42 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[July 15, 1899. 
In Filibuster Days. — IL 
A Story of the Walker Expedition. 
My father finally took passage in a little coasting 
schooner from Jamaica with an English captain and a 
Jamaican crew of mixed blood, for Biuefields, sixty miles 
north, to engage in the business of getting out mahogany 
logs on the Biuefields River foF shipment to the United 
States. 
The crew of the Jamaican coaster was an odd looking 
outfit. The mate was a light mulatto with blue eyes, and 
the crew of various shades of black, but careful to speak 
of themselves as "Creoles" ; and the blackest of the crew, 
with a skin like lampblack, took pains to inform nie that 
he, the Creole, despised a negro above all things. Indeed, 
the odd-looking types resulting from the mixture of the 
blood of Spanish, Indian, English and negro races con- 
tinually to be met in the streets of GreytoAvn had proved 
an interesting study. One man of sanguine temperament, 
fair white skm, brown eyes and a heavy mat of crinkled 
wool, red as fire, thatching his head, was an object of 
much int»rest. 
One thing on the deck of the little coaster struck me as 
passing strange when first we went on board — the wide 
space between the first and second toes of the bare feet of 
the motley crew, and which made them appear as types of 
another race. The great toes branched off widely apiart 
from the others, and made their tracks the oddest looking 
things imaginable. When the voyage began and one of 
the black fellows was ordered aloft, the mystery vanished. 
The ratlines of the coaster were simply two ropes, about 
lin. in diameter, with no crossing ropes for steps, and the 
agile black Creoles seized hold with their hands and 
caught the rope between the two first toes of their feet, and 
ran up the shrouds like monkeys up a grape vine; and thie 
fashion of ritilizing their feet had resulted- in making their 
great toes stand apart from the others like thumbs from 
the fingers. 
Nearing the end of our short voyage, a small canoe 
containing two negro boj^s of about ten and fourteen years 
was met, and the little fellows, who were fishing, came 
alongside the almost becalmed schooner, and upon re- 
quest threw up on her deck some half a dozen half-grown 
cocoanuts, the milk of which was yet but like sweetened 
water, and the meat but a thin coat of spongy pulp. These 
they had brought with a lot of others in lieu of fresh 
water, and they proved to very very palatable. The 
younger boy acted as steersman, and the elder as 
harpooner. A slender spear with a single tine, and with 
a little reel fastened to the tip of the shaft, to which a 
slender cord like a fishline was attached, appeared to 
be the equipment of the little craft. 
The little fishermen chatted merrily with the coaster 
crew, until the watchful eye of the harpooner detected a 
commotion on the surface of the water at some distance, 
which indicated the presence of a school of fish, and hur- 
riedly casting off from the schooner's side they paddled 
rapidly away in pursuit, while a welcome breeze drove us 
onward toward our port, leaving the venturesome little 
black sailors alone "on the fierce rolling tide" further from 
land than most men could be hired to venture in such a 
craft for the wealth of Wall street. 
The harbor of Biuefields proved but a poor affair, and 
the little coaster's passengers and cargo had to be taken 
ashore in canoes. 
The pretty little town of Biuefields, which now be- 
came our home for some months, is situated on the shore 
of the mainland of Nicaragua, at the mouth of the river 
of the same, on beautiful rising ground at the edge of 
the great forest which covers the Atlantic coast of 
Nicaragua, and was thett a charming village of about 1,000 
inhabitants, consisting of Spanish, negroes and Mosquito 
Indians, with a very few Europeans. A lagoon some three 
miles wide intervened between the mainland and the long, 
low, forest-covered island which formed the ocean beach. 
Eng]i,sh was the language most in use, with Spanish and 
Indian in the order named. 
Here my father found the bank of the river and the 
shore of the lagoon dotted with mahogany logs rotting in 
the sun and rain, and was told that some years previous 
an American had sunk some thousands of dollars in the 
same kind of an enterprise he had planned to engage in, 
and that when the logs had been rafted down the river 
to the town the carefully considerate British Govern- 
ment, which had established a "protectorate" over that 
portion of Nicaragua and had formerly maintained a 
consul at Biuefields, who had been removed before our 
coming, promptly levied an export tax upon the ma- 
hogany heavy enough to prohibit its shipment, and all 
carefully arranged in the name of the cat's paw Mosquito 
"king." 
The ruined American had quitted Nicaragua in disgust, 
and my father, warned by his experience to beware of 
British helpfulness, waited long for the conclusion of the 
war in the interior, or for some safe opportunity of en- 
gaging in legitimate enternrise before he finally concluded 
to return to the United States. 
In the meantime my own opportunity came, and was 
immediately seized. 
Deer were to be found upon the island, which came 
out to feed and play along the sea shore at night; alliga- 
tors and fish swarmed in the waters, while birds— new and 
strange to my Northern eyes — were found in the forests; 
and as little or nothing now required my presence in the 
village. I promptly turned my attention to hunting and to 
exp.lorat!on of the woods and waters, and the strange ad- 
ventures to be met in this connection. 
But in a land so strangely different from that of my 
own birth — which had not a mile of road in all its coast 
domain of almost interminable jungle, and where the 
canoe, sail and paddle were the horse, saddle and bridle 
of every inhabitant — the eager boy from the far north- 
land, who would fain explore every nook and cranny of 
its coast line, must . perforce take a few lessons in naviga- 
tion. 
As my brother took no interest in these matters, and 
my father had long outgrown his own boyish enthusiasm 
for the chase, and would give me but little aid in my un- 
profitable ventures, save the gift of my almost value- 
less time, I Avas thrown upon my own resources. 
Borrowing an old water-soaked log of a dugout canoe, 
minus keel or rudder, I fashioned a crude affair of mast 
and sail, and hewed a paddle out of a cedar slab, and 
studied navigation alone on the surface of the storm-swept 
lagoon. 
Presumably Captain Barr, in his haivlling of the new 
Cup defender, will not be in particular need of advice from 
me in the sailing of the new yacht; yet he, together with 
others of the scientific yachtsmen of America, may be 
interested in learning the quickest way to turn a sailing 
sloop around — "come about," they call it — which I in- 
vented, or rather most suddenly discovered, in the be- 
ginning of my nautical career on the Biuefields lagoon. 
Observing that the canoemen of the village had a fashion 
of bringing the bow of the boat up into the wind when 
they tried to come about, I (who from childhood was 
nothing if not original) concluded that this crude method 
might be much improved ; and seeing the fishing fleet 
coming in from the ocean, quickly planned to sail out to 
meet the smarest sailing canoe, which was far in advance 
of the others, and giving myself plenty of time and dis- 
tance in which to come about, beat it in the race back to 
the shore. 
It was a beautifially planned race — fine enough for a 
cup contest — and with the boom of the clumsy sail (or 
rather the rope attached to the boom) firmly lashed to the 
canoe, we came around in the spanking breeze — the canoe 
and I — some half a mile from the shore, with the stern of 
the boat to the wind. 
It was a grand success ! The water-soaked old canoe 
came around — as my father sometimes remarked — "with 
a whew to it !" 
As I crawled out from under the inverted tub, and, 
blowing like a porpoise, came to the surface, I found upon 
attempting to right the canoe that the top of the mast of 
my yacht had been driven into the mud of the bottom of 
the lagoon by my own surprising seamanship, and all my 
efforts to free it proved unavailing. I could easily have 
swam ashore, and would rather have done it than face the 
quiet smiles that wreathed the faces of the negro man and 
boy who manned the leading canoe, now rapidly approach- 
ing, and who had been the amused spectators of the 
"Smart Aleck" performance; but the thought of the 
swarming alligators, one of which had some years before 
taken a child from the edge of the town of Biuefields it- 
self, made me hesitate. 
Tongue-tied with shame, I concluded to take chances 
with the alligators a little longer, until another canoe 
reached me before asking for help, but the good-natured 
negro sailor, who had now sailed past me, noticing my 
predicament by my struggles to right the canoe, came 
about, and like the gentleman he was, quietly assisted me 
to right her; and steadying her until I had crawled 
abroard and baled her nearly dry again, bade me good- 
by Avithout word or look which could add to my deep 
confusion. 
But the love of hunting which Avould not be denied, 
drove me to keep "everlastingly at it," and finally I learned 
something of the rudiments of the art of sailing; and 
when my father bought a fine ncAv cedar canoe about 2Sft. 
long, 4ft. wide and 3ft. deep, the boy came suddenly to the 
front as sailmaker, yachtsijian and navigator, and fitting 
up the beautiful little ci-aft, soon had a fine single-hander 
for his lonely cruises. 
The memory of those joyous days and dreamily quiet 
voyages, Avhen all alone I sailed among the islands and 
drifted along the shores, of the long lagoon in search of 
game for the little rifle, and for a knowledge of the 
secrets of the tropical forest and the birds and animals 
hidden Avithin its shadoAvy recesses, all so passing strange 
to my own untravelcd eyes, lingers SAveet in memory 
yet, and I only Avish that the labor of penning the record 
of some of the things Avhich came to me in that far-off 
sunny land — Avith fingers already stiffened Avith age- 
might bring to the readers of Forest and Stream a tithe 
of the joy Avhich came unhidden to the imaginative boy in 
the strange tropical land, Avhere 
"The world wa.? all before him, where to thttose, 
And Providence his guide." 
Wandering along the ocean beach I once met two 
negroes, and as I noticed just at that moment one of the 
ever-present alligators standing in the surf some rods 
from shore and some 50yds. distant, which had caught a 
fish by its tail, and Avhich now hung pendant from the 
jaAvs of the reptile, struggling to free itself, Avhile the 
alligator held his head aloft trying to shake the fish into 
position to be caught in his mouth, and the low Avaves of 
the ebbing tide only occasionally covered his head, offered 
a tempting target. 
The recollection of my repeated failures prompted me to 
ask the negroes if they could be killed with the rifle. 
"Oh, yes," said one; "we sometimes kill them AAdth coarse 
shot ; when Ave can shoot them under the wing." 
Aiming at the eye of the alligator, I fired, and to the 
surprise of the negroes and myself, killed him. This was 
the only one I killed, though the attempt was many times 
repeated. The pursuit of these creatures was interesting, 
and led to queer happenings. 
As time began to hang heavily on my father's hands, he 
began accompanying me on m.y lonely trips, and on one 
voyage to the south end of the long island, some fifteen 
miles south of town, while sailing quietly along, I noticed 
far in advance the head of a A-ery large alligator, directly 
in our course. The great head .sank gently from sight, and 
nothing more was thought of him. until, Avith a shock as 
of a young earthquake, the big canoe rose in air, and for a 
moment seemed in imminent danger of being overturned, 
while the water beneath her boiled as the terrified saurian 
— which had settled to the bottom only to find that the 
lagoon at that spot was too shallow for both — felt the 
canoe sliding up on his back, tore his furious way out 
from beneath her with struggles Avhich gave its as great a 
freight as his own. 
Among the people of the town of Biuefields was a small 
number of Spaniards, who Avere among the most intelli- 
gent and respectable of its population, and of them was 
one who was knoAvn as the old turtle hunter, Avho seemed 
to be a representative man among them, and though his 
relatives Avere above the necessity of depending upon the 
old man's toil for their support, and though they remon- 
strated against his further exposure to the perils of the 
deep, he with the instinct of the true hunter who ceases 
to love nature and her wild denizens only when he ceases 
to breathe, still persisted in wandering off oh his ven- 
turesome expeditions to the loneliest islands off the 
storm-swept coast of Nicaragua, in pursuit of the ocean 
turtle Avhose beautiful shell the fashion of long ago de- 
manded for ladies' combs at any price. 
For many years the old man had followed this strange 
sport, and now that age was creeping on, and one or two 
premonitory attacks of a kind of epileptic fit had come to 
AA-arn him and his people against his further ventures, so 
absorbing was his love of the strange nocturnal sport, on 
the surf-beaten islands of the open sea, that no entreaty, 
of friend or relative could restrain him, and loving ones 
aAvaited with a boding fear the time when the tiny craft 
and its strange occupant should not return. 
On the loneliest islands of the coast, where the timid 
turtle crawled out in the moonlight to deposit her eggs in 
the sand of the beach, the old enthusiast built his little 
shanty — a mere shed to protect him from the sun and 
falling rain, and sleeping by day, watched by night for his 
prey, and when the wary turtles were seen to be far 
enough up on the beach the old man rushed down among 
them, armed with a hand spike, which he thrust beneath 
the fleeing creatures and threw them over on their backs,, 
thereby rendering them helpless, when the valuable turtle 
shell of commerce became secure to his more leisurely 
toil 
This was the sport whose fascination had for him a 
charm beyond the claims of affection, upon which prayers 
and tears seemed wasted, and the pecuniary reward of 
which was dispensed to him with a liberality which more 
than supplied his simple Avants, and offered a bribe for 
the consent or acquiescence of unwilling relatives who sor- 
rowed for, yet could reclaim him. 
One morning my father planned to accompany me in an 
expedition to the lower outlet of the lagoon, at the south 
end of the long island, where Ave could hunt deer on 
the beach, when we noticed the old turtle hunter making 
an early start on one of his voyages, and taking the same 
course as our own. We were unusually late at breakfast, 
and while seated at the table, one of the strange squalls 
so common on that coast came over the village and the 
lagoon, lashing its quiet Avaters to foam. 
Some one mentioned the old turtle hunter, who had 
not been gone an hour, yet remembering his skill as a. 
sailor Ave soon forgot him. The storm passed as quickly 
as it came, and we started from the village with a fine 
breeze blowing directly on our course, which drove our 
canoe along rapidly. 
About three miles south of toAvn a group of three 
little islands, lying close together, rose above the surfacfc 
of the lagoon about equidistant from either shore. Our 
course lay betAveen them, and as we rounded the end of the 
first one a strange looking log, smooth and white looking, 
and with rounded ends, was observed floating between 
the islands and surrounded by floating wreckage. As 
soon as my father glanced at it, he said: "That is the 
old turtle hunter's canoe, bottom upward, and those are 
his things floating around. I wonder if the old man is 
droA\med ?" 
A careful scrutiny of the surface revealed no sign of the 
fated hunter, but a glance along shore of the island to 
our left detected a white, round object at the edge of the 
mangrove roots which lined the water, and as we ap- 
proached it, Ave were horrified to see the white set face of 
the old Spaniard just above the surface of the water ; while 
all the rest of the body was submerged, and no sign of 
life or motion appeared. Rmming the bow of the canoe 
into the roots near him, my father said: "Jump over- 
board, Orin, and lift him into the canoe." 
Over into the Avaist-deep Avater I sprang, and in my en- 
deavor to lift him into the canoe, found one of his hands 
gripped fast hold of a mangrove root, and it required all 
my strength to unclasp his rigid hold. 
As I rolled him over into the canoe and, laid him upon 
some bedding, which my father had spread to receive him, 
a faint shudder ran through the old man's frame, his rigid 
jaAVS unclasped, and an indistinctly muttered something 
which we interpreted to mean, "Thank you !" showed the 
old man to be still alive. 
The wind blew cold and chill enough to defy all at- 
tempts to warm him in the open air; his dripping clothes 
had saturated the bedding beneath him, and there re- 
mained but the one thing to do — to get him back to town 
if possible while life yet lingered. 
It seemed a race Avith death. Could we reach the village 
in time? 
As the wind Avas noAV squarely in our faces, the sail 
was loAvered, the mast unshipped, and Ave took to the 
paddles. About half a mile of the return trip had been 
accomplished when a canoe much lighter than our own ap- 
peared, coming from the mainland, and evidently on its 
way back to the village. It was paddled by three negro 
women returning from a trip to an outlying plantation, and 
Avas sailing 3ft. to our 2. 
Feminine _ curiosity prompted them to see what our 
canoe contained, and, swerving from their course as thev 
were passing, they came alongside, and looking over into 
our canoe the Avhite, set face of the evidently dead 
Spaniard, well-known to each of them, met their curious 
gaze, and with a low ejaculation of surprise and aAve they 
bent to their paddles with an energy that left us rapidly 
astern, and reaching the town far in advance of us spread 
the direful news that the white stranger and his boy were 
coming with the body of the drowned turtle hunter. 
As we reached the shore, which was now covered Avith 
a crowd of excited people, my father quieted their fears 
Avith the word that the old man still lived, and a stretcher 
being hastily formed, the unconscious form was laid upon 
it, and the whole crowd following in rear of the bearers 
disappeared from sight among the trees bordering one of 
the two paths which ascended the hill in dift'erent direc- 
tions from the little open spot on the shore where we had 
landed at the first opportunity. 
My father had returned to the boat again and seated 
himself in the stern, and I had just turned away from 
Avatching the departure of the crowd of people as they 
vanished among the trees on the hill, when down along 
the other path to the landing sped the most beautiful 
Spanish girl I had ever seen, apparently nearly my own 
