"
As a matter of fact sometimes months pass before it is possible to
effect a landing.
Another asset of the island held out by the prospectus was its great
store of buried treasure. Before Harden-Hickey seized the island,
this treasure had made it known. This is the legend. In 1821 a great
store of gold and silver plate plundered from Peruvian churches
had been concealed on the islands by pirates near Sugar Loaf Hill,
on the shore of what is known as the Southwest Bay. Much of this
plate came from the cathedral at Lima, having been carried from
there during the war of independence when the Spanish residents
fled the country. In their eagerness to escape they put to sea in any
ship that offered, and these unarmed and unseaworthy vessels fell
an easy prey to pirates. One of these pirates on his death-bed, in
gratitude to his former captain, told him the secret of the treasure.
In 1892 this captain was still living, in Newcastle, England, and
although his story bears a family resemblance to every other story
of buried treasure, there were added to the tale of the pirate some
corroborative details. These, in twelve years, induced five different
expeditions to visit the island. The two most important were that
of E. F. Knight and one from the Tyne in the bark _Aurea_.
In his "Cruise of the _Alerte_," Knight gives a full description of
the island, and of his attempt to find the treasure.
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