TREASURE TROVE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 122, 26 May 1930, Page 4

TREASURE TROVE

CANNONS AND DOLLARS

AUSTRALIA'S SHARE

GALXEONS OPE COAST

: ' How tirdeiitly wo. all hoped in our boyhood1- clays to sail away in a long, low, rali ting ship with many sails, and discover pirate hoards or buried trea■!sure, sa>«s .a writer in tho "JMelbourne . Argus." How eagerly wo read about •those oli'-i-tiine buccaneers of tho West ■': Indies —( baptaiu Kidd, Morgan, and .-' ;Bartoloni jeu Portugucs. They were a . bloodthir Wy ' band;. but we who have Tcad of their reckless doings on tho high sea: J have felt the blood surge through buy veins, sighed, and be.nioaned I jihe fact that Australia was too young a country to be girdled with I ancient hvrceks containing valuable '.treasures . But several ancient treasure ? ships, ho wover, have been wrecked on itho Australian coast, or on the islands ■ ''to this noa'th of Capo York, in the dim ;past, andi I have on two occasions ac»companies! expeditions to find the long-" 'fiost'treat jure.' they were supposed to ■•carry. ■ ■'■ :t The.-wre'ek Of a.Spanish ship has lain ' - on 'the Victorian coast ever tho advent of the British colonist. '; This hull:1, which lies among the sand hininmbcfc'Si'iiear Warrnambool, ,was first '^observed by white people in 1830. Even ■at that ti me its arrival was beyond tho .' o<£ the oldest natives of the 'district, although a tradition was ■'.r1 found to exist .: among the Yangery '.j tribe of c'fborigines of the presence in ttheir raids'* of:."yellow men" at some > 'Urine- in the far-distant past. No thor-1 "ough exan lination of the wreck seems to have crcr been attempted,' and.it 'sis now so c pmpletely buried in sand that • * its l.ocatioi't would'probably be a work ;of ex-treme difficulty. -; Jutting < *ut 'from tho foreshores of JBroome, out the West Australian coast, . iis a cause\ ray obviously not the work '''of' Nature, 'but considered by local historians to liave been built by William Jpampier's i nen to facilitate loading and ■(unloading A vhen his ship, the-Roebuck, : ,' c ame into port. -Tradition says that in the sand adjacent to the . .causeway t be buccaneer buried treasure, but so f!ar'the/secret of the covercd:np hoard ha js iiot! been : solved. I' EARLE EST SPANISH RELIC. J Por many years there was to be seen lat the onoutlfe of a saltwater lagoon on ■■Pacing Islan^',/ near.: Port Curtis, in :. ''Queensland;, fine remains of an old oak '■vessel, -which V- has sinco been covered hvith sanclp 'j?)he. traces of an old Spanish settlement at Port Curtis, which was idiscovered bj <- a surveyor named Wilmot , 'iin 1853i'niay i probably have been made tby siirvivors ; from this ship. At first ,"4tho^ settlemeist was supposed to bo a ' -frelie' of the y ssit ,of H.M.S. Rattlesnake ' in 1547; but-|^.ttention was directed to . Ithe discovery j :of a cannon embedded in. %Ie soil- at'Sojuth Tree Point. The ma- . -tcrial of -this'ignn, which was apparent- . :;]y of Spanish!, make, was brass,, and its ' -dimensions w'cfo: Length sft, diameter i-'sin, borp :■• viiin: ' The. inscription, -■' J" Santa BarhVra, 1596, ". : makes it the 1 'earliest'aatc<V. .Spanish relic, so far 'discovered, iii . Australia, the only 'others, so far;'as I am aware, being a • i'coin dated I. fl7 ;- ?found on-the sito of : -an old camping-ground of the aborigines hi Hamilton, .Victoria,.and some coins an tong Dutch' 'relics on Gun ■ Houti.ban's Abrolhos,Western •Australia, bet Wing tho dates 1633 and

' "163S ■ " '' i' ■*■ ■' i Tho late Cardinal Morau stated tiiat ?the relies at l.Port Curtis.were tliosc of •;?the Spanish navigator De Quiros,, who landed on the ) coast of Queensland 300 1 fyears ago; { : f 'The prow •; and stern posts of an Vaneiont ship etiai be scon on the beach i!on Long Islan a, in Whitsunday Passage. The wr Mk is buried in a manWove swamp ;ibout a mile from tho ibeaeh. Ten y. ftars back I was onb ot '4, party which: attempted to. explore ktie ancient hu fk, but it was impossible, ■•*to dig more tl.vin a few inches deep WW to the -slushy .nature of the "ground in whi «lv it is buried. : Satur..aay -who was tho oldest aboriginal in-, 'habitant onthc island at the, time, of 'my visit, inforr aed me. that the strange 'was in its .present position when, h b was a child. He 'related a tradition which hacl been handed down ltb Mm by Ms parents, and it may liauo fiomu bearing on the Week. Many j 'ears before tho appearJance of ■ white men on. the island a 'iaro-e sailing yes eel came from the direction" of the Barrier Beef. The aboriiwines approach! jd the, strange craft '••with their canptJs loaded with fish. A ■barter took plaoio. ■. .: •: Just as the blhcks;were leaving the, ■ship one of the men on board stabbed 'an aboriginal, Wlio was attempting :to 14-eacliThis" canoe. "The other blacks returned to the shore, where they discussed the •niurdtsr; and decided :to revenge the death ;of their comrade. At Tnidnight they silently approached the ship,: and^nmrdereiel all on, board. Eventually the ship drifted up a creek, and !rv-as afterwards ' buried in the mud. ' Since I visited t lie island a shoepf armor on "one :o t tho adjecent isles ias found a sinalli quantity of ancient Silver1 cutlery and ,-coins near the old twreck. ■

; NECKLACE OF GOLDEN" COINS. i Many years bacli: the crew of a gehooner, wliicli la'oidecl ai Woodlark : Islaiid, noticed a ;:,&ative giri wearing a necklace of sti tango coins. When ,'fluestioned. she. sta tod ; that she - had ioun'd them on an ofliter reef when tlie tide'was low. The- crew visited the spot, and from the : half-buried remains pf an ancient ship t h.ey recovered more than: 500 coins, most of■ them gold. I What is probably ' the oldest wreck in our northern waters .lies ngar !&.baura, on the My fliver (Papua). It is embedded in tho [entre of a swamp, iuid when. I visited the village in .1910 I was shown some .coins and portion pf the wreckage, but-: the debris was so covered with : barnacles tliat it was impossible to dci);ermine to which. 'nationality, the ship [belonged. t -When scarcldng '■•'■ for beche-do-mcr 'iiear? Murray Island, Jix Torres Strait, m IS9O, one. of the la'lo Mr..Frank Jaridine's luggers was ciuught iv a storm, and.'rau . for sheltpr J-o"oiie. of those jfiaturally 'protected "ciVtos that abound ftlong the Barrier Reef. Lying. to_ in ■ this selected . haven- tire flukes of a 1 time-worn anchor - wev-e ' discerned at a ijhort distance from V'© boat at\ low ebb-tide. Believing that the anchor "might in some way prove' useful, steps . were taken to iecove.r' -it. The surprise and gratification axperioneed on . a mass of coin being lai A baro on the immediate resting place »jif the eroded inchor may be welli imagined. Further investigations led to tho discovery of ii larger mass of coin till an could be' transported-by. tho lugger: in a s'ugle voyage, and several -trim from the mainland-were eventually .calcen before tho treasure trove was } ox.li!£Wiste3. : SPANISH DOLLAK S. ".The specie exhumed prove-t. on examination'to be Spanish, chiefly, .silver dollars bearing-* various - dates within the first two ■ decades of the last century. Mingled among these were cTJ'"seovered a. fair sprinkling of golden ! cw.ns of tho same epoch. Though imniiea'ned in water1 for so many years' the majority *6f the* "dollars were in a rcnn-ii-Xably fine-state of preservation, and buj^little worn' down. ' They were, howe\ -\i iy soldered -together by their flat surf.noes in roulette form, after the manner' Q'f the familiar aalaivia lozanjies whaa nMa tvad

to get damp. For obvious reasons the value of the treasure never transpired, but it was stated, by many that the silver alone was worth about £3000. Some of the' dollars were sent to Sydney, and made into plate for the Jardine homestead at Somerset (Cape York). . . So far as it is possible to determine, the vessel originally carrying this coin was of Spanish nationality, and was either laden with specie for the payment of tho civil .'.and , military staffs of tho Spanish colony of Manila, or equipped for trading among tho spicebearing islands of the Malay Archipelago, and in cither case driven out of its course probably 'by a north-west monsoon, and-wrecked on tho scene of tho anchor and coin discovery.