its just ripe and fit for eating,"
including "extraordinary good Oranges of the China sort" They then
coasted slowly northward, till by Saturday, 16th April, they arrived off
the island of Plate. Here their old bickerings broke out again, for many
of the pirates were disgusted with Sharp, and eager to go home. Many of
the others had recovered their spirits since the affair at Arica, and
wished to stay in the South Seas, to cruise a little longer. Those who
had fought at Arica would not allow Sharp to be deposed a second
time, while those who had been shipkeepers on that occasion, were angry
that he should have been re-elected. The two parties refused to be
reconciled. They quarrelled angrily whenever they came on deck together,
and the party spirit ran so high that the company of shipkeepers, the
anti-Sharp faction, "the abler and more experienced men," at last
refused to cruise any longer under Sharp's command. The fo'c's'le
council decided that a poll should be taken, and "that which party
soever, upon polling, should be found to have the majority, should keep
the ship." The other party was to take the long boat and the canoas. The
division was made, and "Captain Sharp's Party carried it." The night was
spent in preparing the long boat and the canoas, and the next morning
the boats set sail.

CHAPTER XV

ACROSS THE ISTHMUS

The way home--Sufferings and adventures

At "about Ten a Clock" in the morning of 17th April 1681, the mutineers
went over the side into their "Lanch and Canoas, designing for the River
Santa Maria, in the Gulf of St Michael." "We were in number," says
Dampier, who was of the party, "44 white Men who bore Arms, a _Spanish
Indian_, who bore Arms also; and two _Moskito Indians_," who carried
pistols and fish spears. Lionel Wafer "was of Mr Dampier's Side in that
Matter," and acted as surgeon to the forty-seven, until he met with his
accident. They embarked in the ship's launch or long boat, one canoa
"and another Canoa which had been sawn asunder in the middle, in order
to have made Bumkins, or Vessels for carrying water, if we had not
separated from our Ship." This old canoa they contrived to patch
together. For provisions they brought with them "so much Flower as we
could well carry"; which "Flower" "we" had been industriously grinding
for the last three days. In addition to the "Flower" they had "rubbed up
20 or 30 pound of Chocolate with Sugar to sweeten it." And so provided,
the