The Spanish Galleon / Being an account of a search for sunken treasure in the Caribbean Sea.

by Charles Sumner Seeley

Both my parents were dead, and I had no living relatives nearer than an uncle, my mother’s brother, who was my guardian, and who from time to time sent me money as I needed it. When my father died he left his estate, consisting of valuable farming lands in the beautiful Mohawk valley, heavily encumbered with debt. The money sent me for expenses at college came from a small property that had belonged to my mother. I had always looked forward to the day when, free from school life, I could undertake the management and control of my father’s farms, and return to live at the home farm, where I was born and where my early boyhood days were passed. The old Dutch-built brick house with its noble elms, the brook that ran through the meadow, so near that its murmur could be heard on still summer nights from my open bedroom window, the broad fields stretching up and down the valley as far as the eye could reach, the thousand acres under cultivation, and the thousand more of woodland and pasture, the sleek herds, the dairy, and all the joys of a farmer’s life, made up the picture which was ever in my mind. To live this life had been my ambition, and I had tolerated school only because I was told it would better fit me for the work.

But all my hopes were suddenly dashed by a letter from my uncle advising me to be economical and saving with my money, as there was only seven hundred dollars left of the fund devoted to my education, and the whole of which he would in six months turn over to me in one sum. He told me I was now old enough to be informed of my exact prospects. It was better, he said, I should know that my father’s estate would not sell for nearly enough to clear the mortgages on it, that it would require at least a hundred thousand dollars to meet and pay a debt due in three years. He offered to manage the property for me up to that time; but warned me that I could hope to realize but little from it, and that it would then have to go under the hammer. By this sad and unexpected news, my prospects in life were wholly changed. The thought of losing my old home and all the familiar surroundings was so dismal and distressing that I had no heart left to finish my college work. Could I not somehow get the necessary money to redeem the property? This thought came to me over and over. To get a hundred thousand dollars in the short space of three years! Alas! the accomplishment of such a feat must involve some extraordinary circumstances as well as great good-fortune. It was while thus cudgelling my brains in despair, that the idea of the Spanish galleon recurred to me. After weighing the whole matter coolly, and without any enthusiasm or prejudice, I concluded that there was a bare chance of raising this sunken treasure from the sea. I resolved to take that remote chance, and to spend my money and the three years, if necessary, in the endeavor.

It would be six months before I could get the seven hundred dollars that remained to me. This period I spent in planning and studying the enterprise, and in such physical preparation as I was able to make. Every day I visited the natatorium and gymnasium to practise swimming and to train and develop the muscles; so that when the six months had passed I was an expert swimmer and diver and my muscles were hard as steel. The money came duly to hand, and I left college at once for New York City.

There, after writing to my uncle that I was about to go on a voyage that might last three years, and bidding him an affectionate farewell, I bought such articles and appliances as I had determined would be necessary, and took passage for Martinique with exactly two hundred dollars in my pocket.

Then came, as we have seen, the wreck of the sloop, the drowning of my negro assistants, and my long struggle in the sea.

CHAPTER II.
THE FOOD SUPPLY.

THE sun was well up the eastern sky when I awoke in the morning, so numb and stiff that I could with difficulty unbury myself from the sand, the weight of which had almost stopped the circulation in some parts of the body. My clothing, which I had spread on the sand, had completely dried. After some chafing and rubbing I dressed myself and felt more comfortable than at any time since the loss of the sloop. The first thing to do was to get something to eat. I walked to the brook, bathed my face, and took a long drink of water, and began to be more and more impressed with the fact that the diet was thin. There were a number of cocoanut palms near by, growing within a few rods of the sea, and plenty of nuts on them, as could be plainly seen. But though I searched the ground with hungry glance I could find only one nut that had not been operated on by the land crabs, which are able in an ingenious manner to extract the contents through the three little eyes or holes in the shell. This one nut, the exterior husk of which had not been disturbed, I broke open by pounding it upon a rock, and found it to my bitter disappointment blackened, rancid, and quite unfit for food.

I had noticed a flock of gulls, or some species of shore birds, wheeling about and lighting and running on the beach near by. With a shotgun it would have been an easy matter to creep near and bag half a dozen at a shot. I watched them a little while and concluded that though it might prove a tough and unpalatable dish I must have one, or starve. It would be a good plan, I thought, to gather a dozen pebbles weighing three or four ounces apiece and try the effect of a shot into the thick of the flock from as near a point as I could reach. But as there would be no chance for more than one trial, I determined to fire the stones in a volley. To do this effectively I gathered some tough reeds and tied one to each stone until I had half a dozen stones so provided. By swinging these missiles at the end of the reeds they could be thrown a considerable distance with great velocity.

Trembling with expectation and excitement, I crept down toward the flock, keeping out of sight behind some rocks until I was as near as it was possible to go, when I let fly my volley of improvised slung-shots as well as I could direct them into the thickest of the birds. Running forward immediately, I found two lying on the sand struggling. One was hit squarely on the wing with a stone, and the other had a reed wound once around its neck. I secured both and wrung their necks. The idea at once occurred to me that the next time I had occasion to hunt gulls, I would contrive a bolas by tying a stone to each end of a cord; it seemed to me that this would prove even a more effectual instrument of destruction than the sling volley, as it would be almost certain to entangle one or more of the flock.

These birds were nearly as large as a guillemot, but of what species I do not know. As I had no fire to cook with, I immediately ate one of them raw. The other I cut into strips and shreds and laid them on a rock in the hot sun to dry. The experience of eating a raw unseasoned gull was such as to turn my thoughts forcibly to the necessity of some means for procuring both fire and salt. The salt would not be difficult to obtain, for if it could not be found somewhere along the shore or in the salt marsh near by, it would not be difficult to make some sort of a salt pan provided I could find clay or other impermeable soil with which to confine a shallow pool of sea water somewhere in the sunshine. The evaporation would speedily give the small quantity I should require.