A Voyage Packed

With Incident

Pages From the Notebook of Oscar Nordman, Tahiti

A VOYAGE I made in 1921, as supercargo of the trading schooner Percival S. Parks, out of Papeete to the Gambier Islands, via the Tuamotus, was packed with incident.

We had a number of passengers, including two Australians—Charles Howe and his mate. They were booked for Pinaki, believed to be the island where a huge treasure, looted from Peruvian religious institutions, was cached.

We were on the point of sailing, when the Tahitian crew assembled on deck and announced they would not go unless the two white passengers were disembarked. Howe was re garded as a treasure-seeker; and the crew remembered what happened several years earlier, when those notorious Rorick Brothers sailed away from Tahiti in their chartered schooner Niurohiti. Between that time and their ultimate arrival in the Carolines, where they were arrested, the Roricks murdered captain, crew and passengers—every one except the cook, Mirei.

It took some time to persuade our crew that Howe and his mate were not pirates. But when we left the dock, we could hear derisive shouts from the folk ashore: “You’ll never come back. Those two whites will burn you all, like the Roricks.”

En route to Mangareva, we arranged to call at Pinaki and land Howe. We were sailing along quietly one afternoon, when there was a sudden fusillade of shots. Consterna tion spread through the crew. I fell out of my bunk and raced on deck.

It was only Charles Howe, practising revolver shots at the tropic birds.

But it took us half an hour to calm the Tahitians.

Story Of Pinaki Treasure

That night, I told Howe why the men were so excitable, and he told me why he was returning to Pinaki, and had the reputation of an adventurer.

Howe said that, several years be fore this time (1921), he was a patient in Sydney Hospital. In an adjoining bed there was an old man; and they became friendly. It was clear that the old man was near his end. One day he said: “1 am about to die. You can take these.” He gave Howe a roll of soiled and

tattered old papers. He told him that this contained a chart and details of a treasure that had been taken from some religious people in Peru very long ago, and buried on the island of Pinaki.

Eventually, Howe told me, he got to Tahiti, and formed a small syndicate to look for the treasure.

In the company were Frank Howe, George Spitz, Louis Juventin, John Chave. They chartered the schooner Suzanne, and sailed from Tahiti for Pinaki.

But the Government had heard of the plan, and the Government claimed all buried treasure in the islands it controlled. The Governor’s Secretary, M. Dornier, in the absence of the Governor, took prompt action.

It put three gendarmes, Fromentin, Mugnier and Loup, aboard the steamer St. Michael, and sent her off full speed to Pinaki. The story which the officials had was that the treasure comprised four tons of gold, and an enormous quantity of pearls, diamonds and amethysts, all in metal caskets, sealed with lead, which bore a disfigured image of the face of Father Combes.

When the slower Suzanne reached Pinaki it found the St. Michael al ready there. The three gendarmes were ashore, guarding a small coco nut grove wherein it was said the treasure was buried.

There were some lively inter changes. The Suzanne and the treasure-seekers set sail for Papeete.

The St. Michael followed. The gendarmes remained on Pinaki.

The Governor now was back in Papeete, and exceedingly annoyed at the way in which this matter had been handled. The syndicate refused to surrender their supposed fortune to officialdom; the latter would not give up its claim. So the whole enterprise was abandoned. The Governor had to send the gunboat Zelee to Pinaki to pick up the gendarmes. They searched, but could find no trace of buried treasure. Now Charles Howe, still convinced that the old man “had something”, had come back to look the ground over again.

In due course, we disembarked Howe and his companion at Pinaki.

Howe explained his mission to the local chief, and hired a hut to live in, for a time.

Howe took me across to the reef, and showed me three peculiar marks caned there. He claimed that they pointed directly to a group of three coconut palms, and said the treasure should be somewhere near them. He said the marks were made by the party which, very long ago, took the

treasure ashore one night and buried it. I was not impressed. I thought it more likely that Howe or one of the lads of the previous expedition had made those marks.

We left Howe there on Pinaki.

The treasure was never found.

Whole Crew Poisoned

Our next call was at Maria Island.

Our ship lay off one whole day.

While the crew fished, I wandered around inspecting a large amount of debris, lumber and wreckage from vessels that had gone ashore at Oeno Island, which is not far from Mangareva and Pitcairn. I came upon a ship’s boat, still bearing the marks of the American barquentine St. George, of San Francisco.

When we returned aboard, our boat was half-filled with little fish, caught there by the crew. Everybody ate hugely of the fresh food; but some how, I did not like these fish, and made my supper of Hellaby’s canned beef and tea. Soon after, we were on our course to Mangareva.

That night, the captain aroused me. He and all the crew and passengers were extremely sick, and getting worse: The fish were poisonous. He said I must take the wheel and keep the course, which he had laid for Rikitea Bay, chief port of Mangareva Atoll. I followed in structions. I had seen the engineer oiling his engines; so, at intervals, I left the wheel and attended to the machinery.

Everyone was extremely sick.

They were taking brown sugar, dis solved in water, to offset the poison.

At daybreak, we were off Rikitea.

There was not a soul in sight. Off to starboard lay a four-masted barquentine. She flew the American flag and signals which said she was the Maraweli and asked to be reported all well to her owners, Hind Rolph & Co., San Francisco.

I circled around the entrance to the Bay, and called the crew to get the anchor ready, but they were all too weak. The engineer crawled up to me, but was in a bad way. I asked him to slow down the engines, and we crept into the Bay. There was a little schooner in the harbour; she turned out to be the Messenger, from Pitcairn. 1 made slowly towards the Messenger, and then I got the engineer to reverse, and stop. Then I megaphoned the little ship, and explained our plight, and asked them to send a boat over to our help. The captain, McCoy, came over with some of his men (whose names sounded like the story of the Bounty ) and they dropped our

anchor, and brought medicines. In a few hours, our men began to re cover.

I asked the Messenger men to eat with us. I was struck by the way . Captain McCoy and his crew stood bareheaded and said prayers before a meal.

That evening, I wandered ashore to inspect the town of Rikitea and saw the famous cathedral, built 100 years ago by Pere Laval. I noticed a young girl sitting on a log, and when she smiled at me I talked: to her and asked her her name, “My name Pyrenees”, she said.

That seemed a strange name, and so I got the story. She said a ship called Pyrenees was there when she was born, some 19 years before, and the captain asked them to call her after his ship.

Later, I checked on that, and I found that, about that time, a British four-masted barque Pyrenees ; caught fire at Mangareva, and was. beached. They got the fire out, and took her to Tahiti, and later to San Francisco, where she was re-fitted.

Under American registry, she sailed the seas again as the Mangareva, and she was lost on a voyage from America to England in World War I.

Only the other day, when I was talking with Pilot Captain Louis Carlson, I learned with pleasure that my girl friend Pyrenees is still alive and well at Mangareva.

We of the Perciv a I Parks left Mangareva the following day, and proceeded with our voyage. We were supposed, on our way back, to call I at Pinaki to pick up Charles Howe. : But the crew were still so much opposed to the idea of carrying a 1 possible pirate that we omitted the 1 call. I do not know how Charles I Howe eventually got away from there.