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A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, or as a bibulous wit once said to the present writer: "A bottle now is worth a bath of it to-morrow." Captain Searles and his men chose to drink a quiet bowl in the cabin rather than go sail the blue seas after the golden galleon. They made a rare brew of punch, of which they drank "logwood-cutters' measure," or a gallon and a half a man.
They carry lumber and provisions to the sugar plantations; and exchange provisions for logwood with the logwood-cutters at Campeachy. They send pipe and barrel-staves and fish to Spain, Portugal, and the Straits. They send pitch, tar, and turpentine to England, with some skins.
He here became enamoured of the free life of the logwood-cutters, and after his return to Jamaica, having supplied himself with tools, a gun, and store of powder and shot, as well as a tent, he again sailed for the island of Trist. He now began to keep a regular journal, which tells us of his adventures while engaged as a logwood-cutter.
In October 1682 he was sent by Sir Thos. Lynch with three vessels to the Gulf of Honduras to fetch away the English logwood-cutters. Letter of Sir Thos. Thomas Pain, a few months before he arrived in the Bahamas, had come in and submitted to Sir Thomas Lynch, and had been sent out again by the governor to cruise after pirates.
Dampier and many others, who had been logwood-cutters in the Bay of Campeachy and Honduras, were expert at this work. They took their turns, cutting together, but were one whole day and a half before they got it down. This tree was eighteen feet in circumference, and forty-four clear trunk, without knot or branch.
There was Birthmark Sweetlocks, who was known to have been present at the killing of the logwood-cutters, so that his hideous scarlet disfigurement was put down by the fanciful as being a red afterglow from that great crime. He was first mate, and under him was Israel Martin, a little sun-wilted fellow who had served with Howell Davies at the taking of Cape Coast Castle.
They are amongst the most interesting of his life, while his notes on the natural history of the country show his accuracy as an observer. The logwood-cutters varied their occupation by hunting the wild cattle, and on one occasion Dampier nearly perished by having lost his way in the woods.
The buccaneer Yallahs, we have seen, was employed by the Governor of Campeache to seize the logwood-cutters; and although he surprised twelve or more vessels, the Governor of Jamaica, not daring openly to avow the business, could enter no complaint.
It was a very profitable business for the wood then sold at £25 or £30 a ton. For a description of the life of the logwood-cutters cf. Periaguas, or large flat-bottomed canoes, were to be constructed for use in shoal waters.
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