The Isle of Blanco

ISLE OF BLANCO; THE IGUANA ANIMAL, THEIR VARIETY; AND THE BEST SEA-TORTOISE.

At this isle we thought to have sold our sugar among the English ships that come hither for salt; but, failing there, we designed for Trinidad, an island near the Main, inhabited by the Spaniards, tolerably strong and wealthy.

But, the current and easterly winds hindering us, we passed through between Margarita and the Main, and went to Blanco, a pretty large island almost north of Margarita; about 30 leagues from the Main, and in 11 degrees 50 minutes north latitude. It is a flat, even, low, uninhabited island, dry and healthy: most savannah of long grass, and has some trees of lignum-vitae growing in spots, with shrubby bushes of other wood about them.

It is plentifully stored with iguanas, which are an animal like a lizard, but much bigger. The body is as big as the small of a man’s leg, and from the hindquarter the tail grows tapering to the end, which is very small.

If a man takes hold of the tail, except very near the hindquarter, it will part and break off in one of the joints, and the iguana will get away. They lay eggs, as most of those amphibious creatures do, and are very good to eat. Their flesh is much esteemed by privateers, who commonly dress them for their sick men; for they make very good broth. They are of divers colours, as almost black, dark brown, light brown, dark green, light green, yellow and speckled. They all live as well in the water as on land, and some of them are constantly in the water, and among rocks: these are commonly black.

Others that live in swampy wet ground are commonly on bushes and trees, these are green. But such as live in dry ground, as here at Blanco, are commonly yellow; yet these also will live in the water, and are sometimes on trees. The road is on the north-west end against a small cove, or little sandy bay. There is no riding anywhere else, for it is deep water, and steep close to the land.

There is one small spring on the west side, and there are sandy bays round the island, where turtle or tortoise come up in great abundance, going ashore in the night. These that frequent this island are called green turtle, and they are the best of that sort, both for largeness and sweetness of any in all the West Indies. I would here give a particular description of these and other sorts of turtle in these seas; but because I shall have occasion to mention some other sort of turtle when I come again into the South Seas, that are very different from all these, I shall there give a general account of all these several sorts at once, that the difference between them may be the better discerned. Some of our modern descriptions speak of goats on this island. I know not what there may have been formerly, but there are none now to my certain knowledge; for myself, and many more of our crew, have been all over it.

MODERN ALTERATIONS IN THE WEST INDIES

Indeed these parts have undergone great changes in this last age, as well in places themselves as in their owners, and commodities of them; particularly Nombre de Dios, a city once famous, and which still retains a considerable name in some late accounts, is now nothing but a name. For I have lain ashore in the place where that city stood; but it is all overgrown with wood, so as to leave no sign that any town has been there.

THE COAST OF CARACAS, ITS REMARKABLE LAND, AND PRODUCT OF THE BEST COCOA-NUTS

We stayed at the isle of Blanco not above ten days.

Then we went back to Salt Tortuga again, where Captain Yankes parted with us: and from thence, after about four days, all which time our men were drunk and quarrelling, we in Captain Wright’s ship went to the coast of Caracas on the mainland.

This coast is upon several accounts very remarkable: it is a continued tract of high ridges of hills and small valleys intermixed for about 20 leagues, stretching east and west but in such manner that the ridges of hills and the valleys alternately run pointing upon the shore from south to north: the valleys are some of them about 4 or 5, others not above 1 or 2 furlongs wide, and in length from the sea scarce any of them above 4 or 5 mile at most; there being a long ridge of mountains at that distance from the sea-coast, and in a manner parallel to it, that joins those shorter ridges, and closes up the south end of the valleys, which at the north ends of them lie open to the sea, and make so many little sandy bays that are the only landing-places on the coast.

Both the main ridge and these shorter ribs are very high land, so that 3 or 4 leagues off at sea the valleys scarce appear to the eye, but all look like one great mountain. From the isles of Los Roques about 15, and from the isle of Aves about 20 leagues off, we see this coast very plain from on board our ships, yet when at anchor on this coast we cannot see those Isles; though again from the tops of these hills they appear as if at no great distance, like so many hillocks in a pond. These hills are barren, except the lower sides of them that are covered with some of the same rich black mould that fills the valleys, and is as good as I have seen. In some of the valleys there’s a strong red clay, but in the general they are extremely fertile, well-watered, and inhabited by Spaniards and their Negroes. They have maize and plantains for their support, with Indian fowls and some hogs.

THE COCOA DESCRIBED AT LARGE, WITH THE HUSBANDRY OF IT

But the main product of these valleys, and indeed the only commodity it vends, are the cocoa-nuts, of which the chocolate is made. The cocoa-tree grows nowhere in the North Seas but in the Bay of Campeachy, on Costa Rica, between Portobello and Nicaragua, chiefly up Carpenter’s River; and on this coast as high as the isle of Trinidad. In the South Seas it grows in the river of Guayaquil, a little to the southward of the Line, and in the valley of Colima, on the south side of the continent of Mexico; both which places I shall hereafter describe. Besides these I am confident there’s no places in the world where the cocoa grows, except those in Jamaica, of which there are now but few remaining, of many and large walks or plantations of them found there by the English at their first arrival, and since planted by them; and even these, though there is a great deal of pains and care bestowed on them, yet seldom come to anything, being generally blighted. The nuts of this coast of Caracas, though less than those of Costa Rica, which are large flat nuts, yet are better and fatter, in my opinion, being so very oily that we are forced to use water in rubbing them up; and the Spaniards that live here, instead of parching them to get off the shell before they pound or rub them to make chocolate, do in a manner burn them to dry up the oil; for else, they say, it would fill them too full of blood, drinking chocolate as they do five or six times a day. My worthy consort Mr. Ringrose commends most the Guayaquil nut; I presume because he had little knowledge of the rest; for, being intimately acquainted with him, I know the course of his travels and experience: but I am persuaded, had he known the rest so well as I pretend to have done, who have at several times been long used to, and in a manner lived upon all the several sorts of them above mentioned, he would prefer the Caracas nuts before any other; yet possibly the drying up of these nuts so much by the Spaniards here, as I said, may lessen their esteem with those Europeans that use their chocolate ready rubbed up: so that we always chose to make it up ourselves.

The cocoa-tree has a body about a foot and a half thick (the largest sort) and 7 or 8 foot high, to the branches, which are large and spreading like an oak, with a pretty thick, smooth, dark green leaf, shaped like that of a plum-tree, but larger. The nuts are enclosed in cods as big as both a man’s fists put together: at the broad end of which there is a small, tough, limber stalk, by which they hang pendulous from the body of the tree, in all parts of it from top to bottom, scattered at irregular distances, and from the greater branches a little way up; especially at the joints of them or partings, where they hang thickest, but never on the smaller boughs. There may be ordinarily about 20 or 30 of these cods upon a well-bearing tree; and they have two crops of them in a year, one in December, but the best in June. The cod itself or shell is almost half an inch thick; neither spongy nor woody, but of a substance between both, brittle, yet harder than the rind of a lemon; like which its surface is grained or knobbed, but more coarse and unequal. The cods at first are of a dark green, but the side of them next the sun of a muddy red. As they grow ripe, the green turns to a fine bright yellow, and the muddy to a more lively, beautiful red, very pleasant to the eye. They neither ripen nor are gathered at once: but for three weeks or a month when the season is the overseers of the plantations go every day about to see which are turned yellow; cutting at once, it may be, not above one from a tree. The cods thus gathered they lay in several heaps to sweat, and then, bursting the shell with their hands, they pull out the nuts which are the only substance they contain, having no stalk or pith among them, and (excepting that these nuts lie in regular rows) are placed like the grains of maize, but sticking together, and so closely stowed that, after they have been once separated, it would be hard to place them again in so narrow a compass. There are generally near 100 nuts in a cod; in proportion to the greatness of which, for it varies, the nuts are bigger or less. When taken out they dry them in the sun upon mats spread on the ground: after which they need no more care, having a thin hard skin of their own, and much oil, which preserves them. Salt water will not hurt them; for we had our bags rotten, lying in the bottom of our ship, and yet the nuts never the worse. They raise the young trees of nuts set with the great end downward in fine black mould, and in the same places where they are to bear; which they do in 4 or 5 years’ time, without the trouble of transplanting. There are ordinarily of these trees from 500 to 2000 and upward in a plantation or cocoa-walk, as they call them; and they shelter the young trees from the weather with plantains set about them for two or three years; destroying all the plantains by such time the cocoa-trees are of a pretty good body and able to endure the heat; which I take to be the most pernicious to them of anything; for, though these valleys lie open to the north winds, unless a little sheltered here and there by some groves of plantain-trees, which are purposely set near the shores of the several bays, yet, by all that I could either observe or learn, the cocoas in this country are never blighted, as I have often known them to be in other places. Cocoa-nuts are used as money in the Bay of Campeachy.

CITY OF CARACAS.

The chief town of this country is called Caracas; a good way within land, it is a large wealthy place, where live most of the owners of these cocoa-walks that are in the valleys by the shore; the plantations being managed by overseers and Negroes. It is in a large savannah country that abounds with cattle; and a Spaniard of my acquaintance, a very sensible man who has been there, tells me that it is very populous, and he judges it to be three times as big as Corunna in Galicia. The way to it is very steep and craggy, over that ridge of hills which I say closes up the valleys and partition hills of the cocoa coast.

LA GUAIRE FORT AND HAVEN.

In this coast itself the chief place is La Guaira, a good town close by the sea; and, though it has but a bad harbour, yet it is much frequented by the Spanish shipping; for the Dutch and English anchor in the sandy bays that lie here and there, in the mouths of several valleys, and where there is very good riding. The town is open, but has a strong fort; yet both were taken some years since by Captain Wright and his privateers. It is seated about 4 or 5 leagues to the westward of Cape Blanco, which cape is the eastermost boundary of this coast of Caracas. Further eastward about 20 leagues is a great lake or branch of the sea called Laguna de Venezuela; about which are many rich towns, but the mouth of the lake is shallow, that no ship can enter.

TOWN OF CUMANA.

Near this mouth is a place called Cumana where the privateers were once repulsed without daring to attempt it any more, being the only place in the North Seas they attempted in vain for many years; and the Spaniards since throw it in their teeth frequently, as a word of reproach or defiance to them.

VERINA, ITS FAMOUS BEST SPANISH TOBACCO.

Not far from that place is Verina, a small village and Spanish plantation, famous for its tobacco, reputed the best in the world.

But to return to Caracas, all this coast is subject to dry winds, generally north-east, which caused us to have scabby lips; and we always found it thus, and that in different seasons of the year, for I have been on this coast several times. In other respects it is very healthy, and a sweet clear air. The Spaniards have lookouts or scouts on the hills, and breast-works in the valleys, and most of their Negroes are furnished with arms also for defence of the bays.

THE RICH TRADE OF THE COAST OF CARACAS.

The Dutch have a very profitable trade here almost to themselves. I have known three or four great ships at a time on the coast, each it may be of thirty or forty guns. They carry hither all sorts of European commodities, especially linen; making vast returns, chiefly in silver and cocoa. And I have often wondered and regretted it that none of my own countrymen find the way thither directly from England; for our Jamaica men trade thither indeed, and find the sweet of it, though they carry English commodities at second or third hand.

While we lay on this coast, we went ashore in some of the bays, and took 7 or 8 tun of cocoa; and after that 3 barks, one laden with hides, the second with European commodities, the third with earthenware and brandy. With these 3 barks we went again to the island of Los Roques, where we shared our commodities and separated, having vessels enough to transport us all whither we thought most convenient. Twenty of us (for we were about 60) took one of the vessels and our share of the goods, and went directly for Virginia.

OF THE SUCKING FISH, OR REMORA.

In our way thither we took several of the sucking-fishes: for when we see them about the ship, we cast out a line and hook, and they will take it with any manner of bait, whether fish or flesh. The sucking-fish is about the bigness of a large whiting, and much of the same make towards the tail, but the head is flatter. From the head to the middle of its back there grows a sort of flesh of a hard gristly substance like that of the limpet (a shellfish tapering up pyramidically) which sticks to the rocks; or like the head or mouth of a shell-snail, but harder. This excrescence is of a flat and oval form, about seven or eight inches long and five or six broad; and rising about half an inch high. It is full of small ridges with which it will fasten itself to anything that it meets with in the sea, just as a snail does to a wall. When any of them happen to come about a ship they seldom leave her, for they will feed on such filth as is daily thrown overboard, or on mere excrements. When it is fair weather, and but little wind, they will play about the ship; but in blustering weather, or when the ship sails quick, they commonly fasten themselves to the ship’s bottom, from whence neither the ship’s motion, though never so swift, nor the most tempestuous sea can remove them. They will likewise fasten themselves to any other bigger fish; for they never swim fast themselves if they meet with anything to carry them. I have found them sticking to a shark after it was hauled in on the deck, though a shark is so strong and boisterous a fish, and throws about him so vehemently for half an hour together, it may be, when caught, that did not the sucking-fish stick at no ordinary rate, it must needs be cast off by so much violence. It is usual also to see them sticking to turtle, to any old trees, planks, or the like, that lie driven at sea. Any knobs or inequalities at a ship’s bottom are a great hindrance to the swiftness of its sailing; and 10 or 12 of these sticking to it must needs retard it as much, in a manner, as if its bottom were foul. So that I am inclined to think that this fish is the remora, of which the ancients tell such stories; if it be not I know no other that is, and I leave the reader to judge. I have seen of these sucking-fishes in great plenty in the Bay of Campeachy and in all the sea between that and the coast of Caracas, as about those islands particularly I have lately described, Los Roques, Blanco, Tortugas, etc. They have no scales, and are very good meat.

THE AUTHOR’S ARRIVAL IN VIRGINIA.

We met nothing else worth remark in our voyage to Virginia, where we arrived in July 1682. That country is so well known to our nation that I shall say nothing of it, nor shall I detain the reader with the story of my own affairs, and the trouble that befell me during about thirteen months of my stay there; but in the next chapter enter immediately upon my second voyage into the South Seas, and round the globe.