Read Ebook: The Book of Buried Treasure Being a True History of the Gold Jewels and Plate of Pirates Galleons etc. which are sought for to this day by Paine Ralph Delahaye

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Ebook has 964 lines and 129105 words, and 20 pages

CHAPTER

Treasure-seekers' Camp at Cape Vidal on African Coast

Captain Kidd burying his Bible

Carousing at Old Calabar River

The Idle Apprentice goes to sea

John Gardiner's sworn statement of the goods and treasure left with him by Kidd

Governor Bellomont's endorsement of the official inventory of Kidd's treasure found on Gardiner's Island

The official inventory of the Kidd treasure found on Gardiner's Island

A memorandum of Captain Kidd's treasure left on Gardiner's Island

Statement of Edward Davis, who sailed home with Kidd, concerning the landing of the treasure and goods

Kidd hanging in chains

"The Pirates' Stairs" leading to the site of Execution Dock at Wapping where Kidd was hanged

Sir William Phips, first royal governor of Massachusetts

Map of Hispaniola engraved in 1723, showing the buccaneers at their trade of hunting wild cattle

Permit issued by Sir William Phips as royal governor in which he uses the title "Vice-Admiral" which involved him in disastrous quarrels

The oldest existing print of Boston harbor as it appeared in the time of Sir William Phips, showing the kind of ships in which he sailed to find his treasure

An ancient map of Jamaica showing the haunts of the pirates and the track of the treasure galleons

The town and bay of Tobermory, Island of Mull

Duart Castle, chief stronghold of the MacLeans

Ardnamurchan Castle, seat of the MacIans and the MacDonalds

Defeat of the Spanish Armada

Diving to find the treasure galleon in Tobermory Bay

Scabbards, flasks, cannon balls, and small objects recovered from the sunken Armada galleon

Sir George Rooke, commanding the British fleet at the battle of Vigo Bay

Framework of an "elevator" devised by Pino for raising the galleons in Vigo Bay

An "elevator" with air bags inflated

Cannon of the treasure galleons recovered by Pino from the bottom of Vigo Bay

Hydroscope invented by Pino for exploring the sea bottom and successfully used in finding the galleons of Vigo Bay

Lima Cathedral

Treasure-seekers digging on Cocos Island

Christian Cruse, the hermit treasure-seeker of Cocos Island

Thetis Cove in calm weather, showing salvage operations

Thetis Cove during the storm which wrecked the salvage equipment

Sir Walter Raleigh

Methods of manipulating the diving rod to find buried treasure

Gibbs and Wansley burying the treasure

The Portuguese captain cutting away the bag of moidores

Interview between Lafitte, General Andrew Jackson, and Governor Claiborne

The death of Black Beard

THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE

In Bristowe I left Poll ashore, Well stored wi' togs an' gold, An' off I goes to sea for more, A-piratin' so bold. An' wounded in the arm I got, An' then a pretty blow; Comed home I find Poll's flowed away, Yo, ho, with the rum below!

An' when my precious leg was lopt, Just for a bit of fun, I picks it up, on t'other hopt, An' rammed it in a gun. "What's that for?" cries out Salem Dick; "What for, my jumpin' beau? "Why, to give the lubbers one more kick!" Yo, ho, with the rum below!

I 'llows this crazy hull o' mine At sea has had its share: Marooned three times an' wounded nine An' blowed up in the air. But ere to Execution Bay The wind these bones do blow, I'll drink an' fight what's left away, Yo, ho, with the rum below!

THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE

THE WORLD-WIDE HUNT FOR VANISHED RICHES

"With the name of pirate is also associated ideas of rich plunder, caskets of buried jewels, chests of gold ingots, bags of outlandish coins, secreted in lonely, out of the way places, or buried about the wild shores of rivers and unexplored sea coasts, near rocks and trees bearing mysterious marks indicating where the treasure was hid. And as it is his invariable practice to secrete and bury his booty, and from the perilous life he leads, being often killed or captured, he can never revisit the spot again, therefore immense sums remain buried in those places and are irrevocably lost. Search is often made by persons who labor in anticipation of throwing up with their spade and pickaxe, gold bars, diamond crosses sparkling amongst the dirt, bags of golden doubloons and chests wedged close with moidores, ducats and pearls; but although great treasures lie hid in this way, it seldom happens that any is recovered."

It will be readily perceived that this is the stock motive of almost all buried treasure fiction, the trademark of a certain brand of adventure story, but it is really more entertaining to know that such charts and records exist and are made use of by the expeditions of the present day. Opportunity knocks at the door. He who would gamble in shares of such a speculation may find sun-burned, tarry gentlemen, from Seattle to Singapore, and from Capetown to New Zealand, eager to whisper curious information of charts and sailing directions, and to make sail and away.

Some of them are still seeking booty lost on Cocos Island off the coast of Costa Rica where a dozen expeditions have futilely sweated and dug; others have cast anchor in harbors of Guam and the Carolines; while as you run from Aden to Vladivostock, sailormen are never done with spinning yarns of treasure buried by the pirates of the Indian Ocean and the China Sea. Out from Callao the treasure hunters fare to Clipperton Island, or the Gallapagos group where the buccaneers with Dampier and Davis used to careen their ships, and from Valparaiso many an expedition has found its way to Juan Fernandez and Magellan Straits. The topsails of these salty argonauts have been sighted in recent years off the Salvages to the southward of Madeira where two millions of Spanish gold were buried in chests, and pick and shovel have been busy on rocky Trinidad in the South Atlantic which conceals vast stores of plate and jewels left there by pirates who looted the galleons of Lima.

Divers searching wreck of Treasure ship Dorothea, Cape Vidal, Africa.

The coast of Madagascar, once haunted by free-booters who plundered the rich East Indiamen, is still ransacked by treasure seekers, and American soldiers in the Philippines indefatigably excavate the landscape of Luzon in the hope of finding the hoard of Spanish gold buried by the Chinese mandarin Chan Lu Suey in the eighteenth century. Every island of the West Indies and port of the Spanish Main abounds in legends of the mighty sea rogues whose hard fate it was to be laid by the heels before they could squander the gold that had been won with cutlass, boarding pike and carronade.

The spirit of true adventure lives in the soul of the treasure hunter. The odds may be a thousand to one that he will unearth a solitary doubloon, yet he is lured to undertake the most prodigious exertions by the keen zest of the game itself. The English novelist, George R. Sims, once expressed this state of mind very exactly. "Respectable citizens, tired of the melancholy sameness of a drab existence, cannot take to crape masks, dark lanterns, silent matches, and rope ladders, but they can all be off to a pirate island and search for treasure and return laden or empty without a stain upon their characters. I know a fine old pirate who sings a good song and has treasure islands at his fingers' ends. I think I can get together a band of adventurers, middle-aged men of established reputation in whom the public would have confidence, who would be only too glad to enjoy a year's romance."

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