The Book of Buried Treasure: Being a True History of the Gold, Jewels, and Plate of Pirates, Galleons, etc., which are sought for to this dayPaine, Ralph Delahaye
History
The Book of Buried Treasure: Being a True History of the Gold, Jewels, and Plate of Pirates, Galleons, etc., which are sought for to this day
Paine, Ralph Delahaye
Treasure troves
There, indeed, is the prize for the treasure seeker of to-day who
dreams of doubloons and pieces of eight. Nor could pirate hoard have a
more blood-stained, adventurous history than these millions upon
millions, lapped by the tides of Vigo Bay, which were won by the sword
and lost in battle. During these last two hundred years many efforts
have been made to recover the freightage of this fleet, but the bulk of
the treasure is still untouched, and it awaits the man with the cash
and the ingenuity to evolve the right salvage equipment. At work now
in Vigo Bay is the latest of these explorers, an Italian, Pino by name,
inventor of a submarine boat, a system of raising wreck, and a
wonderful machine called a hydroscope for seeing and working at the
bottom of the sea.
With Pino it is a business affair operated by means of a concession
from the Spanish government, but he is something more than an inventor.
He is a poet, he has the artistic temperament, and when he talks of his
plans it is in words like these:
"I have found means to disclose to human eyes the things hidden in the
being of the furious waves of the infinite ocean, and how to recover
them. Mine is the simple key with which to open to man the mysterious
virgin temples of the nymphs and sirens who, by their sweet singing,
draw men to see and to take their endless treasures."
This interesting Pino is no dreamer, however, and he has enlisted ample
capital with which to build costly machinery and charter yachts and
steamers. With him is associated Carlo L. Iberti, and there is an
ideal pattern of a treasure seeker for you, a man of immense
enthusiasm, of indefatigable industry, dreaming, thinking, living in
the story of the galleons of Vigo Bay. It was he who secured the
concession from Madrid, it was he who as he says, "was flying from
province to province, from country to country, from archives to
archives, from library to library, ever studying, copying, and
acquiring all documents relating to Vigo. I had made up my mind to
find out all that was to be known about the treasure. And I believe I
have succeeded."
Never was there such a prospectus as Iberti wrote to awaken the
interest of investors in the undertaking of Pino. It was a historical
work bristling with data, authorities, references, from French,
Spanish, and English sources. It was convincing, final, positively
superb. One blinked at reading it, as if dazzled by the sight of
mountains of gold, and moreover every word of it was true. As a text
for this narrative, his summary, the peroration, so to speak, fairly
hits one between the eyes:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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