COCOS ISLAND TREASURE

Taranaki Daily News, 2 April 1934, Page 8

COCOS ISLAND TREASURE

WELLINGTON RESIDENT’S CLAIMS. HISTORY OF BOLIVAR’S LOOT. A mang living at Wellington to-day claims to h'av'e the key to the 4 Lima, treasure on Cocos Island, estimated to be worth twelve million sterling. He is Mr. Donald Black McVicar,lB Princess Street, Newtown, and Mr. McVicar hopes that it may-be possible to form a syndicate and fit out an expedition to explore, the possibilities. ■ Cocos Island is a.speck in the Pacific, about five miles long by four wide, roughly 400 miles off Cbsta Rica, South America. The vast treasures of Lima are said to have been shipped-and placed in a secret cave there • in 1821 , when Bolivar, the Liberator, was, ravaging the Spaniards on the mainland. From that day to this many attempts have been made to trace the treasure, one of the most recent being an expedition led by Captain Malcolm Campbell, the noted British racing motorist An expedition led jointly ' by Captain Stanton, formerly captain of the Melanesian Mission vessel Southern Cross, and Commander F. A. Worsley, D. 5.0., 0.8. E., was recently organised and was .to have set put early this year for Cocos; Island. In an interview recently Mr. McVicar, a builder, who has been 24 years in New Zealand, explained how he came into the possession of information which he holds to be of the greatest value. He was bom 58 years ago on the west coast of Scotland, and made the acquaintance of an old sea skipper, Captain Duncan MacCallum, who in his old age passed on to Mr. McVitmr f the information he received from a fellow prisoner during a term in a Costa Rica prison, when he was 20 years old. This prisoner, a Scot named Turner, was said to have seen the treasure, but was gaoled and tortured in an attempt to compel him to divulge the information which would lead to its recovery e ore he could himself organise an expedition to get it. Turner died shortly after, but not before he had passed the information on to MacCallum. .. . Mr. McVicar said he had all the information necessary sealed away in the vaults of a Scottish bank. He indicated on an Admiralty map the position which Sir Malcolm Campbell searched, an said that it was near the actual position of the cave, according to his inin the nineteenth century a city of un believable wealth, Mr - tZir cathedral and churches mciuded their interior decoration life-size statues of solid gold. Lima was seized with terror when, in 1821, news of >the success of Bolivar the Liberator reached it. The only apparent avenue of escape lay in chartering a Sco4s .7 essel ’ Mary Dier, then lying at. the port of Lima, and commanded by a Captam Thompson. The captain promised the priests sanctuary and a safe passage for themselves and their treasure to any port they desired. The vast treasure was, during the ensuing days, conveyed in boats to the Mary Dier, foUowed by some of the nobility and priests. It was arranged that when the vessel was two days at sea the destination was to be disclosed to Captain Thompson. But the captain, on the night they ~aile<i, assembled his crew murdered all the passengers, and threw their bodies to the sharks.

PRIESTS AND NOBLES MURDERED. Captain Thompson later joined forces with Benito Bonito, a famous buccaneer, who knew of a secret cave on Cocos. It is recorded that he imparted this information to Captain Thompson, who thereupon sailed for Cocos and landed the vast treasure and deposited it in the Thompson, shortly after leaving Cocos with Bonito, was overhauled by his Majesty’s frigate Espeigle, and captured. Bonito blew out his brains, but Thompson’s life was spared on condition that he revealed the whereabouts of the treasure. Thompson and one man only, ©* the crew were spared,

the remainder, being executed. Thompson and the other were landed under a strong guard on Cocos, but managed to escape and hid in the, thick undergrowth. Days were spent searching for them, but at last the search was abandoned and the vessel sailed away. Soma weeks later a whaler rescued the halfstarved men. Thompson later reached Newfoundland. Some 20 years after, in 1844, he became very friendly with a sailor on a ship in which he had taken passage. The sailor, Keating by name, took Thompson to his home, but it got abroad that Thompson was a wanted man; so, having imparted, for services rendered, the location of the treasure to Keating, he fled into the night, his body being found a few days later frozen stiff in the snow. • Keating interested merchants in St. John’s, Newfoundland, in the treasure, but two expeditions failed after the crews had mutinied. On one of them Keating and a Captain Boag are said to have located the treasure and filled their pockets. The crew mutinied, and the two fled in the night. Boag disappearing altogether. The information passed from Keating to one Nicholas Fitzgerald and then to Commodor* Curzon Howe. Mr. McVicar said a Wellington sea captain, who had been all over th* Pacific, was interested, and would mak* an ideal leader of an expedition. There was a suitable schooner at Tahiti which would cost £4OOO. It would have to be well provisioned. All previous expeditions had failed because they had not been thoroughly organised. “People have asked thousands *f times,” said Mr. McVicar, “why I have not tried to get the treasure before today. The reply is that I have not b**B able to finance the venture.” .