TREASURE TROVE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 234, 1 September 1938, Page 4

TREASURE TROVE

THE NGATAKI’S GUEST. SUWARROW ISLAND SEARCH. AUCKLAND, Sept. 1. Having spent a week on Suwarrow atoll, tho coral shell on which the crew of the auxiliary y idit Ngataki hope to find treasure said to have been buried there by buccaneers in the long ago and reburied by Mr Henry Mair in. 1876, Mr H. Binsted, headmaster of tho Onehunga School, had some interesting things to say as to the possibility of the gold and jewels being recovered. Mr Binsted, who was at that time lecturer in psychology at the Auckland Training College, was sent to Rarotonga in 1925 as the first superintendent of schools for the Cook Islands by tho New Zealand Education Department. His duty was to organise a system of education through the northern and southern islands of the group, and his duties kept him travelling through the 11 islands and 19 schools under his control for three or four months of each year. It was while he was returning from the Pukapuka atoll in the 100-ton schooner Avarua in August, 1928, that Mr Binsted made acquaintance with Suwarrow. A storm compelled tho captain to seek shelter and as Suwarrow is one of the only two atolls that have an entrance through which ships may pass to the safety of the lagoon. it was there that they went. STORY NOT SPOKEN OF.

“Evidently there is not a great deal of belief in the treasure down there,” said Mr Binsted, “as the captain did not even mention the matter. As far as that goes, I did not hear tho story until 1 returned to New Zealand.”

The atoll, he explained, was actually a ring of coral enclosing a huge lagoon. The width of the coral strip was about 150 yards and the strip was about 25 miles in circumference. Down the centre of the strip were coconut trees, this portion being about 50 yards wide, but the palms grow only in those sections of The reef where there is sufficient sand to give them foothold. The island was formerly leased to Lever Brothers, the great English firm, but at the time Mr Binsted was there the lease was held by a New Zealand firm. The work of picking tho nuts' and preparing the copra was done by natives from Palmerston Island, who spent about six months of the year at Suwarrow. FEROCIOUS SHARKS.

The story goes that the treasure was. last seen by Mr Henry Mair, who swam ashore to the assistance of a friend in the year 1876, found pieces of eight and jewellery and buried them in a secret place on the island. Mr Binsted said that, when the difficulty of swimming to the coral reef was fully understood, Mr Mair must

have been a brave man. “And the sharks there are the most ferocious 1 have ever seen,” he added. “If one walks along the reef they nose up from the depths looking for their prey.” In his opinion the most likely place for the treasure to be found, if it is really there, is close to where the copra shed stands near tho entrance to the lagoon. There have,, however, been three serious hurricanes—one in 1914, one in 1924 and the last one in 1936. In these terrific storms the waves scoop thousands upon thousands of tons of sand from the seaward beaches and hurl them across into the lagoon. In that case the treasure, if there was any, might easily be shifted into the lagoon and might even then be swept out by the tide that nishes through the lagoon entrance like a millrace. “The whole .story of the treasure is certainly credible,” Mr Binsted concluded, “but 1 wouldn’t say more than that. It would certainly be an ideal place for a buccan-eer to hide his wealth As the island offers such excellent shelter, which so few atolls do.” The Ngataki, under the command of Mr John W. Wray, left Auckland on August 8. The rest of the crew consisted of Messrs L. Bakewcll, D. Quayle, A. Coates, and T. Clarkson.

A picture of the atoll appears on this page.