[Footnote 3: See particularly Burney, Exquemeling, Edwards, and Hazard.]
Those Indians who were not enslaved, retired to the inmost parts of the island, to the shelter of the thickest woods, where they maintained themselves by hunting. The swine and cattle, which had belonged to their fellows in their prosperous days, ran wild, and swarmed all over the island in incredible numbers. The dogs of the caciques also took to the woods, where they ranged in packs of two or three score, hunting the wild swine and the calves. The Spaniards seem to have left the interior of the island to the few survivors, as they had too few slaves to cultivate it. They settled themselves at St Domingo, and at various places upon the coast, such as Santiago and St John of Goave. They planted tobacco, sugar, chocolate, and ginger, and carried on a considerable trade with the cities on the Main and in the mother country.
Hayti, or Hispaniola, is in the fairway of ships coming from Europe towards the Main. It was at one time looked upon as the landfall to be made before proceeding west to Vera Cruz or south to Cartagena. The French, English, and Hollanders, who visited those seas "maugre the King of Spain's beard," discovered it at a very early date. They were not slow to recognise its many advantages. The Spanish, who fiercely resented the presence of any foreigners in a part of the world apportioned to Spain by the Pope, did all they could to destroy them whenever they had the opportunity. But the Spanish population in the Indies was small, and spread over a vast area, and restricted, by Government rules, to certain lines of action. They could not patrol the Indies with a number of guarda costas sufficient to exclude all foreign ships, nor could they set guards, in forts, at every estancia or anchorage in the vast coast-line of the islands. Nor could they enforce the Spanish law, which forbade the settlers to trade with the merchants of other countries. It often happened that a ship from France, Holland, or England arrived upon the coasts of Hispaniola, or some other Spanish colony, off some settlement without a garrison. The settlers in these out-of-the-way places were very glad to trade with such ships, for the freight they brought was cheaper and of better quality than that which paid duty to their King. The goods were landed, and paid for. The ships sent their crews ashore to fill fresh water or to reprovision, and then sailed home for Europe, to return the next year with new goods. On the St Domingo or Hispaniola coasts there are countless creeks and inlets, making good harbours, where these smuggling ships might anchor or careen. The land was well watered and densely wooded, so that casks could be filled, and firewood obtained, without difficulty on any part of the coast. Moreover, the herds of wild cattle and droves of wild boars enabled the ships to reprovision without cost. Before 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.