Los Angeles herald., 1908-06-14
On the Bahama Reefs

ned carefully among her shattered timpers
and twisted bolts and spent tive two ,i hours IN N
along the bottom, but at last, tired and
breathless, gave it up bad job. and came
out as empty-handed as We went in. IL,
" L told you SO, said l. lhey never saiieu
the sea in the Polly Ann
1--WE spent the afternoon in counting our
coins, finding we had between three and four
hundred of them, and we grew quite hiiariouss
over our Christmas gift, as we styled 1t, ana
speculated in vain as to where the CONS eouiu
have come from.
s'The next morning Bethel said to me:
"I've been thinking half the night apou.
those coins. and l remember my father used
to tell of Spanish vessel that went ashore
somewhere along here when he was boy,
and was gradually washed to pieces, and do
you know I've an idea these pieces have been
cast up by the sea from that old wreck IL
curious, however, that we never tound any oil
them till this brig came plowing up the beach
with her nose -
s'While we were talking two of the children
came in with several of the pieces, which they
had found at the waters edge, exactly ike
those we had picked up the day before -,
81 tell you, Sir cried Bethel ia ekessaiy, IS Say
lard lies buried in the sand right where the
Polly Ann has stuck her bow in the beach:
Man alive, there may be millions down there
fWe rushed to the beach, and with shoves
began to dig up the sand Vigorously S tSsE S
across another coin, which encouraged US ire
mendously, and we worked until we had dug a
hole big enough to hold an ox-cart.
"But no more coins appeared, and we were
heavy timber that ran under the forefoot OF
the brig, and which we saw did not belong
to the Polly Ann. We cleared away, the
sand alongside this timber, and there lay
box, made of teak wood, split open from end
to end, and jammed hard and fast between
the deeaying timber and the forefoot of the
brig. The splinters from the box were fresh
and clean, showing that it had been crushed
to pieces by the stem of the brig when she
was driven into the beach by the storm.
"And then we dug out the sand from under
the debris of the teak box, and down cams; a
shower of black silver pieces, exactly similar
to the Others which We carefully and eagerly
secured and piled up on the dry beach neai
| by. There was no longer any mystery as %
where the coin came from, for. we found the
rotten timbers of the old Spanish ship under
living the sand in every direction, none being
| less than ten feet from the surface.
"For days we pursued our hunt for treas
.fre, tunnelng all about, but except those u i
the teak box not another piece did we find
and at last we desisted, satisfied that we had
! exhausted the deposit.
"We kept the thing a secret, lest the au
thorities, taking advantage of some old and
treasure-trove. and as there were no neal
later on, filled up our excavations in the sand
this was an easy thing to do.
nearly $1,000, which | brought with me te
the United States late in the ensuing summer
and disposed of it to a bullion broker in
Philadelphia, who was very curious to learn
where / got it. But he will never know, un
less he learns it from this story.
"My Christmas gift was most acceptable
as you can readily believe; but what valued
far more was the fact that my eight months
residence in the lovely climate Of the Ba
hamas made me a well man, and my lungi
ever since have been as stout as a black
smiths bellows.
'Tt's all right, my boy. Tell your sister
and if she doesn't come back in the spring
made over as good as new, then Captain
Joe'l never prophesy again as long as ht
lives. She'll NOT find any Spanish dollars
maybe, but there's. things worth more-and
one is good health" ~