PRACTICAL HINTS FOR TREASURE SEEKERS
Faith, imagination, and a vigorous physique comprise the essential equipment of a treasure seeker. Capital is desirable, but not absolutely necessary, for it would be hard indeed to find a neighborhood in which some legend or other of buried gold is not current. If one is unable to finance an expedition aboard a swift, black-hulled schooner, it is always possible to dig for the treasure of poor Captain Kidd and it is really a matter of small importance that he left no treasure in his wake. The zest of the game is in seeking. A pick and a shovel are to be obtained in the wood-shed or can be purchased at the nearest hardware store for a modest outlay. A pirate's chart is to be highly esteemed, but if the genuine article cannot be found, there are elderly seafaring men in every port who will furnish one just as good and perjure themselves as to the information thereof with all the cheerfulness in the world.
It has occurred to the author that a concise directory of the best-known lost and buried treasure might be of some service to persons of an adventurous turn of mind, and the following tabloid guide for ready reference may perhaps prove helpful, particularly to parents of small boys who have designs on pirate hoards, as well as to boys who have never grown up.
Cocos Island. In the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Rica. Twelve million dollars in plate, coin, bar gold, and jewels buried by buccaneers and by seamen who pirated the treasure of Lima.
Trinidad. In the South Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. The vast booty of sea-rovers who plundered the richest cities of South America. A very delectable and well-authenticated treasure, indeed, with all the proper charts and appurtenances. Specially recommendeded.
The Salvages. A group of small islands to the southward of Madeira. Two million dollars of silver in chests, buried by the crew of a Spanish ship in 1804. They killed their captain and laid him on top of the treasure, wherefore proper precautions must be taken to appease his ghost before beginning to dig.
Cape St. Vincent. West coast of Madagascar. The wreck of a Dutch-built ship of great age is jammed fast between the rocks. Gold and silver money has been washed from her and cast up on the beach, and a large fortune still remains among her timbers. Expeditions are advised to fit out at Mozambique.
Venanguebe Bay, thirty-five miles south south-west of Ngoncy Island on the east coast of Madagascar. A sunken treasure is supposed to be not far from the wreck of the French frigate Gloire lost in 1761. Expeditions will do well to keep a weather eye lifted along all this coast for the treasures of the pirates who infested these waters in the days of Captain Kidd.
Gough Island, sometimes called Diego Alvarez. Latitude 40° 19' S. Longitude 9° 44' W. It is well known that on this unfrequented bit of sea-washed real estate, a very wicked pirate or pirates deposited ill-gotten gains. The place to dig is close to a conspicuous spire or pinnacle of stone on the western end of the island, the name of which natural landmark is set down on the charts as Church Rock.
Juan Fernandez. South Pacific. Famed as the abode of Robinson Crusoe who was too busy writing the story of his life to find the buccaneer's wealth concealed in a cave, also the wreck of a Spanish galleon reputed to have been laden with bullion from the mines of Peru.