Early on the following morning—September 15—the boat came off with five more of my companions, which raised our shore-party to nine.
We then shifted our camp from the torture hut of fleas to a sandy spot further to the southward under Hart Hill, and here we pitched the two emigrant tents which had been brought for Trinidad. The boat returned to the yacht for the stores, and brought back to us all the picks, shovels, and crowbars, a forty-gallon tank of water, and plenty of provisions, including a savoury stew of Salvagee rabbits, for our sportsmen had had good luck on the previous day.
After the camp had been put in order the whole party set forth to survey the southern shore, and each, having read the Spaniard's narrative, gave his opinion as to the most likely spot.
Then we arranged a methodical plan of action, and his portion of work was allotted to each man. We dug trenches in parallel lines in some places, in others we drew them in A shapes, gold prospector's fashion, generally working in a sandy earth, but sometimes through shingle.
The surface of the island has, no doubt, undergone many changes since 1804, the year in which it is alleged that the treasure was buried. It was therefore often difficult to decide to what depth the trenches should be dug; for we came to a hard, darker soil, which some of us considered to be of ancient formation, undisturbed for centuries, while others were of opinion that loose sand mixing with vegetable matter could easily have consolidated into this in the course of eighty years. When we had dug the trenches as far down as we intended we sounded the earth to a still greater depth by driving in the crowbars at short intervals. At one time some excitement was caused by the discovery of bones, but our doctor pronounced them to be the bones of a whale and not of a human being.
By dinner time we had dug a goodly array of trenches; for we were working energetically despite the burning sun.
While we were enjoying an interval of rest after the midday meal and smoking our pipes, I took those of the working-party who had not yet seen the black crystals to the summit of Hart Hill, and asked their opinion of the mineral. None of them had seen a rock of like formation before, and they thought this might prove a valuable discovery. Our sportsman took in the value of the hill at a glance. 'Well,' he said, 'I don't think so much of this as of the other treasures. However, it may be worth a quarter of a million or so to us. I will put my share of it on "X" for the Derby.' I may mention that the horse he selected did not turn out to be this year's Derby winner.
We worked steadily through the afternoon, also for the whole of the next day, September 16. On this day the mate reported that the remainder of our salt beef, some 400 pounds, was spoiled. It had, accordingly, to be thrown overboard.
It was just possible that the treasure had been hidden on the Little Piton, and not on the island on which we were working. The Little Piton might be described as the middle island, for it lies between the Great Piton and another small islet or rock, apparently not marked in the chart; while the Great Salvage is as often as not invisible from here.
So on the morning of September 17, leaving the other hands to continue the trenches, I sailed in the whale-boat with two of my companions to the Little Piton. We found that this islet also had a sandy down in its centre; but after several trials we saw that it was impossible to effect a landing on any part of it. There was no snug little cove, such as the one described by Cruise. The sea was breaking in an ugly way along the rocky coast, and the water round the islet was so thickly studded with rocks and reefs that it was dangerous to approach it.