the end of
the sixteenth century, it had become the custom for privateers to
recruit upon the coast of Hispaniola, much as Drake recruited at Port
Plenty. The ships used to sail or warp into some snug cove, where they
could be laid upon the careen to allow their barnacles to be burned
away. The crews then landed, and pitched themselves tents of sails upon
the beach, while some of their number took their muskets, and went to
kill the cattle in the woods. In that climate, meat does not keep for
more than a few hours, and it often happened that the mariners had
little salt to spare for the salting of their kill. They, therefore,
cured the meat in a manner they had learned from the Carib Indians. The
process will be described later on.

The Spanish guarda costas, which were swift small vessels like the
frigates Drake captured on the Main, did all they could to suppress the
illegal trafficking. Their captains had orders to take no prisoners, and
every "interloper" who fell into their hands was either hanged, like
Oxenham, or shot, like Oxenham's mariners. The huntsmen in the woods
were sometimes fired at by parties of Spaniards from the towns. There
was continual war between the Spaniards, the surviving natives, and the
interlopers. But when the Massacre of St Bartholomew drove many
Huguenots across the water to follow the fortunes of captains like Le
Testu, and when the news of Drake's success at Nombre de Dios came to
England, the interlopers began to swarm the seas in dangerous
multitudes. Before 1580, the western coast of Hispaniola had become a
sort of colony, to which the desperate and the adventurous came in
companies. The ships used to lie at anchor in the creeks, while a number
of the men from each ship went ashore to hunt cattle and wild boars.
Many of the sailors found the life of the hunter passing pleasant. There
were no watches to keep, no master to obey, no bad food to grumble at,
and, better still, no work to do, save the pleasant work of shooting
cattle for one's dinner. Many of them found the life so delightful that
they did not care to leave it when the time came for their ships to sail
for Europe. Men who had failed to win any booty on the "Terra Firma,"
and had no jolly drinking-bout to look for on the quays at home, were
often glad to stay behind at the hunting till some more fortunate
captain should put in in want of men. Shipwrecked men, men who were of
little use at sea, men "who had disagreed with