文档介绍：Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates
Howard Pyle's Book of
Pirates
Fiction, Fact & Fancy concerning the aneers & Marooners
of the Spanish Main: From the writing & Pictures of Howard Pyle:
Compiled by Merle Johnson
1
Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates
Chapter I
ANEERS AND MAROONERS OF THE SPANISH MAIN
JUST above the northwestern shore of the old island of Hispaniola--
the Santo Domingo of our day--and separated from it only by a narrow
channel of some five or six miles in width, lies a queer little hunch of an
island, known, because of a distant resemblance to that animal, as the
Tortuga de Mar, or sea turtle. It is not more than twenty miles in length by
perhaps seven or eight in breadth; it is only a little spot of land, and as you
look at it upon the map a pin's head would almost cover it; yet from that
spot, as from a center of inflammation, a burning fire of human
wickedness and ruthlessness and lust overran the world, and spread terror
and death throughout the Spanish West Indies, from St. Augustine to the
island of Trinidad, and from Panama to the coasts of Peru.
About the middle of the seventeenth century certain French
adventurers set out from the fortified island of St. Christopher in longboats
and hoys, directing their course to the westward, there to discover new
islands. Sighting Hispaniola "with abundance of joy," they landed, and
went into the country, where they found great quantities of wild cattle,
horses, and swine.
Now vessels on the return voyage to Europe from the West Indies
needed revictualing, and food, especially flesh, was at a premium in the
islands of the Spanish Main; wherefore a great profit was to be turned in
preserving beef and pork, and selling the flesh to homeward-bound
vessels.
The northwestern shore of Hispaniola, lying as it does at the eastern
outlet of the old Bahama Channel, running between the island of Cuba and
the great Bahama Banks, lay almost in the very main stream of travel. The
pione