IN QUEST OF GOLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 193, 5 August 1908, Page 4

IN QUEST OF GOLD.

KRUGER'S LOST TREASURE. A ROMANTIC VOYAGE. London, dune 5. Ihe good ship Alfred Nobel, which some 12 months ago sailed from London to cruise in lire summer seas for hidden treasure, is coining back without any. She is the property, it may be remembered, of the South African Salvage Company, and one of her objectives was Paul Kruger's treasure ship, the Dorothea, which lies in /'/» fathoms of water, two miles cast rii Cape Yidal, on the Tenedo Reef, oil' the coast of Zululaud. The Kruger gold, which Oom I'aul, so the story runs, sent out of the Transvaal for safety, was said to run to the value of £(i,)o,000, and it was supposed to be cement- : ed to the bottom of the Dorothea with , 200 tons of sand ballast spread over 1 it.

Altogether the Alfred Nobel's programme included 38 charted wrecks to work upon along the South African coast. One of thesu was the. Middleburg, an old armed Dutch merchantman, which went to the bottom in 1714 in Saldanha Bay with £20,000 in doubloons on board. Captain C. A. P. Gardiner, in charge of the treasure expedition, was sanguine of having a snitf at six millions all told of sunken treasure that lay around and about the South African coast, and he had an | agreement with the Cape. Government by which, when he had attacked a sunken ship, no permits would be granted to rivals; and on the other hand .whatever lie raised was to bear a tax of 20 per cent. And now, alas, that tax will never be levied- The picturesque treasure of Oom Paul lies wheru it did. At the outset disappointment confronted the gallant crew of the Alfred Nobel for they found that treacherous coast too dangerous, battered continuously by huge rollers from the Indian coast. So the attempt to get into the depths of the Dorothea ended in failure.

Thereupon the Alfred Nobel sailed away to Swakopmumt, where she anchored near the steamer Dunbeth, which lies secure on the teeth of the rocks there, as the result of a. fatal foggy night, until the waves battered her to fragments. Here, again, the quest ended in utter disappointment, for it was found that even the copper and brass fittings had been "jumped" by previous visitors. Discouraged, but not beaten, the Alfred Nobel brought up in Saldanha, Bay where lies the ribs of the old Middleburg. Here the divers brought up, after pumping out 10ft or so of sand, a quantity of old china., Unfortunately some fine collections «ji china have been recovered from the Middleburg on many previous occasions, so that this output has become in the nature of a drug in the market. Still undeterred the Alfred Nobel" mads a course for Table Bay, and had a nibble at the Australian iiner Ther'mopylae, which about 10 years ago. ncarlv pushed her nose into the henroost' of the keeper of the Flash Lighthouse at Three Anchor Bay, which event was made history by Mrs. Langtry's horses on board swimming ashore. One of them, by the bye, was a noted New Zealand racer. Arriving at this j wreck, the Alfred Nobel did a deal of ' blasting, but all the efforts accomplished nothing, beyond making an even more complete ruin of the once stately liner.

Next the Alfred Nobcle made for the sailing ship America off the Woodstock Beach, which went ashore in 1900 with a cargo chiefly of beer and coal. The expedition now is at an end, and the ship will Soon be back in London.