A few observations on a sink of depravity
and outlaws.
I
should Relate some Notes on Port Royal,
that Famous Pirate town in Jamaica, but I most prudently stayed aboard while in
port, except for one night when in the safe company of the Captain and his Quatermaster. It is enough to say that if you were to build
about a Blue Bay a Town of the Ramshackle ends of other Towns, populate it with
the poxiest Whores and Procurers and close-fisted Moneychangers, fill the
remaining spaces with casks of Beer and Rum, and let loose each Night in its
environs Twenty-score Buccaneers with soon to be emptied pockets full of
silver, you would have Port Royal. You
may add, while imagining, the Midnight Voices of those Buccaneers in Song
coming across the water, sometimes melding a dozen songs into a strange,
direful, Dirge. And each Dawn, five hundred yards off shore on shipboard you
could Smell the Reek of vomit, stale spirits, and piss.
In our three days
there, while Balthizar disposed of the Dutch ship, I tended nearly as many
Cutlass and Knife Wounds as I did after a battle. And in Treating subsequent cases of the Pox I
nearly ran out of my entire supply of Tincture of Mercury.
It
was in Port Royal that Captain Baltizar, who had several shore-side Spies and
informants on his payroll, heard rumors of a Spanish Treasure Ship, and we soon
set sail South along the Main, hoping to make a Fortune, but leading us to the
Death and Strange Fortune that form the most Bizarre Aspect of this Narrative.
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