On the following morning the reef at low tide presented an extraordinary spectacle. Every woman, boy and girl from Guasap and the adjacent villages were searching for the coins, and their clamour was terrific. Whilst all this was going on, White, and the mate, and crew were receiving the oil from the shore, putting it into our casks, driving the hoops, and stowing them in the hold, working in such a state of suppressed excitement that we were unable to exchange a word with each other, for as each cask was filled I, on the after-deck, paid for it, shunted off the seller, and took another one in hand.
At four o'clock in the afternoon we ceased work on board and went on shore to “buy money”.
The village square was crowded with women and children, every one of whom had money—mostly in English five-shilling pieces. Some of these coins were bent and twisted into the most curious shape, some were imbedded in lumps of coral, and nearly all gave evidence of the terrific fury of the seas which had cast them up upon the reef from a depth of seven fathoms of water. Many were merely round lumps, having been rolled over and over among the sand and coral. These I demurred to accepting on the terms agreed upon for undamaged coins, and the natives cheerfully agreed to my decision.
That day we bought silver coin, damaged and undamaged, to the value of £350, for trade goods worth about £17 or £18.
And for the following two weeks, whilst White and our crew were hammering and coopering away at the oil casks, and stowing them under hatches, I was paying out the trade goods for the oil, and “buying money”.
We remained at Mayu for a month, until there was no more money to be found—except a few coins (or rather what had once been coins); and then with a ship full of oil, and with £2,100 worth of money, we left and sailed for Sydney.
White sold the money en bloc to the Sydney mint for £1,850. The oil realised £2,400, and the copper, etc., £250. My share came to over £400—exclusive of four months' wages—making nearly £500. This was the best bit of trading luck that I ever met with.
I must add that even up to 1895 silver coins from the Dutch barque were still being found by the natives of Woodlark Islands.