The Mystery of Isle

d'Croix Did the Japanese Find Treasure There?

By Edwin Gold

A PEW years before the Pacific War, a remarkable occurrence was reported in the newspapers. The Japanese “Reuter’s” was more communicative in those days and it gave the world a story of an unidentifiable native, clearly not a Caroline Islander —picked up in a canoe off the Carolines. This native, it was stated, died at once upon the Jap steamer that rescued him.

The man had clearly sailed a long dis tance in his frail craft, and was very emaciated —actually he died of thirst. In the canoe was a small, old-fashioned French jewel-box, the last thing one would expect to find there. And it con tained a rough map of an island, drawn on old sail-cloth, and a tattered paper.

On the latter was written an extra ordinary record of shiowreck and priva tion, suffered 150 years ago.

The name of D’Urville is well-known in the South Seas, and some D’Urville had written this old letter, describing the wreck of his shio on an island some where alone- the 7 degree line —he men tioned passing Voriape—which D’Urville named, because of its shape, “Isle d’Croix.”

The writing ended abruptly with the expressed intention of returning to tho cruciform islet, “to take off the treasure in the shin’s hold.”

HERE is a first-class Pacific mystery!

How did the native in the canoe get that old jewel-case? And where?

With the Jananese beaten, Micronesia is now onen to voyagers. And “Isle d’Croix” mie'ht be worth finding. True, it is a vague assignment to sail along the seventh narallel looking for an islet shaned like a cross, with the wreck of a French treasure-ship somewhere on its shores. Probably Hirohito’s men found, long ago. what there was to find. Yet, unless they first saw D’Urville’s rough chart —with the longitude of the isle pur nosely omitted—the Ninoonese may not have bothered to investigate “officially.”

It would be interesting, at this stage, to know which of the D’Urvilles, Alphonse or Dumont, met grief. and lost a for tune, on “Isle d’Croix.”