COCOS ISLAND TREASURE

Taranaki Daily News, 25 July 1930, Page 3

COCOS ISLAND TREASURE

ROCK THAT HIDES MILLIONS, CAPTAIN M. CAMPBELL’S QUEST. Cocos Island, place of piratical legend, is to be the scene of yet another romantic hunt for the vast treasure that is said to lie concealed somewhere beneath its rock-strewn, jungle-covered hillsides, or its sun-warmed sands. This new adventurous treasure hunt is to be led. by Captain Malcolm Campbell, the famous racing motorist, who has made a previous attempt with a little company of five other adventurous sportsmen, including Mr.- K. Lee Guinness and an admiral, to locate a portion at any rate of the fabulous store of looted gold which, legends of the past say, lies buried on Cocos. Captain Campbell is now making plans to pay a visit to this golden isle this year in a further endeavour to reveal its long-kept secret. “Wo were not there long enough on the last attempt,” lie told a representative of the World’s Pictorial News. “We went out in n yacht named the Adventuress, owned by my friend Lee Guinness, but the vessel could only be at cur disposal a limited time, as she had to be handed over to a man to whom she had been sold. “We were therefore not at Cocos Island long enough thoroughly to test our the clues I . possess to the treasure's hiding-place. As a matter of fact, wn had to come back after being there but 17 days. We are novz, however, making arrangements to go out again this year, and hope that this time we shall be mor© successful.” Captain Campbell is convinced the treasure he seeks still lies buried there on Cocos Island, where it was cached by one Thompson, a Scottish shipmaster, who turned pirate. It Is treasure that came from Lima, capital of Peru, and is computed to be worth something like £12,060,000. A yef(r. or two ago there came into Captain Campbell’s possession an old chart, marked with directions for the finding of the treasure. It is, he believes, the original chart made by Thompson himself —and the story of that chart is a romance in itself. Thompson’s ship lay in Lima Harbour when news reached that port that the marching hosts of Bolivar, the man who eventually drove the. Spanish out ot their South American Empire, were approaching. Panic reigned and the treasure of Lima, wealthiest of all Spain’s overseas settlements, was rushed willv nilly aboard whatever ships happened to be in Lima Roads. Some of it—millions of pounds’ worth of gold and jewels—found their way into the holds of Thompson’s vessel, together with a guard of Spaniards, though Thompson's real avocation was never for one ftioment suspected. The Scottish pirate saw it stowed away, however, and then struck at once. That night his men slew the Spanish guards the cable was cut, and when dawn broke Thompson and his ship were far at sea speeding across the Pacific to Cocos Island, then but a watering-placo for such buccaneering ships as sailed these seas. There the treasure was buried in a cave and, so the story goes, covered by a rock so fixed as to turn on its axis when moved in some secret fashion. According to the chart afterwards drawn by Thompson this rock had bored in it a hole for the purpose of taking a bar of iron -with which the rock could be swung round away from the mouth of the cave After safely burying the treasure, which consisted of such things a? jewelled swords and solid gold images, had luck fell on Thompson. He was chased by a British frigate and practically every man jack of his shipmates hung from the yardarm. Thompson only saved his life by offering to reveal where he had hidden the. treasure with which he had sailed from Lima. When Cocos was reached, however, by the man-of-war and Thompson, under a guard placed ashore and ordered to load the search, he managed by a daring subterfuge to elude the tars and make off into the jungle. Search was, of course, made for him, but after a couple of days the, frigate’s captain was content to give him up for lost and stood out to sea again.

But the doughty old Scots buccaneer was not yet finished with. Starving and half mad with the privation he had endured under the burning suns, he was some time later taken off by a trading vessel which bv some chance had put in to refill Her water beakers. In this way he managed to. get to Newfoundland and presently Jiad managed’ to get a shipowner sufficiently interested in his story of the treasure

he had left buried on the island to fit out an expedition to go after it. Thompson went, too, but died before he could again set foot on the island‘Much meant so much to him. But he left behind his chart, and.the directions marked .thereon which would lead his fellow-voyagers to the secret treasure cave. The two leaders are said to have located the eave quite easily by — following the chart, but one, after fill- < ing his pockets with as much of the treasure as he was able to carry away, treacherously swung back the rock while his companion was in the innermost recesses of the cave and left him there to die horribly. — The other escaped from the island all right with such loot as he was able to carry away, but died before he could pluck up sufficient courage to return to the island where he had so treacherously left his comrade. It is this chart which has at length now come into the hands of Captain Campbell, who believes that if the directions which accompany' it can only be followed they will lead to one of the richest and most sought treasures in the world. to documents which accompany the chart the treasure comprises gold coin, gold images of the Madonna, life-size church images also presumably of gold, and much silver coin. Captain Campbell, since, he first became interested in the treasure, of Cocos some five years ago, has with his friends searched through and keenly scrutinised scores of old documents. Admiralty records and written clues and old sailors’ - tales of all kinds.