n of the spoil. If
the booty were too little to allow of the declaration of a dividend, the
wounded were put ashore at the port of rendezvous, and the adventurers
kept the seas until they had enough to bring them home.

In the years of buccaneer prosperity, when Port Royal was full of
ruffians eager to go cruising, the proceedings may often have been less
regular. A voyage was sometimes arranged in the taverns, where the gangs
drank punch, or rumbo, a draught of rum and water (taken half-and-half,
and sweetened with crude sugar) so long as their money lasted. If a gang
had a ship, or the offer of a ship, and had but little silver left them
from their last cruise, they would go aboard with their muskets, shot,
and powder casks, trusting to fortune to obtain stores. Nearly every
ship's company had a Mosquito Indian, or more than one, to act as guide
ashore, in places where a native's woodcraft was essential to a white
man's safety. At sea these Indians supplied the mariners with fish, for
they were singularly skilful with the fish spear. When a gang of
buccaneers put to sea without provisions, they generally steered to the
feeding grounds of the sea-turtles, or to some place where the sea-cows,
or manatees, were found.[13] Here the Indians were sent out in small
canoas, with their spears and tortoise irons. The spears were not unlike
our modern harpoons. The tortoise irons were short, heavy arrow heads,
which penetrated the turtle's shell when rightly thrown. The heads were
attached to a stick, and to a cord which they made of a fibrous bark.
When the blow had gone home, the stick came adrift, leaving the iron in
the wound, with the cord still fast to it. When the turtles had been
hauled aboard, their flesh was salted with the brine taken from the
natural salt-pans to be found among the islands. When a manatee was
killed, the hide was stripped away, and hung to dry. It was then cut
into thongs, and put to various uses. The buccaneers made grummets, or
rings, of it, for use in their row boats instead of tholes or rowlocks.
The meat of manatee, though extremely delicate, did not take salt so
readily as that of turtles. Turtle was the stand-by of the hungry
buccaneer when far from the Main or the Jamaican barbecues. In addition
to the turtle they had a dish of fish whenever the Indians were so
fortunate as to find a shoal, or when the private fishing lines, of
which each sailor carried several, were successful. Two Mosquito