The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1905-03-23
COCOS ISLAND TREASURE.
EXPEDITIONS WHICH HAVE
SOUGHT THE HOARD,

Earl Fitzwilliam's Among the Few to
Return without a Tale of Death and
Dfsaster-DiRering Accounts of the
Origin of the Treasure-The Strange
Story of Captain Trevan, Who
Claimed to Have Seen and Handled
Part OF the Gold.
OF all the tales of hidden treasure
that have worked their perennial lure
upon men, there is none that is more
satisfactory, more nearly all that such
tale ought to be, than the story of
the Cocos Island hoard. AS Capt.
Kids star has waned and he has be-
come known to have been a respectable
tax-paying citizen who did not deserve
his fame as a pirate bold. the magic
| light and the siren song of that little
| dot of land in the Pacific Ocean have
grown brighter and louder, until now,
scarcely does one expedition in search
of gold come to grief before another is
| ready to, start forth upon the same
errand. 1t is nearly sixty years since
the first treasure hunters set sail for
Cocos Island, and from that time until
the return of Earl Fitzwilliam's ex-
| petition, few days ago, almost every
one that has gone has met with death
or disaster, or both. s..
| Cocos Island is tiny bit of land in
| the Pacific Ocean, some 45O miles off
the coast of Costa RIGA, to which it be-
! longs. 1t is bare thirty miles in cir
conference, it's surface partly noun
| famous, and partly covered by tropio
| jungles. Though its song be siren, its
breath is deadly, for fatal, mysterious
fevers are likely to attack those who
spend any time upon its shores.
There are several accounts of the
origin OF the Cocos Island treaure, al
though all agree that it was hidden
| there some time between 1920 and 1926
One story has it that in the days when
the victorious Bolivar was wrestling
from Spains dominion one after an
other of the South American cities the
Spanish viceroy Of Peru feared that the
end was in sight. and he and some of
| the wealthiest Spanish families took
the Government coin and bullion and
their own jewels and private riches put
them secretly aboard a ship, and or
dered it to stand well out to sea until
| it could be safely conveyed back to
Spain. But while the vessel idled there
| just out of sight Of the Peruvian shores
along came pirate ship. And its
captain and crew proved themselves
as efficient as any pirate band that
| ever sailed the seas. For when the
day ended none but themselves was left
to tell the tale and the treasure was all
theirs At once they sailed away I'd
Cocos Island and with gunpowder blew
a big hole in the mountain side and
there buried the treasure. 1t is said
that there were s30,o00G00 of gold and
silver coin and bullion and precious
stones. And as the pirate captain saw
| the wonderful hoard he was filled with
the desire to have it all for himself So
he got the rest Of his band into the
| cave they had made, and while they
i sorted and handled and gloated over
the. heaps of treasure, glittering in the
smoky light of their torches, he set off
another blast of powder, which closed
the entrance to the tunnel and shut up
4 all his companions to dies of suffo-
/ cation. Then he sailed away into the
/ great unknown, and no man has known
/ aught of him since that day. 4
| Now, 1t would hardly be possible to
! invent a neater or more fitting tale
\ than this as the origin of legend OF
| hidden treasure. All that 1t lacks in
the way of FEASIBILITY Is some thread
Of connection between the bloody pirate
/ captain and the rest Of the world. But
I as an artistic wind-up of the story one
/ would like to have the wicked pirate
appear again, fighting to the death,
| and finally overpowered. And hard
| headed business man, financing an ex-
| petition in search of that treasure,
| might wish that he had confessed his
| crimes upon his death-bed and left a
| map of the island, drawn In his own
| blood and cross to mark the location
of the cache. j
Another account, which also places
the amount of the treasure at 100000, 900
! says that 1t came from Costa RIGA, in
| the early part of 1S20's,, when all Gem
trail America was In revolt against the
| Government of Spain. Some of the
richest of the colonists, fearing that
they might lose all their wealth, fitted
out schooner, hid on board all their
money and jewels, and sent with it
| half dozen Of the most trustworthy
| among them to bury the treasure on
| Cocos Island. The legend says that
each Of the trusted six had map by
which he could find again the hidden
hoard. But half their number died by
violence in as many months, and when,
some years afterward, the remaining
three tried to return to the island to
recover their wealth they encountered
| fierce storms, one of their number was
washed overheard and drowned, and
their ship was beaten back to the
Costa Rican coast. The two still left
alive made another attempt, but their
vessel was driven against the rocky
coast of Cocos Island by raging
storm, and all on board persisted. Ac-
cording to the tale none of the six maps
| was saved.
| There are two other accounts of the