SEARCH FOR TREASURE

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 113, 9 April 1930, Page 7

SEARCH FOR TREASURE

COCOS ISLAND SECRETS. CAPT. MALCOLM CAMPBELL TO VENTURE? DUNEDIN, April 7. Cocos Island, at one time a haven of refuge for pirates who operated in the vicinity of Panama, is still believed to conceal within its romantic confines treasure amounting in sterling value to many millions of pounds. From time to time during the past few decades expeditions commanded by optimistic persons have set their course for Cocos Island, the objeot, of course, being to collect pirate gold and jewels. No treasure of any sensational value has yet been discovered there, but so persistent are the efforts to looate it that little doubt exists that riches are actually there. A recent cable from London announces that Captain Malcolm Campbell, the racing motorist, is the latest to contemplate a treasure hunt on tho island, and this message has stirred up Mr George Chance, of Dunedin, to give his memories of an earlier expedition in which he took part, to a reporter. Mr Chance said that in 1906, at the age of 18 years, he was associated in an exhibition to Cocos Island with Captain Voss, of Tilikum famo. He said that tho Costa Rican Government, under whose sway Cocos Island came, seemed to do all it could to encourage these searches for treasure, and parties which made the ventures had to pay a certain concession for the privilege. At the time Captain Voss was in those waters the Government had accepted payment for three expeditions, and a man called Turner was already on the island. Then Earl Fitzwilliam turned up with another expedition, and between the two there was a bitter fight, which resulted in casualties. In the meantime, Captain Voss had decided that under the circumstances discretion was the better part of valour, and accordingly his people held off until the other two expeditions had departed. Prior to their landing on Cocos Island, they were held up by a revolution for three months in Guayaquil, which was part of Ecuador. Nearly all their fire-arins and instruments were confiscated. “TREASURE IS THERE.” “I am fully convinced that treasure is there,” went on Mr Chance, in reference to Cocos Island. “I can’t say whether or not Captain Campbell’s expedition is likely to succeed. We were to sink shafts and try electrical instruments, too, but the island was so much dug over that it was impossible to trace any clue as to the treasure’s whereabouts. My own theory is that it has been buried more or less hurriedly on the beach by some of the early buccaneers, and that the sea has encroached on the spot. “Captain Voss went to the island in a small sailing vessel,” continued Mr Chance, “and the only crew he had was supplied bv the revolutionists, who knew little about the seafaring life. It was owing to tho unsettled state of the crew that they were ablo.to spend only a short time on tho island. In fact, there was a likelihood that they would start a little revolution of their own, and that tho Englishmen aboard would be the victims. “Almost every expedition starts off hopefully with a supposed cluo or a letter,” said Mr Chanoe. “In the case of Voss it was the old story of a dying shipmate giving him a document which was to have led him to the exact location. None of these clues ever seem to have come to anything. I often wonder what became of Voss. Up till the war period I had received several letters from him, and ten years ago I heard quite a lot about him in Yokohama. Apparently, he attempted to start off from there on another world venture, but was unsuccessful. However, at the timo of the war he disappeared and nothing has been heard of him since. The Tilikum still lies in the Thames in a more or less decaying condition.”