Meanwhile other explorers had been busy. A German, Von Bremer, spent several thousand dollars in excavating and tunneling, but found no reward. The tales of treasure also fired the brain of a remarkable person named Gissler, who took up his solitary residence on Cocos Island more than twenty years ago where he has since reigned with the title and authority of governor of the same, by virtue of a commission duly signed, sealed, and delivered by the republic of Costa Rica. As a persistent and industrious treasure-hunter, this tropical hermit is unique.
He was visited in 1896 by Captain Shrapnel of H.M.S. Haughty who had heard the stories of Thompson and Benito Bonito along the coastwise ports. By way of giving his blue-jackets something to do, he landed a party three hundred strong on Cocos Island whose landscape they vainly blasted and otherwise disarranged for several days, but without success. The Admiralty lacked imagination and reprimanded Captain Shrapnel for his enterprising break in the dull routine of duty. It was decreed that no more naval vessels were to touch at Cocos Island on any pretext whatever.
This by no means discouraged Captain Shrapnel who waited until it was permissible for him to apply for leave of absence. In England he found gentlemen adventurers sufficient to finance an expedition which sailed in the Lytton in 1903. Of this party was Hervey de Montmorency, whose account of the venture includes the following information:
"On the ninth of August, at four o'clock in the morning, every treasure-seeker was on deck straining his eyes to penetrate the mist and darkness; then as the sun rose, the gray mass on the horizon turned to green, and Cocos Island, with its lofty wooded peak, its abrupt, cliff-like shores, its innumerable cascades of sparkling water, was displayed to eager and admiring eyes.
"The anchor was dropped in the little bay, and at the splash, flocks of birds rose screaming and circling overhead. The sandy beach on which the seekers landed is strewn with boulders, on each of which is carved the name and business of some vessel which has called at Cocos. Some of the dates carry one back to Nelson's time; and all sorts of ships seem to have visited the lonely little island, while many a boulder testified to blighted hopes and fruitless errands after treasure.
"Captain Shrapnel's party set to work with the highest expectation. No previous expedition had been so well furnished with clues. Once on the right track, it seemed impossible that they should fail. They searched for ten days, encouraged now by the finding of the broken arm of a battered cross brought from some Peruvian church, again by a glimpse into what promised falsely to be a treasure cave; but all blasting, digging, and damming of streams proved useless. Captain Shrapnel at last called a council of war, and declared his opinion that the search was hopeless; landslips, previous excavations, and the torrential rains of this tropical region had so entirely altered the face of the island that clues and directions were of little avail, nor did their agreement with the owners of the Lytton permit of a longer stay on Cocos.
"We did not leave the island, however, without paying a visit to its governor, Gissler, whose little settlement is on Wafer Bay. Rounding the headland from Chatham Bay, we came into the quiet little nook where he has made his home, and he at once waded out in the surf to greet the visitors,—a tall, bronzed man, with a long, gray heard reaching below his waist, and deep-set eyes which gazed with obvious suspicion. Gissler had learned to distrust the coming of strangers, who have paid small regard to his rights, pillaging his crops, killing his livestock, and even making free with his home.
"Reassured by Captain Shrapnel's party that he had nothing to fear from them, he invited them to his house and clearing, and told them of his long and lonely hunt for the pirate's treasure. When he first went to live on Cocos, he found many traces of the freebooters. There were traces of their old camps, with thirty-two stone steps leading to a cave, old fire-places, rusty pots and arms, and empty bottles to mark the scene of their carousing. He had found only one gold coin, a doubloon of the time of Charles III of Spain, bearing the date of 1788."
In 1901, a company was formed in Vancouver, with a capital of $10,000, to fit out an expedition for Cocos Island. Gissler got wind of this project and formally addressed the government of Costa Rica in these written words:
"Allow me to inform you that no company with any such intent would have the right to land on Cocos Island, as I hold a concession from the authorities of Costa Rica in regard to the said treasure, in which concession the Costa Rica government has an interest. Certainly anything that might be undertaken by such a company from Vancouver would amount to naught without my consent."