The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-10-17

oles that they hardly excite comment
Some men waste their lives and for
tunes fitting all over the Caribbean
sea, from one reported pirate haunt to
another, and digging for buried gold.
When the mania once gets hold of a
man it never seems to leave him until
it has soured his temper and ruined
his life.
Barbados is a favorite resort of the
treasure seekers. Several caches of
doubloons and pieces of-eight have
been found there in digging among old
ruins. .Si.
Captain Kidd once ran his ship
ashore at Barbados when chased by a
cruiser. He left a paper describing a
spot in small wood near Bridgetown,
the island capital, where he said he
had buried an immense treasure.
Whether this was a post mortem
joke or not, it is impossible to say. If
it was, it succeeded to perfection.
For acres around the spot indi-
Gated" says Hasketh Bell, a colonial
official, "the soil has been perfectly
honeycombed by the excavations of
treasure seekers. No one knows
whether the booty was secured, as the
finder would in all probability have
been most careful to keep his success
a secret so as not to have to share
with the government and the owner OF
the land besides.
Even now, when anyone is noticed
to become suddenly we'll off and flush
of money, he is lat once set down to
have discovered buried jar of gold,
when, perhaps, the reason of his afiu-
ence may be much more questionable"
In Hayti not long ago, a hidden treas
ure was brought to light in the pictur-
nr,trn Hf ~, ~.
curious way. A mulatto lived there
who was almost penniless. He in
habited desolate ruin which had once
been fine old planters chateau in the
days when the French owned the is
lands, and he eked out q miserable ex-
istence by cultivating a feeble yam
patch.
Suddenly this mulatto blossomed out
as man of wealth. He bought fine
house, a provision store, a rum shop
and horses and mules galore.
Everybody wondered where he got
his money, but only one man, another
Haytian mulatto. had sense enough to
figure the matter out
See here" said the second mulatto,
I've taken a fancy to that old ruin of
yours. Kind of picturesque, isn't it?
I'll give you $500 for it,
The first mulatto jumped at the offer.
AS son as the deal had been effected,
the purchaser had the house carefully
pulled down, brick by brick, and the
foundations dug up.
AS the result, he found nine small
IRON bound chests filled with treasure.
They contained a great deal of French
gold and silver coin of the eighteenth
century, gold and silver plate, jewelry,
church ornaments and other valuabIes.
Altogether the nine chests were valued
at $780, 900.
When the first owner heard of it he
was furious, 1t then came out that
one day by accident he had found a
similar chest hidden in the wainscoting
against the French and Spanish mas
ters the latter had to flee to the towns
or the woods for refuge.
In most cases they could not take
their valuables with them, and they
concealed them somewhere about their
of the hall and had realized upon it.
It never struck him that there might
be more behind SO he gladly sold the
house, fondly imagining that it was
an empty shell from which he extracted
the kernel. He raved like a mad man
when he heard the news, but the other
mulatto possessed political pull and
soon quieted him by the simple expedi-
ent of having him thrown into Jail
There was a firm belief throughout
the West Indies that there are many
other hidden treasures of the same
character in Hayti and Santo Domingo.
When the negroes rose in insurreetion
chateaux. These find old mansions are
now mere ruins, overgrown by the
rank luxuriance of tropical vegetation
and inhabited only by goats and vul-
lures. If man must go treasure hunt
ing these are the places he should select
in preference to mythical pirate liars
vaguely indicated by legend or by some
chart drawn in blood
on piece of rag. after the fashion of
King Solomon's Mines
In the Bahamas they tell a queer
story of big haul recently made there
by mysterious American. He arrived
in his own schooner off West caicos, an
islet in the Bahama group, and dropped
anchor.
There he stayed for some days, doing
nothing, and telling nobody his business.
He evidently had not come for salt or
sponges or coral, or any of the other
things for which seafaring men ordinar-
lily visit the Calcos. Nobody could imag-