2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 139 



or shield. In the following years the island became a landmark for 

 navigators along this stretch of coast, and is mentioned from time to 

 time in ancient documents, the name being abbreviated often to Scudo, 

 Scuda, or sometimes modified to Skoday (Anderson, 191 1, p. 371). 

 Presently it was designated Escudo de Veragua, and finally the latter 

 part of the name became Veraguas. In the last voyage of Sir Francis 

 Drake (Hakluyt, 1904, pp. 239-240) it is related that his ships came 

 to Escudo on January 10, 1596, where they anchored on the southern 

 side, remaining until January 23. The island was described as "not 

 past two leagues long full of wood, and hath great store of fresh 

 water . . . and that very good." Many of the men soon fell sick, 

 and Drake himself contracted the illness that caused his death on 

 January 28 when they were near Portobello. He was buried at sea 

 off that harbor. 



In occasional seventeenth-century accounts of buccaneers and other 

 voyagers there is casual reference to Escudo de Veraguas as a place 

 of shelter or a source of water. Dampier's observation (Dampier, 

 1697, p. 39) made in 1681 that "We past by Scuda, a small 

 Island (where 'tis said Sir Francis Drake's Bowels were bury'd)'' 

 repeats a tale, apparently of common belief, that cannot concern this 

 island since Drake's death and burial, off Portobello, came more than 

 200 kilometers to the east. Escudo was visited by Indians, since 

 Dr. Matthew W. Stirling of the Smithsonian Institution informs me 

 that in the town of Bocas del Toro he was shown artifacts found on 

 the island, proof that aboriginal people had lived there, at least from 

 time to time. But there may be confusion with some larger place in 

 the report (Anderson, p. 272) that records a considerable Indian 

 population, divided under two caciques or chiefs. The land area, with 

 due allowance for a reasonable amount of erosion since these early 

 times, is too small to have permitted permanent residence for many 

 persons. 



At present men come at intervals to gather the coconuts, or occa- 

 sionally to fish, search for turtles, or to hunt the introduced wild pigs. 

 There is no permanent human resident, and the wildlife, except for 

 the pigs, is tame. 



I was able to visit Escudo de Veraguas through the kind assistance 

 of George Munch, manager of the Almirante Division of the Chiriqui 

 Land Co., which has its headquarters at Almirante, Province of Bocas 

 del Toro. We left Almirante on February 28, 1958, shortly before 

 midnight, on the diesel launch Talamanca, entered the sea through 

 the pass of Boca del Toro, and before dawn anchored in the lee on 

 the southeastern end of the island. Accompanied by Ziska Hartmann 



