Many Coconuts

There is Treasure on Many Coconuts

WHAT bids for a Pacific atoll an island of glamour and beauty; a little kingdom in itself, which offers its fortunate possessor surcease from the troubled world that is to-day? For Tupai In the Society Islands, discovered by Captain James Cook in 1769, is for sale with all productive coconut plantations: all its teeming fish and seabird life; all its cache of pirate gold.

The early chronicle of Tupai belongs to an age alien and remote from ours to day—an age which let loose upon the peaceful inhabitants of Oceania an avalanche of European adventurers, free booters, mutineers and pirates, before whose onslaught, as grass is seared hy the blast of a furnace, the former native culture of Polynesia was swept away.

Fortunate for Tupai that it possessed no indigenous population. It therefore escaped the harrowing and tragic events which fell to the lot of other South Seas islands. Its absence of inhabitants, how ever, recommended it as a rendezvous to such gentry as desired their acts, to go unnoticed. Rumours of treasure cached there by freebooters became rife among natives of nearby islands. At first these were fragmentary and indefinite, until at length from out the fable and surmise, emerged the drama we here narrate.

IN 1822, the 18-gun brig Araucana, swiftest vessel of the Chilean navy, mutinied. Turned pirate, after plundering coastal cities of Peru, it sailed for Honolulu where, not long after, it appeared as the peaceful trader Provi dence.

There, however, the trim craft in possession of its ruffianly officers and crew, attracted suspicion as to its real character. It sailed for Huahine in the Society Islands, where its captain, profes sing interest in religion, ingratiated him self with the English missionaries stationed there.

The insubordination of the sailors and the filthy condition of their vessel again attracted unfavourable comment. Gradu ally the excesses of the crew became more unguarded. In their cups they boasted possession of chests full of pirate gold and gem-encrusted vessels looted from churches in Peru. Among their booty, a collection of women’s finery and the eqaulettes of a British naval officer were reported seen by natives who had been permitted aboard the vessel. At length, the newcomers abducted a native woman and as a consequence they were attacked by the infuriated islanders. In the affray, several natives and two pirates were killed.

The Providence made her ecsape with difficulty. After cruising among the Tuamotu and Marquesas Islands for some time and putting ashore at Tupai, she arrived at Papeete, where, the captain gave out that he was about to sail for New Zealand on a seal-hunting expedition.

Before leaving he fell in with a 40-ton English brig commanded by a Captain Henry with whom he exchanged pro visions and pretended friendship. Probably with the idea of returning home with a less marked vessel than his own, he began plotting to seize the smaller vessel. The mate of the latter, a resolute man named Ebrill, obtained wind of his intentions and, when most of the pirates were ashore, boarded the Providence and

captured her.

Several of her crew escaped and re turned to Huahine. There, deceiving the missionaries into the belief that they had been forced into ill ways by their officers, they were employed as carpenters and mechanics. Gradually they dispersed and drifted away.

TUPAI. —One of French Oceania’s Isles Sous le Vent—is an atoll about eight miles north-west of Bora Bora. It is privately owned, and when it was put up for sale, a few months ago, a Papeete correspondent wrote us the following story.

For some years thereafter, the Provi dence lay at Tahiti awaiting reclamation by the Chilean Government. Nothing came of it and eventually she was broken up by the natives. Her cannon are still to be seen on the islet of Motuuta in Papeete Bay.

SIXTY years went by and in 1885 there arrived in Papeete, by sailing vessel from America, two young brothers calling themselves Rorick, who claimed to be members of the then reigning Spanish royal family. Excellent musicians and possessed of the social graces and accomplishments of their pretended aristocratic status, they were hospitably received by the haut monde of the Papeete of that day, and became exceed

ingly popular.

In a few weeks, however, they exhausted their interest in local society and, to the regret of their hosts, took passage, ostensibly for the Marquesas Islands, on the trading schooner Niurohiti, their departure being sped under an avalanche of floral garlands from a crowd of admir ing young people.

Details of the momentous voyage that then ensued were later supplied by the native cook of the schooner, a man named Neri. At sea, the character of the two accomplished young gentlemen underwent sudden transformation. They became blood-thirsty ruffians. Two days after leaving Papeete, the elder one came on deck brandishing a gun. After an altercation with the supercargo he shot him dead. Hearing the shot, the captain rushed up from below only to have his head blown off by the younger brother.

The terrified native crew was then rounded up on deck under the guns of the desperadoes, driven below and battened in the hold. With only the cook to help navigate the schooner, they changed course and reached Tupai. There, leaving Neri aboard, they landed, accom panied bv the intimidated crew, who carried an assortment of picks and shovels that the brothers had smuggled aboard the vessel. The party remained on the island for several days only returning to the schooner for supplies.

At length, their work on the island accomplished, they returned to the ship.

From the exhausted condition of the natives and their tattered clothing, Neri was curious to question them, but in this he was frustrated by the brothers. That evening, the crew were all poisoned and their bodies thrown into the sea.

Following the usual pattern of such ruffians, the killers then changed the name of the schooner. Painting the name ‘Ngamanuariki” on its bows and hoisting

the flag of Rarotonga (Cook Islands) they set sail Not long after the schooner was dis abled in a gale and put into Ponape in the Caroline Islands to refit. After threatening the cook with dire reprisals if he should attempt to follow them, the brothers went ashore. Neri, however, overcame his timidity, swam through the shark-infested waters of the bay and de nounced them to the authorities.

They countered his charges by declar ing he was insane; but they were held in custody pending investigation. Not long afterwards the cook’s story was sub stantiated, and the two men were sent to France for trial. At the Criminal Court at Brest they were convicted of mutiny and murder.

The younger was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment with hard labour; the older, for life. The former lived to be pardoned, but his brother died at Cayenne in 1920.

Neri, the cook, died in Papeete hospital in 1918 during the influenza epidemic.

It is believed that the Rorick brothers had come into possession of information revealing the location of the buried treasure of the pirates and their search for it was successful. For some reason they did not consider the opportunity to remove it favourable; but, leaving it where it had been cached, they sailed away with intention of returning at a more propitious time to lift it.

The ill-omened Niurohiti, upon return to Papeete was renamed Tapioi. Native seamen declared it to be haunted and re fused to ship on it. For some years there after it presented a melancholy spectacle, as the Providence had formerly done, rotting away at anchor in the lagoon.

AS in the case of many other reported treasure caches, of direct evidence of the presence of such on Tupai there is none. Circumstantial evidence exists in plenty. Its presence is also indicated by native tradition. That this should not be discounted was proved in Tahiti only a few years ago in the re covery of the long-lost anchor of the ship Bounty. Caught imbedded deep in the coral of Matavai Bay, in their haste to escape seizure bv the British man-of-War, which they knew would be dispatched from England to capture them, the Bounty mutineers cut cable and abandoned their anchor. Though covered from sight and forgotten by Europeans, the natives preserved knowledge of its location and 'predicted from the growth of the coral when it would be likely to be seen again. Generation after generation came and passed, and 150 years later their virgil was rewarded.

Knowledge of the reappearance of the anchor was conveyed to a local English man. In spite of the great weight of the anchor and the herculean task of hauling it ashore by hand, it was recovered.

Although historically belonging to Tahiti, it now reposes in the Naval Museum at Auckland, New Zealand, AND now, historic Tupai is for sale. A mere trifle of £160,000 will make it yours. But let not the price deter you. The island is capable of producing 1,000 tons of copra annually, which, at present world demand for the commodity amounts to a considerable sum of money.

Tupai is well watered and wooded, is covered with vegetation and possesses the picturesque beauty of tropical islands generally. Its climate is that of a per petual English summer. Fruit trees—fig, orange, citron, papaya, mango and bread fruit, etc., —flourish wherever planted.

Vegetables grow with little care. Vanilla is arown with success.

The extent of the cultivable land is about 2,000 acres. The remainder of the island is occupied by groves of native trees, sandbanks, small lakes and outer reef which afford refuge for innumerable

seabirds, fish and turtles. The perimeter of the outer reef is about 30 miles. A lagoon of deep, sheltered water four miles long, which would afford unrivalled harbour for sea-planes operating to and from Papeete, occupies the centre of the island.

So far as is known, no further search for Tupai treasure has been made by out siders since the Rorick brothers’ visit to the island; nor have the owners of the property made a systematic attempt to discover it. But their faith in its existence is indicated in the terms of the sale of their property, which for 50 years after sale, reserve for themselves one third of whatever treasure shall be discovered. In the meantime, maybe pieces-of-eight, gem-encrusted crucifixes and chalices still await the spade of the successful hunter where the despoilers of the churches of Peru first cached them.