The Wonderful March Of The Freebooters

The March of the Ten Thousand, from Babylon to the Black Sea, is one of

the famous events of history. The march of the three hundred, from the

Pacific to the Atlantic, which we have here to tell, is scarcely known to

history at all, yet it was marked by a courage and command of resources as

great as those of the ancient Greeks. We think our readers will agree with

us when they read this story, taken from the records of the freeboot rs on

the Spanish Main.



After ravaging the settlements of Spain on the Atlantic coasts, various

fleets of these piratical adventurers sought the Pacific waters in 1685,

and there for several years made life scarce worth living to the

inhabitants of the Spanish coast cities. Time and again these were

plundered of their wealth, numbers of their ships were taken, and a

veritable reign of terror prevailed. As time went on, however, most of

these freebooters withdrew, satisfied with their abundant gains, so that,

by the end of 1687, only a few of them remained, and these were eager to

return with their ill-gotten wealth to their native land.



This remnant of the piratical fraternity, less than three hundred in

number, had their head-quarters on an island in the Bay of Mapalla, on the

Central American coast. What vessels they had left were in a wretched

condition, utterly unfit to attempt the vast sea voyage by way of the

Straits of Magellan, and nothing seemed to remain for them but an attempt

to cross the continent by way of Nicaragua and Honduras, fighting their

way through a multitude of enemies. To the pen of Ravenneau de Lussan, one

of the adventurers, we are indebted for the narrative of the singular and

interesting adventure which follows.



The daring band of French and English freebooters were very ill provided

for the dangerous enterprise they had in view. They proposed to cross an

unknown country without guides and with a meagre supply of provisions,

fighting as they went and conveying their sick and wounded as best they

could. They had also a number of prisoners whom they felt it necessary to

take with them, since to set them free would be to divulge their weakness

to their enemies. Nature and circumstance seemed to combine against them,

yet if they ever wished to see their native lands again they must face

every danger, trusting that some of them, at least, might escape to enjoy

their spoils.



After questioning their prisoners, they decided to take a route by way of

the city of New Segovia, which lies north of the lake of Nicaragua, about

one hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific and seventy-five miles from

the waters of a river that flows, after a long course, into the Atlantic

opposite Cape Gracias-a-Dios. In order to gain further information about

the route, sixty men were sent to explore the neighboring country. These

advanced till they were near the small city of Chiloteca. Here, worn out

by their journey and learning that they were in a thickly settled country,

most of the pioneers decided to return. But eighteen of the bolder spirits

had the audacity to advance on Chiloteca, a place of perhaps a thousand

inhabitants.



Into it they rushed with such ferocious yells and so terrific a fusillade

of shots that the frightened inhabitants, taken utterly by surprise, fled

in mortal terror, leaving the place to its captors. These quickly seized a

number of horses, and made haste to retreat on their backs, hotly pursued

by the Spaniards, who soon discovered to what a handful of men they had

surrendered their city.



On receiving the report of their scouts, the freebooters determined on the

desperate venture. They had little to convey except their spoil, which,

the result of numerous raids, was valued at about one million dollars. It

chiefly consisted of gold and jewels, all heavier valuables, even silver,

being left in great part behind, as too heavy to carry. The spoil was very

unequally owned, since the gambling which had gone on actively among them

had greatly varied the distribution of their wealth. To overcome the anger

and jealousy which this created among the poorer, those with much to carry

shared their portions among their companions, with the understanding that,

if they reached the Antilles in safety, half of it should be returned. As

for the prisoners, it was decided to take them along, and make use of them

for carrying the utensils, provisions, and sick.



On the 1st of January, 1688, these freebooters, two hundred and

eighty-five in number, with sixty-eight horses, crossed in boats from

their island refuge to the main-land and began their march. Their ships

had been first destroyed, their cannon cast into the sea, and their

bulkier effects burned. Divided into four companies, with forty men in

front as an advance guard, they moved forward into a land of adventure and

peril.



It was soon found that the people expected and had prepared for their

coming. Trees had been felled across the roads and efforts made to

obstruct all the foot-paths. Provisions had been carried away, and the dry

herbage of the fields was set on fire as they advanced, almost suffocating

them with the heat and smoke. This was done to hinder their march until

the Spaniards had completed a strong intrenchment which was being built at

a suitable place on the route.



Ambuscades were also laid for them. On the eighth day of their march they

fell into one of these at Tusignala, where three hundred Spaniards lay

concealed on the ground and fired into their ranks. Though these were

dispersed by a fierce charge, they followed the freebooters closely,

annoying them from the shelter of woods and thickets. The next day a still

larger ambuscade was laid, which, fortunately for the freebooters, was

discovered and dispersed in time, the fleeing Spaniards leaving their

horses behind.



Two days later New Segovia was reached. Here the buccaneers expected a

severe engagement, and hoped to gain a supply of provisions. In both they

were mistaken; the inhabitants had decamped, carrying all food with them.

Their prisoners, who had served them as guides to this point, knew nothing

of the country beyond, but they succeeded in taking a new prisoner who was

familiar with the further route.



The country they were passing through was mountainous and very difficult.

Steep acclivities had constantly to be climbed, narrow paths on the

borders of deep chasms to be traversed, and rapid slopes to be descended.

The nights were bitterly cold, the mornings were darkened by thick fogs,

and their whole route was attended with danger, discomfort, and fatigue.



New Segovia lay in a valley surrounded on all sides by mountains, one of

which had to be ascended immediately on leaving the town. The next day's

dawn found them on its summit, with a valley far below them, in which, to

their joy, they beheld a large number of animals which they took to be

oxen. Their joy was dissipated, however, when the scouts they sent out

came back with the information that these animals were horses, saddled and

bridled, and that a series of formidable intrenchments had been built in

the valley, rising like terraces, one above another, and carried to the

mountains on each side, so as completely to close the route.



There seemed no way to avoid these defences. On one side of the mountain

flowed a river. A small eminence, surrounded by breastworks, commanded the

only passage which the freebooters could follow. The whole country round

was thick forest, through whose rock-guarded demesnes not the slightest

indication of a path could be seen. Yet to attack those works in front

promised quick and utter defeat, and if they wished to avoid destruction

they must find some way to outwit their foes. It was decided that the

forest presented less dangers and difficulties than the fortified road,

and that the only hope of safety lay in a flank movement which would lead

them to the rear of the enemy.



During that day active preparations were made for the proposed movement.

The three hundred Spaniards who had ambushed them some days before still

hung upon their rear. Their horses, sick, and prisoners were therefore

left in an enclosed camp, barricaded by their baggage-vehicles and guarded

by eighty of their number. As a means of impressing the enemy with their

numbers and alertness they kept up camp-fires all night, repeated at

intervals the rolls upon the drum, relieved the sentinels with a great

noise, and varied these signs of activity with cries and occasional

discharges of musketry.



Meanwhile, as soon as the shades of evening descended, the remainder of

the freebooters, some two hundred in number, began their march, following

the route indicated by a scout they had sent to examine the forest. The

difficulties of that night journey through the dense wood proved very

great, there being numerous steep rocks to climb and descend, and this

needed to be done with as little noise as possible. Daybreak found the

adventurers on a mountain elevation, from which they could see the Spanish

intrenchments below them on the left. The greatest of their impediments

had been surmounted, but there were difficulties still to be overcome.



Fortunately for them a thick mist rose with the morning light, which,

while it rendered their downward passage critical, served to conceal them

from the enemy below. As they came near the works the heavy tread of a

patrol guided them in their course, and the morning prayers of the

Spaniards were of still more advantage in indicating their distance and

position. The freebooting band had reached the rear of the hostile army,

composed of five hundred men, who were so taken by surprise on seeing

their ferocious enemy rushing upon them with shouts and volleys, from this

unlooked-for quarter, that they fled without an attempt at defence.



The other Spaniards behaved more courageously, but the appearance of the

buccaneers within the works they had so toilsomely prepared robbed them of

spirit, and after an hour's fight they, too, broke and fled. The trees

they had felled to obstruct the road now contributed to their utter

defeat, and they were cut down in multitudes, with scarce an attempt at

resistance. We can scarcely credit the testimony of the freebooters,

however, that their sole losses were one killed and two wounded. The

success of the advance party was equalled by that of the guard of armed

men left in the camp, who, after some negotiations with the troop of

Spaniards in their rear, made a sudden charge upon them and dispersed all

who were not cut down.



That the freebooters were as much surprised as gratified by the signal

success of their stratagem need scarcely be said. One of the panics which

are apt to follow a surprise in war had saved them from threatened

annihilation. They learned, however, the disquieting fact that six miles

farther on was another strong intrenchment which could not be avoided, the

country permitting no choice of roads. In their situation there was

nothing to do but to advance and dare the worst, and fortunately for them

their remarkable success spread such terror before it that, when they

appeared before these new works, the Spaniards made no attack, but

remained quietly behind their breastworks while their dreaded foes marched

past.



The seventeenth day of their march carried them to the banks of the river

towards which their route had been laid. This was the Magdalena, a stream

which rises in the mountains near New Segovia and flows through a

difficult rock channel, with numerous cascades, three of them amounting to

cataracts, finally reaching the Caribbean Sea after a course of several

hundred miles.



How they were to descend this mountain torrent was the question which now

offered itself to them. It presented a more attractive route of travel

than the one so far pursued over the mountains, but was marked by

difficulties of a formidable character. These were overcome by the

freebooters in an extraordinary manner, one almost or quite without



parallel in the annals of travel. The expedient they adopted was certainly

of curious interest.



Before them was a large and rapid river, its current impeded by a

multitude of rocks and broken by rapids and cascades. They were destitute

of ropes or tools suitable for boat-building, and any ordinary kind of

boats would have been of no use to them in such a stream. It occurred to

them that what they needed to navigate a river of this character was

something of the nature of large baskets or tuns, in which they might

float enclosed to their waists, while keeping themselves from contact with

the rocks by the aid of poles.



They had no models for such floating contrivances, and were obliged to

invent them. Near the river was an extensive forest, and this supplied

them abundantly with young trees, of light wood. These they cut down,

stripped off their bark, collected them by fives, and, lacking ropes,

fastened them together with lianas and a tenacious kind of gum which the

forest provided. A large number of small, frail, basket-like contrivances

were thus made, each large enough to carry two men, with whom they would

sink in the water as deep as the waist. Piperies, Lussan called them, but

his description does not make it clear just what they were like.



While thus engaged, the freebooters killed part of their horses, and

salted their flesh for food, all the work being done with the energy and

activity necessary in their critical situation. During it they were not

molested by the Spaniards, but no one could tell how soon they might be.

When all was ready they restored their prisoners to the liberty of which

they had long been deprived, and entered upon one of the most perilous

examples of navigation that can well be imagined.



Launched in their piperies, the freebooters found themselves tossed about

by the impetuous current, and speedily covered with spray. The lightness

of their floating baskets kept them from sinking, but the energetic

efforts they were obliged to make to keep from being thrown out or dashed

on the rocks soon exhausted them. A short experience taught them the

necessity of fastening themselves in the piperies, so that their hands

might be free to keep them from being hurled on the rocks. Occasionally

their frail crafts were overturned or buried under the waves in the swift

rapids, and the inmates were either drowned or escaped by abandoning the

treasures which weighed them down.



Whatever else may be said of this method of navigation, it proved a rapid

one, the frail barks being hurried on at an impetuous speed. Each of the

cataracts was preceded by a basin of still water, and here it became

necessary to swim to the shore and descend the rocks to the bottom of the

fall. Some who remained behind threw the piperies into the stream to be

carried over the liquid precipice, and recovered by swimming out to meet

them, or replaced by new ones when lost.



After three days of this singular navigation it was decided, in view of

the fact that the piperies were often dashed together to their mutual

injury, to separate and keep at a distance from each other, those who went

first marking out by small flags where it was necessary to land. During

their progress the question of food again became prominent, the salted

horsemeat they had brought with them being spoiled by its frequent

wetting. Game was plentiful, but their powder was all spoiled, and the

only food to be found was the fruit of the banana-tree, which grew

abundantly on the banks.



The cupidity of the freebooters was not abated by the danger of their

situation. They made the most earnest endeavors to preserve their spoil,

and some of the poorer ones even resorted to murder to gain the wealth of

their richer comrades. The dispersion of the flotilla favored this, and

six conspiring Frenchmen hid behind the rocks and attacked and killed five

Englishmen who were known to possess much treasure. Robbing the bodies,

they took to the stream again, leaving the bloody corpses on the bank.

Those who saw them had no time to think of avenging them.



Gradually the river grew wider and deeper and its course less impetuous.

The cascades were all passed, but the stream was obstructed by floating or

anchored tree-trunks, by which many of the piperies were overturned and

their occupants drowned. To avoid this danger the piperies were now

abandoned and the freebooters divided themselves into detachments and

began to build large canoes from the forest trees. Four of these, carrying

one hundred and thirty men, were soon ready and their builders again took

to the stream. Of the fate of the others, who remained behind, no further

account is given by the historian of this adventure.



On the 9th of March, sixty days after their departure from the Pacific,

the adventurers reached the river's mouth, having completed their

remarkable feat of crossing the continent in the face of the most

threatening perils from man and nature. But fortune only partly favored

them, for many had lost all the wealth which they had gathered in their

career of piracy, their very clothes hanging in rags about their limbs.

Some, indeed, had been more fortunate or more adroit in their singular

navigation, but, as a whole, they were a woe-begone and miserable party

when, a few days afterwards, they reached the isle of Perlas. Here were

some friendly vessels, on which they embarked, and near the end of April

they reached the West Indies, with the little that remained of their

plunder.



Such was the end of this remarkable achievement, one which for boldness,

intrepidity, and skill in expedients has few to rival it in the annals of

history, and which, if performed by men of note, instead of by an obscure

band of robbers, would have won for them a high meed of fame.