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

inc why he was there, for West Caicos
| is the last place a man would think OF
visiting unless he had business there.
| One day the American lowered a boat
| from the schooner, hired a couple of ne
groes from the shore and made them row
| him to another islet about four miles
away. According to the story which the
negroes told on their return he walked
straight up to lone palm tree on the
iSlet, measured the distance by PAGES to
the southeast after consulting a chart,
and then made them dig, morning, noon
and night, all around a large circle he
marked out. When they grew tired and
! stopped he foamed at the mouth with
| passion and threatened them with his
! rifle.
After two days hard digging they
| found a big sea chest, so heavy that the
, three of them could hardly drag it to the
| boat. They rowed back to the schooner,
| and as soon as the chest had been lIoisted
! aboard the American weighed anchor and
| sailed away north.
There is much speculation in West Cal
! cos and throughout the Bahamas as to
who the American was, what he found
| and how he learned that it was there.
! treasure, and some people even think
| that he secured the famous hoard of Cap
! tain Kidd. But nobody has ever found
! out anything about the matter.
| One of the queerest West Indian treas
ure stories was told by the skipper of a
Grand Cayman schooner in Kingston
Jamaica. The story is too wildly i'm
absolute truth can be attested to by hun
dreds of people in Jamaica and Grand
| Cayman.
| a bark had been wrecked on a reef near
| the Cayman islands. and the skipper had
taken his schooner there to hunt for sal
wage. While his men were busy on the
bark he looked over the side of his YES
sci and say, about eight feet below. the
water, on a shelving ledge of the feer,
curious yellow CLEAN.
He thought it was a piece of copper
sheathing, and told one o. his men to
dive for it. The man came up with his
looms and pieces-of-e dating back to
the early days of the conkuistadOres. The
ledge was simply covered with loose gold.
All day the crew dived for it, and when
they had skinned the place bare they
found they had over 1000 gold pieces, be-
sides few score of silver coins. all
Spanish. The skipper showed several of
all in remarkably fine state of preserva~
walton. He sold the lot afterward for
nearly $4,000.
How the coins came on the reef nobody
knows A hun6 explanations have
been suggested, none of them quite
meets the case.
There is an Englishman now living in
fishing hamlet in Kent. England, who
was driven mad by his vain search for
treasures in the West Indies.
Formerly he was a colonel in the Brit
ish army and served with distinction in
several wars Late in life he caught the
treasure-hunting fever, and sold all he
had in order to fit out yacht and hunt
for a hoard buried, so legend says, by
Mansvelt. the famous buccaneer. on An
guilla island. He searched for years, un-
til in the end disappointment turned his
brain.
In the British West Indies, more espe-
cially in Barbados and Grenada, large
holes dug in the earth apparently for no
purpose are frequently seen. Inquiring
the reason for them, the reply is that
they have been made by the blacks dig
Sing for buried money.
1t is a curious fact that a West Indian
negro rarely, if ever. sets about looking
for treasure of his own accord. An
ooeahman or witch doctor comes to him
and says:
''Obi, the alI-seeng has told me in a
dream there is money buried beneath the
roots of the old cottonwood tree which
you are to dig up and keep You must
go there at midnight to dig, But hearken
to my warning.
When that treasure was buried the
owner killed the slave who dug the hole
and buried his body on top of the gold
Unless you pay me so to put good obeah
on the ground, the duppy (ghost) or that
slave will on sinking the money deeper
and deeper into the earth so that you
will never find it."
It has been said that West Indian
negro will believe anything except that
which is true. At any rate. he believes
the obeahman and parts with his $40. II
goes without saying that the obeahman is
the only person who gets any treasure.
This is a common incident. 1t happens
every day in some of the West Indian
colonies.
There is another kind of swindler who
sometimes makes, "a rich haul out of the
cupidity of a higher grade of society. He
Is the man who has a chart showing the
location of some pirate treasure-general-
iy Captain Kid
He knows just where to lay his hands
on it, but he wants capital to equip
schooner and fit out a small expedition.
If you will find the capital he will divide
the treasure with YOU when found.
II seems an obvious swindle Of course
If you do part with your money, you
never see it again, or the treasure either
Buying gold brick is a better specula-
tion.
And yec shrew1 merchants in the West
Indies have allowed themselves to be
swindled in this way, SO greatly have
they been excited by tales of treasure
trove, and by the desire to get rich
quickly.
Fear NAV pravaY1t a lotion t,,,f Il 5ooc