arrison behind them. In this they acted
foolishly, for their atrocities stirred the interlopers to revenge
themselves. A band of them returned to Tortuga, to the ruins which the
Spaniards had left standing. Here they formed themselves into a
corporate body, with the intention to attack the Spanish at the first
opportunity. Here, too, for the first time, they elected a commander. It
was at this crisis in their history that they began to be known as
buccaneers, or people who practise the boucan, the native way of curing
meat. It is now time to explain the meaning of the word and to give some
account of the modes of life of the folk who brought it to our language.

[Footnote 5: Burney.]

The Carib Indians, and the kindred tribes on the Brazilian coast, had a
peculiar way of curing meat for preservation. They used to build a
wooden grille or grating, raised upon poles some two or three feet high,
above their camp fires. This grating was called by the Indians barbecue.
The meat to be preserved, were it ox, fish, wild boar, or human being,
was then laid upon the grille. The fire underneath the grille was kept
low, and fed with green sticks, and with the offal, hide, and bones of
the slaughtered animal. This process was called boucanning, from an
Indian word "boucan," which seems to have signified "dried meat" and
"camp-fire." Buccaneer, in its original sense, meant one who practised
the boucan.

Meat thus cured kept good for several months. It was of delicate
flavour, "red as a rose," and of a tempting smell. It could be eaten
without further cookery. Sometimes the meat was cut into pieces, and
salted, before it was boucanned--a practice which made it keep a little
longer than it would otherwise have done. Sometimes it was merely cut in
strips, roughly rubbed with brine, and hung in the sun to dry into
charqui, or jerked beef. The flesh of the wild hog made the most
toothsome boucanned meat. It kept good a little longer than the beef,
but it needed more careful treatment, as stowage in a damp lazaretto
turned it bad at once. The hunters took especial care to kill none but
the choicest wild boars for sea-store. Lean boars and sows were never
killed. Many hunters, it seems, confined themselves to hunting boars,
leaving the beeves as unworthy quarry.

When hunting, the buccaneers went on foot, in small parties of four or
five. The country in which they hunted was densely wooded, so that they
could not ride. Each huntsman car