discovered by Columbus during his fourth voyage.

The night following our visit to Cartagena was an ideal one, a night for wakeful dreams and the sweet delights of reverie. There was scarcely a ripple on the waters, and the stars of the firmament seemed to shine with an unwonted effulgence. All was peace and tranquillity, and everything seemed to proclaim the joy of living.

It was our good fortune, during all our cruising in the Caribbean, to enjoy the most delightful weather, but we never appreciated it so much as we did during our voyage from Cartagena to Puerto Limon, and more especially during the first night after our departure from the Colombian coast. We were then sailing in waters that had been rendered famous by the achievements of some of the most remarkable men named in the annals of early American discovery and conquest, where every green island and silent bay, every barren rock and sandy key, has its legend, and where, at every turn, one breathes an atmosphere of romance and wonderland.

But discoverers and explorers, conquistadores and apostles, were not the only men who have rendered this part of the world forever memorable. There were others, but many of them were of a vastly different type. I refer to the pirates and Buccaneers, who so long spread terror in these parts and ultimately destroyed the commercial supremacy of Spain in the New World, and contributed so materially to the final extinction of her sovereign power. Many of them have written their names large on the scroll of history and often in characters of blood. Many of them were pirates of the worst type, who flew at every flag they saw, who recognized no right but might, and whose sole object was indiscriminate robbery on both sea and land. These outlaws, however, have no interest for us now.

“They should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.”

“The case,” as old Fuller quaintly puts it in his Holy and Profane State, “was clear in sea-divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe doctrines which make for their own profit.”

So far as England acquiesced in, or connived at what the Spaniards always denounced as downright piracy, it was doubtless ever with the view of weakening the menacing power of the dominant Spanish empire. She was also actuated by “an aggressive determination to break down the barriers with which Spanish policy sought to enclose the New World and to shut out the way to the Indies.” In this determination England had the sympathy of France and often its active coöperation. For a similar reason Dutch sea rovers swarmed over the Caribbean Sea. All were aware of the magnitude of the struggle in which they were engaged, and realized that their existence as nations depended on their crippling their common enemy by striking at the sources of his power in the Western Hemisphere.

Much might be said of the reckless audacity, brilliant achievements and skillful seamanship of these privateers or pirates—whatever one chooses to call them—that read more like fable or romance than sober chronicles of authentic fact, but space does not permit. Besides, we are more interested in another class of sea rovers of a later date, whose names and exploits are inseparably connected with the West Indies and the great South Sea. I refer to the Buccaneers, or, as they called themselves, the Brethren of the Coast.

Our knowledge of these extraordinary adventurers is derived mainly from themselves. Of English Buccaneers the most interesting narratives have been left us by Sharp, Cowley, Ringrose and Dampier. The Frenchman, Ravenau de Lussan, has also left us a record of value. The most popular work, however, and the one that gives us the truest insight into the manners and customs of the Brethren of the Coast, and recounts with the greatest detail their deeds of daring and cruelty, is that given to the world by the Dutchman Esquemeling. It was entitled De Americaensche Zee Rovers and was, on its appearance, immediately translated into the principal languages of Europe. The fact that Esquemeling was with the Buccaneers for five years, and was with them, too, on many of their most important expeditions, gave him unusual opportunities for collecting facts at first hand and studying the methods of procedure of his reckless and often brutal associates.

By the Spaniards, the Brethren of the Coast have always been regarded as pirates—for the same reason as Raleigh, Drake and Hawkins and their associates were regarded as pirates—because they conducted their lawless operations when England and Spain were at peace. But there was the same difference between Buccaneers and ordinary pirates as there was between the corsairs just mentioned and ordinary pirates. The latter attacked vessels of every nation, while the Buccaneers, like Drake and his compatriots, confined themselves to preying on Spanish shipping and sacking Spanish towns and strongholds.

Some became Buccaneers because they had a grievance, real or imaginary, against the Spaniards, others because they chafed under the monopolizing policy of the Spanish government, and wished to secure a part of the ever-increasing trade with the New World, while others still joined the ranks of the Brethren because they relished the life of excitement and adventure it held forth, or because they found it the easiest means of gaining a livelihood.

But, notwithstanding their change of occupation, their old name of Buccaneer clung to them, and, as such, they are still known in history. Like the bold Vikings of the North, who were so long the scourge of western and southern Europe, the Buccaneers were the scourge of Spanish America from Tortuga to Panama and from California to Patagonia. They warred against but one enemy—the one that had harassed and driven them from their peaceful avocation of bucaning, or had persecuted and oppressed their brethren in the peaceful pursuit of commerce, when the lands of their birth, or the countries to which they owed allegiance, were unable or unwilling to protect them.

Like the archpirate Drake, as the Spaniards called him, “They swept the sea of every passing victualler, and added the captured cargoes to the stores of game and fish it was their delight to catch. At intervals along the coast and amongst the wilderness of islands, magazines were hidden, and into these were poured the stores that had been destined for the great plate-fleets. The shark-like pinnaces would suddenly appear in the midst of the trade-route no one knew whence, and laden with food, as suddenly disappear no one knew whither.”

They were strangers to fear, and no undertaking was too arduous, if the booty promised was sufficiently great. Danger and difficulty seemed only to whet their appetite for gold and fan their passions to a blaze. Their endurance of hunger and thirst and fatigue was as remarkable as their hardihood was phenomenal. They were loyal to one another and divided the spoils they secured in strict accordance with the agreement they had entered into beforehand. “Locks and bolts were prohibited, as such things were regarded as impeaching the honor of their vocation.”

How all this reminds one of the conduct of that pitiless old slaver, John Hawkins, who frequently enjoined on his crew to “serve God daily,” and who, after escaping a heavy gale on his way from Africa to the West Indies, whither he was bound with a shipload of kidnapped negroes, sanctimoniously writes, “The Almighty God, who never suffereth His elect to perish, sent us the ordinary breeze.”

Although the Buccaneers frequently came into possession of immense sums of money, they would forthwith proceed to squander it in all kinds of dissipation and debauchery. “Such of these pyrates,” writes Esquemeling, “will spend two or three thousand pieces of eight in a night, not leaving themselves a good shirt to wear in the morning.”

At first, the Buccaneers confined themselves to depredations on sea, but their unexpected successes on water soon emboldened them to attack the largest and richest towns on the Spanish Main. When these were once in their power, they exacted from their inhabitants a heavy tribute, and if it was not paid without delay, the hapless people, regardless of age or sex, were subjected to the most cruel and unheard-of tortures. Puerto Principe, Maracaibo, Porto Bello, Panama and other places were captured in turn, and some of them, when sufficient ransom was not obtained, were burned to the ground. And so great and so hideous were the atrocities committed in some of these places that even Esquemeling has not the heart to do more than allude to them. They equaled, if they did not surpass, anything recorded of the pirates of Barbary or Malabar, and showed what fiends incarnate men can become when carried away by insatiate greed or the spirit of rapine and carnage.

He did not, however, share the fate of L’Olonnois. Having found favor with King Charles II, he was knighted and made deputy governor of Jamaica, when he turned against his former associates, many of whom he hanged, while he delivered others up to their enemies, the Spaniards.

From the time the Buccaneers made Tortuga a base of operations until the Peace of Ryswick, in 1697, when they were finally suppressed, was more than half a century. From this little island they spread over the entire Caribbean sea and had places of rendezvous in Jamaica, Santa Catalina, the sequestered coves of the Gulf of Darien and in many secret places along the Spanish Main. Their distinctive mark during all this time, from which they never deviated, as it had been the distinctive mark of pirates and privateers of England, France and Holland during nearly a century and a half before, was their incessant and relentless war against Spain; their determination to break her power and destroy that trade monopoly which she was so determined to retain.

Whatever else may be said of the Buccaneers, there can be no doubt that it is to them that England owes her proud title of Mistress of the Seas. They gave birth to her great navy, and developed that great merchant marine whose flags are to-day seen in every port of the world. They distinguished themselves in the destruction of the Spanish Armada, and closely followed Magellan in circumnavigating the globe. They had a hand in the formation of the East India Company and were “Britain’s sword and shield for the defence of her nascent colonies.”

And one can also say of them, what Byron writes of his Corsair, that they left a

“Name to other climes

Linked with one virtue and a thousand crimes.”