THE ISLAND WITH $100 MILLION HIDDEN

Reginald Herbert Cruise-Wilkins, known locally on the Seychelles island of Mahé as the ‘Treasure Man’, hunted the fortune for 27 years until his death in 1977. His son John inherited both the nickname and the quest.

When I first met John, he immediately barked that I was half an hour late. I didn’t expect a warm welcome; John is constantly hounded by writers and locals who stop him wherever he is, asking if he is looking for buried treasure.

But as he showed me around what he believes is the treasure site, and talked about the clues and what he had left to do, the gruff man melted into one you couldn’t help but root for. His eyes twinkled and his smile was infectious. Even after all these years of searching, he was still the storybook boy hero armed with his backpack and treasure map, trying to piece together the puzzle. His is a story of hope and of never giving up, despite the odds.

John explained that the fascinating tale of the treasure started in 1716 when Frenchman Olivier Levasseur, otherwise known as ‘La Buse’ (The Buzzard) because of the speed with which he would attack his enemies, was given a letter of marque to operate as a privateer. But within a few months, Levasseur turned to the more lucrative career of pirating.

In 1721, Levasseur and his associates – then with 750 pirates over three ships – came across a Portuguese galleon flying British colours, Nossa Senhora do Cabo, in the port of La Réunion, then called Bourbon Island. They landed 250 men on board and killed the crew. Levasseur, who had no idea what was on the ship, was astonished with the haul. According to John, a historian described it as ‘a floating treasure house, believed to consist of gold and silver bars, precious stones, uncut diamonds, guineas, church plate and goblets.’

The pirates quickly fled to their headquarters in Madagascar with the British Navy in hot pursuit, and the booty was divided between the crew. “There was a share out; each pirate got 42 diamonds and 5,000 gold guineas a piece. There were extra shares for the officers,” John said.

Levasseur kept the rest.

The pirate then disappeared and is believed to have hidden his treasure on the Seychelles island of Mahé.

“He broke up his crew in groups of 20 men, my father thought. The crew didn’t know where the treasure chamber would be. [The treasure] was placed in a cave, kept for a temporary period, and then when the time came for the proper burial, it was only the burial crew who closed the cavern and they were then executed,” John said. No one except Levasseur now knew its location.

When Levasseur was finally captured and executed on 7 July 1730 on La Réunion, he apparently knew there were members of his pirate brotherhood in the crowd. He hurled a piece of parchment into the air, shouting 'My treasure for he who can understand’.

That piece of parchment was a treasure map in the form of a cryptogram of 17 lines.

But the cryptogram, which has been tested to be genuine parchment from the 18th-Century by the British Museum, just looks like 17 lines of jumbled symbols to the untrained eye.

To read the complete article, see:
The Island With $100 Million Hidden (www.bbc.com/travel/story/20170425-the-island-with-100-million-hidden)

To read an earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NO SIGNS FOUND OF PURPORTED NAZI GOLD TRAIN (www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v18n51a32.html)

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