REAL TREASURE ISLANDS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3786, 8 February 1908, Page 4

REAL TREASURE ISLANDS.

Buried Treasures Which Have Been Unearthed.

A little sailing yawl manned by three men put into New York harbour the other day, after an adventurous voyage of 129 days from Liverpool, during which time she had covered over seven thousand miles. The aim of her crew is to seek for a treasure buried long ago by pirates on an island near the coast of Honduras. Treasure hunts are continually going oa in the West Indies and the Spanish Main, but the hidden hoards are not often brought to light. None the less (writes a globe-trotting contributor) I heard of a few cases during five years spent in Caribbees.

Emanuel Bodden, the skipper of a Grand Cayman turtling schooner, had an extraordinary stroke 6f luck about six years ago. He had brought his little vessel alongside a barque which had stranded on a coral reef near Jamaica and been abandoned, and was taking what he could find of value from the wreck, Looking over the side he saw a yellow gleam on a shelving rock several feet beneath the clear water.

Thinking it was a piece of copper sheathing, he dived for it, and came up with his hands full of gold coins. They were Spanish doubloons and pieces of the seventeenth century. There were hundreds of them on the sunken reef, as well as some pieces of wreckage that apparently had. belonged to some Spanish boat. All day long the skipper and his men dived for the coins, and they sold the lot to a merchant in Port Royal Street, Kingston, for close on I was there when the deal was made, and examined several of the coins, which were in an excellent state of preservation. How came they to be lost in this strange manner ? There are many theories, but probably they were being carried loose in the boat when it was capsized. There were no skeletons by the boat, so it must be supposed the crew were picked up. • When I was staying at Nassa, in 1901, a strange story was told by two fishermen, who came to the town from one of the islands near by. They said that an American white man came ashore to their fishing hut from a small yacht, and engaged them to row him to another island several miles off. They rowed all night, and in the morning landed. He made them dig at a spot he pointed out, after consulting an old parchment, and he watched over them closely with a Winchester rifle in his hand. At last they unearthed a small, but very heavy iron-bound chest, with which they rowed away to the yacht. As soon as it was hoisted aboard the vessel departed. This story could hardly have been invented by the fishermen, for the American and his yacht had been at Nassau only a few days before, and he had made .many inquiries about the islands in the vicinity. What did he find in the chest ? Nobody in Nassau doubts that it was Captain Kidd’s famous hoard, said to have been hidden thereabouts.

The abortive revolution, in Hay* ti, led by General Firmin and Admiral Killick, was largely financed by an old French treasure found by the latter in a runined chateau on the island of Tortuga. It had been buried there in the days when the Haytian natives massacred their French masters. The find was not a lucky one for Killick.

He perished, after his cause was lost, in the destruction of the cruiser Crete-a-Pierrot as a pirate by the German gunboat Panther. General Maios, who was the richest merchant prince in Venezuela until lie lost much of his money in vain efforts to overthrow President Castro, fitted out an expedition in 1898 to the isle of Margherita, off the Venezuelan coast, and found an old pirate treasure which is said to have realised over ,£40,000. Matos told me himself that his share came to ,£22,000, after paying expenses and giving the Venezuelan Government its share-

An amusing story is told by a Napier gentleman who attended the recent show of the Wairoa Agricultural and Pastoral Society, says the Hawke’s Bay Herald. He arrived only on the second day, found that a “ chain pacing ” competition was in progress, and inquired as to the conditions of the contest. The officials informed him that all competitors had to lodge a certain sum, that each had in turn to pace what he or she considered 22 yards, and that whoever got nearest to the exact distance won the prize. So far the thing was plain, but what puzzled the visitor was an announcement that the Maori women who competed must wear the “divided skirt” only. An explanation was soon forthcoming. It appears that on the previous day a Maori lady won the prize, pacing the distance to within a quarter of an inch, but that underneath her flowing robe she had, extending from knee to knee, a bit of string by which she could almost exactly regulate her strides. One of her own people divulged the secret, and hence the special condition for the second day. The unsophisticated Maori, male or female, is a species now practically extinct.

Great drapery sale! now on at Watchorn, Stiles and Co.’s, where millinery, children’s hats, fancy straws can almost be had for the sking.—Advt.

A few summer costumes at the Economic, Foxton, from 8s 6d each. Secure one now, and save disappointment.*