Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/18

 launched their boats; women passed to and fro, and feathered songsters warbled their sweetest lay. No wonder that the last pirate chief, Captain Lafitte, made this island his headquarters. Some old people there well remember him as "a nice gentleman who paid for everything he had from the fishermen along the coast, and never harmed any poor person."

It was at the beginning of the present century that Lafitte became a terror to the ships that navigated the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, among the West India Islands down to the coast of Venezuela. In the beautiful harbor of Mugeres Island he found perfect shelter from the storms that at certain times of the year sweep with violence along those coasts; and on the top of some dunes south of what is now the village of Dolores he built small towers, whence he could keep an eye on the surrounding waters. The foundations of these towers yet remain in place, and "every Christmas Eve the ghost of a sailor wanders about the hills." No one dares speak to him, believing that it would cause them to die within one year.

When not on board, Lafitte's men lived in huts on the very spot where the village now is. Lafitte is described as having been very haughty with his men, punishing the least breach of discipline, and