The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-04-16
A TREASURE ISLAND.
It Was the Favorite Haunt of Pirates
In the Antilles.

At the center of the sea of the An
titles, at the middle of the passage
which separates st. Domingo from
Porto Rico, there raises itself above
the waves a steep rock to which the
ancient Spanish navigators gave the
name of La Mona or 'Monito," the
Little Monkey. Among the sailors of
the Antilles, La Mona is always called
the Island of Pirates, and is thought
to conceal mysterious treasures.
1t is an immense. chalky block, seven
kilometres long and four or five wide,
rearing its summit, fiat as a table, to
thirty or forty metres above the sea.
The waves, always agitated in these
coasts, have shaped this block into a.
pedestal of pointed cliffs, and, except
on two or three points, where narrow
stretches of shore advance, the island
is almost inaccessible. Ships are kept
at a distance, as much by the violence
of the waves as by a chain of rocks
which surround it and when alone
open a few passages for small YES.
sells.
At the southern point of the island
an enormous rock seems miraculOuslv
suspended from the crest of a cliff
The sailors have named it "Caigo no
caigo," which means shall l fall, or
shall I not fall" In spite of it's peril
Gus position, the rock in equilibrium
has resisted for many ages the attacks
of storms and waves.
But one of the most curious particu
lars of this island, so strange from
many points of view, is that it's chalky
mass is throughout pierced by immense
caves, Innumerable grottoeS which
ramify in all ways, and, having their
entrances under the face of the cliff,
conduct the sinuous passages to the
very summit of the plateau. The grot-
toes, inhabited by bands of sea birds,
were but lately, in part, obstructed by
guano, which has been nearly all taken
away.
TIE adventurer intrepid enough to
engage himself in this formidable
struggle soon finds himself arrested
by two very unexpected obstacles; in
effect, among the tangle of plants are
hidden swarms of immense wasps,
which, at the least rustling, precipitate
themselves on the intruder, and can by
their dangerous stings put his life in
danger; again, if he escapes from these
guardians of the jungle, he has to
brave the darts of opuntais, kind of
dwarf cactus, which in many places
stud the earth, and the pricks of which,
without being as dangerous as those of
the wasp, are very painful, and cause
hlSn FEVER.
One can understand that this rocky
isle, so we'll defended by the forces of
nature, may have offered a refuge to
the daring fflibustererS who have been
during many centuries, the terror of
the Antilles. After having passed by
secret passages i'll the belt of rocks,
they sheltered their vessels in some
intricacy of the cliffs and established
themselves in these grOttoes which
formed impregnable natural fortresses.
There is no one could reach them, and
supposing that a daring assailant had
succeeded in forcing an entrance to
their haunt, the bandits would fly
through the detours of the ineXtricable
labyrinth and would gain the impene-
trable thicket of the upper plateau,
where it would be impossible to track
them.
Some of these caverns. in the vicinity
of Cape Caigo, present still the I'M
doubted traces of pirates. One of them
called Cueva Negra-Black Cave-from
the thick coat of SCOT which covers its
vault. is q vast chamber, around which
spreads q network of other chambers
and passages. The walls of this cham
Der are still craven with sinister de-
signs, representing galloWs supporting
rows of bodies and above which are
inscribed the names of the victims.
names which are 1Ound represented all
the nations among which these rascals
recruited their band and which are
doubtless those of traitors or rebels eX-
ecuted by their companions, unless
they were the unfortunate captives
sacrificed by these wretches. Some
cannon balls, still encrusted in the
walls of the cliff, near the entrance,
also prove that the place was beseiged
without doubt, by some war vessel sent
in pursuit of the pirates.
These grottoes did not serve as places
of refuge merely; the pirates used
them as storehouses and kept in them
the products of their captures. SO,
when at the close of the last century,
France and England had succeeded in
destroying this breed, it was thought
that the island must contain some of
the immense treasures which the
pirates had hidden there during many
years. Searches We're made, but the
extent of the caverns to be gone over
was so great that no result was obtain
ed. However, about forty years ago,
an American, guided. it appears, by a
mysterious document. landed ON the
island with a troop of negroes from San
Domingo and succeeded in unearthing