Treasure Cove of Cocos Island

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 18

Treasure Cove of Cocos Island

Ca.pta.in Malcolm Campbell, SpeedKing, to Search Again i or Swinging Rock that Hides Millions .

BOCOS ISLAND, place of piratical legend, is to be tile scene of yet another romantic hunt for the vast treasure that is said lie concealed somewhere beneath its rock-strewn, jungle-cov-ered hillsides, or its sun-warmed sands. This new adventurous treasure hunt is to be led by Captain Malcolm Campbell, the famous racing motorist, who has made a previous attempt with a little company of five other adventurous sportsmen, including Mr. K. Lee Guinness and an admiral, to locate a portion at any rate of the fabulous store of looted gold which, legends of the past sav, lies buried on Cocos. Captain Campbell is now making plans to pay a visit to this golden isle this year in a further endeavour to reveal its long-kept secret. “We were not there long enough on the last attempt,’’ he told a representative of the "World’s Pictorial News.” “We went out in a yacht named the Adventuress, owned by my friend Lee Guinness, but the vessel could only be at our disposal a limited time, as she had to be handed over to a man to whom she had been sold “We were therefore not at Cocos Island long enough thoroughly to test out the clues I possess to the treasure’s hiding-place. As a matter of fact, we had to come back after being there but .17 days. Me are now, however making arrangements to go out again this year, and hope that this time we shall be more successful.” THE PIRATE’S CHART Captain Campbell is convinced the treasure he seeks still lies buried there on Cocos Island, where it was cached by one Thompson, a Scottish shipmaster, who turned pirate. It is treasure that came from Lima, capital of Peru, and is computed to be worth something like £12,000,000. A year or two ago there came into Captain Campbell’s possession an old chart, marked with directions for the finding of the treasure. It is, he believes, the original chart made by Thompson himself—and the story of that chart is a romance in itself. Thompson’s ship lay in Lima Harbour when news reached that port

that the marching hosts of Bolivar, the man who eventually drove the Spanish out of their South American Empire, were approaching. Panic reigned and the treasure of Lima. " ealthiest of all Spain’s overseas settlements, was rushed willy nillv aboard whatever ships happened to be iu Lima Roads. Some of it—millions of pounds’ worth of gold and jewels—found their "ay into the holds of Thompson’s vessel, together with a guard of Spaniards, though Thompson’s real avocation was never for one moment suspected. The Scottish pirate saw it stowed away, however, and then struck at once. That night his men slew the Spanish guards, the cable was cut, and when dawn broke Thompson and his ship were far at sea speeding across the Pacific to Cocos Island, then but a watering-place for such buccaneering ships as sailed these seas. There the treasure was buried in a cave and, so the story goes, covered by a rock so fixed as to turn on its ax is when moved in some secret fashion. According to the chart afterwards drawn by Thompson this rock had bored in it a hole for the purpose of taking a bar of iron with which the rock could be swung round awav from the mouth of the cave. Treasure Cave Aftei safely burying the treasure which consisted of such things as jewelled swords ami solid gold images, bad luck fell on Thompson. He was chased by a British frigate and practically every man jack of his shipmates hung from the yardarm. Thompson only saved his life by offering to reveal where he had hidden the treaLim- WUh Wh * Ch he had sailed from When Cocos was reached, however by the man-of-war and Thompson, under a guard placed ashore and ordered to lead the search, he managed by a daring subterfuge to elude the tars and make off Into the jungle. Search was, of course, made for him but after a couple of days the frigate's captain was content to give him up I for lost and stood out to sea again, j But the doughty old Scots buccaneer

was not yet finished with. Start is? and half mad with the privation W had endured under the burning aa*® he was some time later taken off ' a trading vessel which by some chase had put in to refill her water beakers In this way he managed to get tt Newfoundland and presently bad mataged to get a shipowner sufficients interested in his story of the treason he had left buried on the island ttit out an expedition to go ' Thompson went, too, but died he c-ould again set foot on the ialas* which meant so much to him. . But he left behind his chart, atthe directions marked thereon ™ would lead his fellow-voyagers to is secret treasure cave. The two ers are said to have located the c quite easily by following the chart, one, after filling his pockets ? much of the treasure as he W3S *l, to carry away, treacherously a** back the rock while his companion in the innermost recesses of the c and left him there to die horiibb- , The other escaped from the ta all right with such loot as he was - to carry away, but died before could pluck up sufficient ‘ourage return to the island where he na treacherously left bis comrade. It is this chart which has * t *_—a now come into the hands of tyjj Campbell, who believes that * directions which accompany it c3 ’ V be followed they will lead to c s the richest and most sought t teas in the world. Accordius t ' which accompany the chart ure comprises gold coin, gold 1 of the Madonna, life-size o images also presumably of £ Ol much silver coin. . , Captain Campbell, since he n - came interested in the treat Cocos some five years ago, n , his friends searched ’ h r , oU f, jorwkeenly scrutinised scores of ° _wtM* meats. Admiralty records ana clues and old sailors' tales of au