The Cruise of the 'Alerte'. E. F. Knight
possible El Dorado, hurried away to Trinidad in order to anticipate the Tynesiders. The following letter appeared in an English paper on May 14, 1885. The 'Aurea' people, of course, knew nothing of this rival expedition, until they returned to England:—
TRINIDAD IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC.
The Hidden Treasure Expedition.
[From a Correspondent.]
Kiel, May 11, 1885.
'Under this heading I have just now noticed a paragraph sent to the editor of a Danish daily paper, which, in its bearing on the well-known search-for-treasure expedition, may prove of interest to your readers, being in the shape of a letter sent from New York:—
'New York, April 17, 1885.
'On my arrival in New York from Aracaju, I read in your paper of January 14, 1885, about an expedition to be started from Newcastle, to proceed to the island of Trinidad in the South Atlantic, with the object in view of finding a treasure buried there some time ago by pirates: and I am in a position to furnish some particulars which, in all probability, are connected with this affair. On January 13, 1885, I was chartered with my vessel in Rio de Janeiro to take over to the above mentioned island an American captain and four Portuguese sailors, together with a number of pickaxes, spades, &c., and a whale-boat. I was told that these people intended to go to this island to investigate if any "guano" was to be found. A voyage of eleven days brought us there, but we had to keep off the shore on account of breakers for over three days. The men were then put ashore, and remained on the island for four days, during which time they were occupied with boring and digging, whereupon we sailed back to Bahia, and landed them there. I believe that these men, either by telegram from England or by other means, had heard of the existence of a treasure on this island, and that they meant to anticipate the English expedition. However, they found nothing. I noticed very well that the American captain, as well as his men, were highly disappointed. Let me take this opportunity to dissuade all masters of vessels to search in this uninhabited island for fresh water. It is a matter of great difficulty and danger to put boats on shore, through coral reefs. The indications on the charts for casting the lead should be a good deal further from the shore. During the time we were there the wind was N.N.E. and the current to S.W., upon a speed of from 12 to 15 quarter-miles in 24 hours. In South-west Bay, two cable-lengths from the shore, there is a reef not mentioned on the charts.
'H. N. Ankersen,
'Master of sailing vessel from Fanoe.'
I found that the correspondent who sent this letter was correct in his information. When I called at Bahia with the 'Alerte,' my ship-chandler, Mr. Wilson, told me the whole of this story as it was related to him by the American adventurer on his arrival at Bahia from Trinidad. It is somewhat strange that the excavations made by this party were not seen by the 'Aurea' people, who landed on the island within two months of the departure of the Americans; but this islet has been so shaken to its foundations by earthquake shock and volcanic action, that it is brittle from its mountain-tops to the beach, and is in a state of perpetual change. Gigantic landslips are frequent, and I should not be surprised to find that all traces of our three months' hard digging have by now been entirely obliterated.
There might have been some fun, by the way, had the 'Aurea' and the American arrived off the island at the same time.
Since my return, I have heard of two other expeditions which started from the other side of the Atlantic in search of the hidden treasure of Trinidad, but, as with the former expeditions, nothing was accomplished. The loss of men and boats in the surf, sickness, and the numerous difficulties and dangers encountered, disheartened the men, and the attempt was abandoned before any serious work was done. It would seem as if this was one of those forlorn islands of which one reads in the old romances of the sea, on which the bloody deeds of the pirates have left a curse behind, so that the treasure is protected by evil spirits; and the great roaring seas which roll up seemingly without any natural cause, even after days of windless weather, and the ever-tottering crags, and all the forces and terrors of nature are made to keep man off from the inviolate hoard; while the loathsome land-crabs might well be the restless spirits of the pirates themselves, for they are indeed more ugly and evil, and generally more diabolical-looking, than the bloodiest pirate who ever lived.
CHAPTER II.
THE 'ALERTE' IS FITTED OUT.
Such is the story of the Trinidad treasure, a story that seemed to me to bear the stamp of truth, and it was difficult to conceive that—allowing Captain P——'s narrative to be correct, and there is every reason to believe it as such—so many coincidences could have collected round a mere fabrication.
It is highly improbable that the foreign quartermaster evolved the whole matter from an imaginative brain, especially on his deathbed, when he was professing to confide a valuable secret to a friend as a token of his gratitude; neither can his statements be considered as being the ravings of a sick man, for they were far too circumstantial and compatible with facts.
In the first place, his carefully prepared plan of the island, the minute directions he gave as to the best landing, and his description of the features of the bay on whose shores the treasure was concealed, prove beyond doubt to myself and others who know Trinidad that he, or if not himself some informant of his, had landed on this so rarely visited islet; and not only landed, but passed some time on it, and carefully surveyed the approaches to the bay, so as to be able to point out the dangers and show the safest passage through the reefs. This information could not have been obtained from any pilot-book. The landing recommended by previous visitors is at the other side of the island. This bay is described by them as inaccessible, and the indications on the Admiralty chart are completely erroneous.
And, beyond this, the quartermaster must have been acquainted with what was taking place in two other distant portions of the world during the year of his professed landing on the desert island. He knew of the escape of pirates with the cathedral plate of Lima. He was also aware that, shortly afterwards, there were hanged in Cuba the crew of a vessel that had committed acts of piracy on the Peruvian coast. It is scarcely credible that an ordinary seaman—even allowing that he was superior in education to the average of his fellows—could have pieced these facts together so ingeniously into this plausible story.
It is needless to say that one like myself—who knew Trinidad, and who had personally sifted the evidence, and was constantly coming across numbers of incidents not mentioned here, trifling in themselves, but, taken together, strongly corroborative—would be more impressed by the coincidences, and consequently be more inclined to give credence to the story than one who merely reads the narrative in the pages of this book.
Hence the result of my interview with Mr. A—— was that I decided to sail to Trinidad and search for the treasure. I knew, of course, that the chances were greatly against my finding anything. I was quite prepared for complete failure; but I considered that there was a sufficient possibility of success to make the venture worth the undertaking.
I, of course, saw that the great impediment was the landslip, which might have covered the landmarks, and so altered the features of the ravine as to render recognition of the exact spot extremely difficult; for it is quite possible that young Mr. P—— was somewhat over-sanguine, and that the grounds for his so readily identifying the pirate's hiding-place were inadequate.
The former adventurers seem to have considered that the difficulties of landing constituted almost as great an obstacle to success as the landslip itself; but I was confident that these difficulties were anything but insuperable, and that, by taking proper precautions, it would be quite possible to land a working-party with all necessary stores and tools, and even, if necessary, heavy machinery as well. I had myself, nine years previously, landed at three different points of the island, and had passed several days on shore, so I quite realised what was before me.
There is no doubt that the former adventurers failed from precipitancy. Patience is a necessary quality for those who wish