"Tortugas!" commented Cecil, pointing to the rocky shores of the islet.
"That's where all the pirates came from, wasn't it?" queried Stuart, eager to break the silence of the journey.
"Pirates? No. The pirate haunts were more to the north. It was the stronghold of the buccaneers."
"I always thought pirates and buccaneers were the same thing," put in the boy.
"Far from it. Originally the buccaneers were hunters, and their name comes from _boucan_, a word meaning dried flesh. They hunted wild cattle and wild pigs on that island over there."
"It was called Hispaniola, then. The Spanish owned it, but had only a few settlements on the coast. The population was largely Carib, a savage race given to cannibalism. There seems little reason to doubt that even if the buccaneers did not actually smoke and cure human flesh, as the Caribs did, they traded in it and ate it themselves."
"Were the buccaneers Spaniards?" queried Stuart.
"No. French to begin with, and afterwards, many English joined them. That was just where the whole bloody business began. France protected the buccaneers, sent them aid and ammunition; even their famous guns--known as 'buccaneering pieces' and four and a half feet long--were all made in France. There was a steady demand for smoked meat and hides, and France was only too ready to get these from a Spanish colony without payment of any dues thereon.
"At the beginning of the seventeenth century the buccaneers--at that time only hunters--settled in small groups on the island of Hispaniola. Such a policy was dangerous. Time after time parties of Spanish soldiery raided the settlements, killing most of the hunters and putting the prisoners to the torture. In desperation, the buccaneers decided to abandon Hispaniola. They united their forces and sailed to the island of St. Kitts, nominally in the hands of Spain, but then inhabited only by Caribs.
"The French government at once extended its protection to St. Kitts, thus practically seizing it from Spain and claimed it as a possession. Great Britain agreed to support France in this illegal seizure and thus the little colony of St. Kitts was held safe under both French and English governments, which actually supported the hunting ventures of the buccaneers, and winked at the piratic raids which generally formed a part of the buccaneering expeditions.