SEARCH FOR TREASURE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 April 1939, Page 9

SEARCH FOR TREASURE

QUEST AT COCOS ISLANDS. OLD MAP FOUND IN BOOK. A Londoner who chanced to find a faded ma]) of the Cocos Islands in a second-hand 6ook, is shortly leaving England on a hunt for buried treasure. The book, picked up on a stall in the Caledonian Market, London, cost 3d. The treasure, to the hiding place of which the map is said to be a guide, is worth millions of pounds. The treasure-seeker is Victor Durmet, a 30-year-old research engineer. He is throwing up his job and sinking £6OO, his life savings, in the venture.

On the map which fell out of the book when, he got it home was a treasure box drawn in faded ink, an arrow and compass instructions. Mr Durmet had the map examined by the British Museum, who told him it was over 100 years old. Now Mr Durmet says he is confident that the map is the original map showing the spot where the much-sought-after Lima, Peru, treasure was buried by an English sea captain in 1821. Mr Durmet said recently: “One history of the Lima treasure says that it was taken by a British sea captain, Captain Thompson, and buried on an island in the Pacific. This account adds that Captain Thompson died in a London hospital, but before he died ho wrote the directions where the treasure was buried on a map. That map was afterwards lost. Now this 3d book I have bought has the name of St Bartholomew’s Hospital written inside, and it was printed early in the nineteenth century. "I am confident from inquiries I have been making during the last two weeks that this is the original map of Captain Thompson."

Two of Mr Durmet’s friends, a 30-year-old naturalist and a 55-year-old taxidermist, have decided to join him on his adventure.