Читать книгу The Secret Chart; or, Treasure Hunting in Hayti онлайн

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“Tortuga was settled in the first years of this century by Spanish pioneers from the island known as Hispanola, or ‘Little Spain.’ It was given the fanciful name of Tortuga de Mar, ‘The Sea Tortoise,’ from its resemblance in shape to that amphibian. The settlers were a worthy and simple folk, for the most part fishermen, who, for a few months in the twelve, varied life by hunting the wild cattle which fed in the wooded coast lands.

“Scarcely had they become well established on the Tortoise, when, one morning in May, 1632, they were mystified at the sight of a pinnace load of strange seamen landing on the key which faces the mouth of their harbor. Fifteen restless spirits from the French colony of St. Christopher had, with the adventurous recklessness which marked that day and those waters, set out for the best location which fortune and a west wind should put in their way. They were allowed to put up sapodilla shelters at the harbor mouth, and also to shoot their French bullets into wild bulls on the opposite coast.