20 Pirate Seas

i was once on a train leaving Baltimore when a man asked me where I was going. I told him I was going to Baltimore.He looked at me as if I must have made a mistake and exclaimed, “You are on the wrong train; this train is leaving Baltimore.”

“I know that,” I replied, “but I’m going to Baltimore the long way round, round the World to Baltimore. I’m going west to get east.”

On the other side of the World from us are some islands called “The Indies.” People had always gone to the Indies,far, far away, by traveling toward the east. Columbus thought he could go in just the opposite direction—toward the west—and reach the Indies that way. People said it was foolish to go west to get east, but Columbus believed the World was round,and if it were round he knew he could get to these islands by going west just as well as by going east. So he sailed, and he sailed, and he sailed, always toward the setting sun, and at last he did come to some islands. He thought these islands were the Indies, so he named them the “West Indies.” As a matter of fact, we know, but he didn’t know, that he hadn’t gone half far enough to reach the Indies. He didn’t know that even if he had gone on farther, Central America would have been in the way, anyway.

Living on these islands were men with red skins, painted faces, and feathers in their hair, and Columbus called them Indians. Other people called these Indians “Caribs,” which means “brave,” because they were brave, and the blue sea which surrounded these islands they called the Caribbean Sea—the sea of the Caribs.

Columbus was looking for a new way and he found it, but after Columbus other men came along looking for gold and silver and they found that. Some they found in Mexico and some they found in South America, and some they took away from the Indians who had already found it. They robbed them, that’s all. This gold and silver—treasure—found and stolen, they loaded on ships and started back to Spain.

But many of those ships bearing treasure never reached Spain. Pirates—sea robbers—lay in wait to rob the land robbers. It was better sport to rob robbers than to rob the poor Indians. These pirates were bold and bad and cold and cruel. They wore blood-red sashes round their waists,blood-red handkerchiefs round their necks, and blood-red handkerchiefs round their heads. They hung huge rings in their ears and huge bracelets on their arms, and they were“armed to the teeth”—whatever that means. They hid behind these little islands in the Caribbean Sea, and when they saw a treasure ship coming from afar they hoisted a black flag to their ship’s mast, a flag with a skull and two bones crossed on it, and sailed forth and captured the ship, its treasures, and its crew. They made the crew slaves, or if the pirates didn’t want any more slaves, they made their captives “walk the plank”—that is, walk blindfolded out on a plank set over the ship’s edge. They would reach the end and suddenly step off into the sea and be drowned. Then the pirate would load the treasure he had captured into a huge iron-bound chest, sail back to his little island, and bury the treasure chest in a hole in the sand. He would mark the spot on a map with an X so that he might find it when he wanted it, and so that no one else could find it.

These pirates are gone long years ago, and the ships that sail the blue Caribbean have now no fear of pirates any more,and few of these ships carry anything that pirates would want. But the sea is so blue and the weather so warm and the islands so lovely that many people make voyages to the Pirate Seas just for pleasure. I did once myself.

I left New York when it was snowing and in two days I was on an island called Bermuda, where it was warm and sunny. Easter lilies were growing in the fields, and new potatoes and onions. Farmers were raising them to send to shivering New York so that Americans might have warmweather flowers and warm-weather vegetables long before warm weather itself came.

Another two days’ sailing south and I was on another island called Nassau, the capital of a group of islands called the Bahamas. In Nassau sponges are gathered from the bottom of the sea and sent back to U. S. for US to USe.Would you believe that the sponges you use were once alive?They were once like jelly with the sponge inside. Men dive down into the sea and tear the live sponges off the rocks where they grow. Then they wash off the jelly-like part and what is left is the sponge.

Another one of the Bahama Islands is the little island on which Columbus first landed—the most famous little island i. t. w. W. A monument marks the spot where he stepped out of his little boat after his long voyage across the ocean, kneeled down in the sand, and thanked God for directing him safely to the New World. He called the island after his Saviour,“Holy Saviour,” which in Spanish is San Salvador.

There are three large islands of the West Indies—tit-tatto, three in a row. There is also another island a little smaller,and many, many very small islands besides in the Caribbean Sea.

The largest island of all the West Indies—the first one of the tit-tat-to, three in a row islands—is Cuba. Columbus found the Indians in Cuba carrying burning torches in their mouths. They breathed in the smoke and blew it out again in a most strange and amazing fashion, as if they were dragons. It seemed an extraordinary thing for people to do—to breathe in smoke of a burning weed, for that was what it was; yet they seemed to enjoy it. No one across the water had ever seen such a sight before—people breathing fire. But now people all over the World copy the red Indians of Cuba. The weed was called tobacco. Tobacco is now grown in many parts of the World, but the finest tobacco i. t. w. W. for cigars still grows in Cuba, and Havana, the capital of Cuba, ships“Havana” cigars everywhere.

People from Spain went to live in Cuba and Cuba belonged to Spain until not so many years ago, but now Cuba belongs to itself.

Almost all vegetables and fruits in the World have sugar in their juice; they are sweet. Some have a great deal, some have very little. But two vegetables have such sweet juice that they are raised for the sugar that can be made out of their juice.These vegetables are the beet and sugar-cane. You know what a beet looks like. Sugarcane looks something like stalks of corn. Men press the juice out of the cane and boil it to make sugar. In Cuba they grow more sugar-cane than any other place i. t. w. W.

The Island of Haiti—the tat of the tit-tat-to islands—although it is not large, has two little countries on it. Both these countries are republics like the United States, with presidents and senators and representatives chosen by the people, but their presidents are colored and their senators and representatives are also colored. That may seem strange until I tell you that the people on the island are colored too.

When Columbus died he was buried on this island of Haiti. Many years after, men dug up what they thought were Columbus’s bones and sent them back to Spain, where they are kept in a great cathedral. But many people say they were not Columbus’s bones at all that they took back, but some one else’s, and that Columbus’s body still lies in Haiti.

Puerto Rico, the third of the tit-tat-to islands of the West Indies, belongs to the United States. In Puerto Rico they raise tobacco too, but there seems to be some difference in the land, for they can’t seem to raise quite as good tobacco as the people in Cuba do.

Jamaica is a small island south of the tit-tat-to islands.It belongs to England. In Jamaica they grow many of the bananas that we eat. They are picked when they are still green, but by the time they have been shipped to the United States and are put in the fruit shops on sale they are yellow and ripe—sometimes. If you eat them before they are ripe,you may need a little Jamaica ginger, which is good for“tummy aches”—that comes from Jamaica too.

Tobacco and sugar, sponges and early vegetables, bananas and lilies!—pirates would have turned up their noses in disgust if they had captured a ship laden with such a cargo!