A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America & by Lionel Wafer &
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"b^ ^°*» ^o« of »* v./ -•i^i.% ;• v. * 4a^Q-. * > L*^ .vV^ C^ «^q> ^A* ^ ^°«* <p l c0*.-j«i-.% >*oi&/*«. /.i^A >*•: ^0* Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/newvoyagedescripOOwafe WAFER'S D ARIEN Of this edition, five hundred copies have been printed, and the type distributed. This is No. ^ SmWM'Q PQBZMQNS @F WE; -<r- Specially Engraved 190a by The Bvrrow/- Brothers (§>MPANy from Official Charts Qrrec ted to 1891. Sca.le A NEW VOYAGE AND DESCRIPTION OF THE ISTHMUS OF AMERICA & BY LIONEL WAFER & Reprinted from the original edition of 1699 EDITED BY GEORGE PARKER WINSHIP Librarian of the John Carter Brown Library THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Two Copies Receiver" ^ rtn 24 1903 °*** CLASS XXc. No Copyright, 1903 BY The Burrows Brothers Company J M%. '-'. <&l)t imperial J&tejB? Cleveland CONTENTS Map of the Isthmus of Panama and Darien .... Frontispiece Introduction 7 Wafer's Darien 25 Title-page (facsimile) 27 Dedication 2 9 To the Reader 3i Mr. Wafer's Voyages; and Description of the Isthmus of America . -33 Mr. Wafer's Description of the Isth- mus of America . .69 Of the Trees, Fruits, &c. in the Isth- mus of America . -95 Of the Animals; and first of Beasts and Reptiles . .110 The Birds, and flying Insects . .118 Of the Fish 126 Of the Indian Inhabitants; their Manners, Customs, &c. .131 Mr. Wafer's Voyages, &c. 173 Index ....... 199 Map : Isthmus of Darien, & Bay of Panama, facing page 33. Illustrations : The Indians manner of Bloodletting, facing page 54; The Indians in their Robes in Councel, and Smoaking tobacco after their way, facing page 109; The Indians marching upon a Visit, or to Feast, facing page 137. Supplementary Index . .211 INTRODUCTION OF all the American inter-oceanic highways, the one which is today least known was at the end of the seventeenth century the most familiar to the readers of popular literature. The pressure of European rivalries and the opportunities for money-getting, com- bined with the interest which every one feels in the doings of those whose career lies outside the pale of ordinary legalized ways of getting a livelihood, gave to the side-door entrance to the Pacific — the Darien route of Wafer and his fellow-buccaneers — a prominence greater than it enjoyed ever before or since. During the twenty years which ended in 1700, there was an intermittent stream of travelers along this route, occasionally interrupted for a season or two, and then started afresh by new rumors of Spanish unpreparedness or by some too vigorous investigation into the doings of chance sailing vessels on the Caribbean waters. Eng- lish and French and New-Englanders, with Dutch and Moors and native Americans, the pick of the ne'er-do-wells of all the world, climbed the mountain-paths and floated down stream into the South Seas, to fight or to drown, INTRODUCTION to gamble and gorge or perish of thirst, for the sake of winning the gold demanded by the harlots and winesellers of Kingstown and Petit Guaves. Great as are the gains of piracy, they must always be less than the ultimate profits of legitimate trade, and so the unyielding laws of human affairs decreed that the buccaneers must disappear, and with them went their favorite pathways to the hunting-grounds across the Isthmus. The country through which they passed remains today much as they left it two hundred years ago, as it has been preserved for us on the pages of Lionel Wafer's entertaining account of what he saw and did in the spring months of the year 1681. The candle-snuffers have been displaced by sometimes-white cotton breeches, and the sellers of print-cloths have introduced the gaiety of their fabrics into the scenes of merry-making. The missionary priests have taken the place of the pawaws, and by the service of the mass and the jollifica- tions of holy days are gradually leading their widely scattered flocks toward European ways of living and thinking. But the mountain- passes remain as steep as of old, the torrents flood the valleys with the same overwhelming unexpectedness, the plantain- walks are as delightsome and the savannahs as fruitful, as when Wafer saw them. For more than a hundred years Spain per- sisted in the refusal to allow her heretical British rivals to have any lawful commercial intercourse with her possessions in the West Indies. But INTRODUCTION prohibitions and interdicts could not keep the English sailors and traders away from the wealth of the Islands and the Main. The Spaniards indulged in the pleasures of retalia- tion, despite the fact that each year found them further and further behind in the account against the free-handed British rovers. There was " no peace beyond the line" of the tropics, and so the plundering of ships and stealing of crops went on, to the demoralizing prosperity of Jamaica and of some high in official station at home. But the end had to come at last, and the Treaty of Madrid was agreed to in the summer of 1 67 1, just too late to save Spain from the crown- ing aggravation of Morgan's sack of Panama. Peace was more easily proclaimed than enforced. The habits of more than a century — habits of reckless daring and riotous debauchery, of a steady flow of Spanish treasure through Jamaica toward London, where the complaints of those who felt the decrease in rents and per- quisites were not the least of the troubles of the Lords of Trade and Plantations — were not readily overcome. Some of the buccaneers who, like Henry Morgan, were in funds at the time, settled down and became most respectable members of the community. More spent their money as they had spent it before, and then looked about for a fresh supply. Thus it is easy to understand how it came to pass that every now and then a shipload of jolly lads, with nothing in the world to lose, sailed out by Port Royal to take whatever the high seas had to offer. 10 INTRODUCTION With one of these crews Lionel Wafer set out to seek his fortune. He was a young English- man who had already voyaged to the East Indies, picking up some notions of surgery and physic on the way, and he had traveled in Ireland and Scotland, where he acquired the Highland tongue. He went to Jamaica to visit a brother, who found a place for him, but the tales of the seas soon tempted him away from settled life. The increasing freedom with which the buccaneers came and went during the rule of Governor Modyford encouraged them to make plans for an exploit which should rival Morgan's famous sack of Panama. Recruits were easily gathered, and when Wafer reached the rendezvous at one of the islands off the Da- rien coast, he found nearly four hundred com- rades assembled to discuss the opportunities for successful plunderings. They decided to attack Santa Maria, a gold-washing station on the opposite side of the Isthmus. Leaving a small guard with their seven ships, they began the over- land march on April 5, 1680. Nine days of hard marching up and down hills and of harder float- ing down streams choked with logs over which the heavy tree-trunk canoes had to be dragged, brought the party to their goal, which was promptly carried by assault. Unluckily, most of the Spaniards had fled at the first warning of their approach, carrying off nearly everything of value. This disappointment confirmed the majority of the buccaneers in a desire to pursue their earlier plan of attacking Panama, and the less venturesome minority, who favored going INTRODUCTION 11 back to the ships, were induced to go forward by the election of their leader, Coxon, as chief of the expedition. Seven who were too faint- hearted to go on were sent back to notify the guard at the ships, while the rest embarked in canoes procured from the Indians and rowed forth to try the fortunes of the South Seas. A trading-boat, unsuspicious of danger, soon fell in their way, and became the nucleus of their fleet. Approaching Panama, they learned that the city had been forewarned by the fugi- tives from Santa Maria, and three little war-ships confirmed this news by coming out to attack them. There was a sharp fight, which ended by two of the Spanish ships being added to the buccaneer force. The new-comers spent the next fortnight in looking about among the islands of the Gulf of Panama, picking up a few stray provision boats, searching for fresh-water supply, planning schemes for the future, and talking about their exploits in the recent battles. Some of the stories told about the fight off Panama described the backwardness of Coxon in closing with the enemy, and when this gossip reached his ears, he took such offense that he forthwith abandoned the expedi- tion and started back across the Isthmus to the North Sea. About seventy of his immediate followers went with him, leaving behind the wounded men of their company. The bad feel- ing caused thereby was aggravated by the fact that Coxon took away the principal surgeon and most of the medicines. This doubtless con- tributed to Wafer's professional advancement, 12 INTRODUCTION although he seems still to have been far from holding a recognized place as a practitioner. A merchant craft from Truxillo in Peru, loaded with gunpowder, two thousand jars of wine and brandy, and fifty-one thousand pieces-of-eight (the Spanish colonial dollar), relieved the monot- ony of gossip and fault-finding, and then it was decided to take Puebla Nueva, north of Pana- ma.