COCOS ISLAND TREASURE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16378, 11 March 1924, Page 9

COCOS ISLAND TREASURE.

SEARCH FOR £12,000,000. MECCA OF EXPEDITIONS. VANCOUVER, .Tan. 2(s.—Cap'tain Polkinghorne, a crew of Vancouver men, and the good little steamer Gunner, are at Cocos Island socking treasure. They left here a short time ago to find £12,000,000 in gold. Pieces of eight and a dead man’s chest, black rum bottles and blooddripping blades, naked torsos and red handkerchiefs, silken sashes and blunderbuss pistols flash across (he mental horizon when Cocos Island is mentioned. One can picture thc crimson flashes of the long toms, the crash of the falling mainmast, the cries of the lawless horde pouring over the side, and the groans of tho blindfolded unfortunates stepping down the plank. Cocos Island, a morsel of land about 500 miles west of the Panama Canal, has for more than .100 years been thc Mecca of innumerable treasure expeditions. Captain Polkinghorne has already made two ventures without success, hut lie left here full of confidence that this time lie would win. When he. left this port, early in January, to take coal and sail south, there were two expeditions about to sail from England to seek tHo golden lure. ITS GOLDEN LURE. The Cocos Island treasure is said to consist; of gold plate and bullion, loaded on a British ship by the Chilean Government curly in the nineteenth century, when it was feared that the army of Peril or Bolivia would sweep in and conquer The land. The treasure, in its gleaming, yellow glory, so tempted the crew of the British ship that they seized tiro vessel when at sea, ran to Cocos Island, and buried the gold with the usual pirate details. But fate overtook them, find one by one they perished by shipwreck, disease or violence. The story of Ihe treasure and its loss is given in the authentic records of the British Museum. One man is supposed to have made known the secret of the burying place of the plate, and since then Ins directions (incomplete) have been successfully hawked to scores of adventurers who were willing to take the gamble. The island, it is said, has been literally turned over a lialf-dozen times by these diggers. Mutinies, bankruptcy, shipwrecks or despair has been tho reward thus far of those who ventured out to wrest from its last resting place tho golden plate of the Chileans. CAPTAIN POPULAR HERE. Captain Polkinghorne is a seaman of old Devon stock. Polkinghorne, through some means, eventually came in possession of information which ho was convinced gave the proper location of the Cocos Island gold. Ho has a trusty crew, plenty of arms, stores, confidence, and an instrument which is guaranteed to locate any metal buried within any reasonable distance underground, With all these tilings he expects to bo heading home abotjjt thc middle of February with the gold on board.