The Cruise of the Alerte

I

The History of the Treasure

In the course of a long cruise in the South Atlantic and up the South American rivers, in the years 1880 and 1881, with my little yacht the Falcon, I found myself, more by accident than intention, in the neighbourhood of the small desert island of Trinidad. We were bound from Montevideo to Bahia, and, after running before a heavy pampero off the River Plate, we fell in with strong head winds, and had to thrash our way to windward for upwards of a thousand miles of choppy seas and boisterous weather, while the rain poured down upon us almost without cessation, as it not unfrequently does during the season of the northerly Brazilian monsoon.

We steered a course away from the land to the eastward, hoping to meet with more favourable winds when we had obtained an offing of some four or five hundred miles. Vessels bound north from the Plate during the season of the northerly monsoon invariably pursue this plan, sailing as much as seven hundred miles close hauled on the port tack before they go about and make their northering. Thus it was that our course brought us in the vicinity of Trinidad, which lies in latitude 20° 30′ south and longitude 29° 22′ west, distant about seven hundred miles from the coast of Brazil, and my curiosity being aroused by the description of the islet in the South Atlantic Directory I decided to land and explore it.

We came to an anchor off this desolate spot on December 8, 1881, and we remained there for nine days. Our adventures of various sorts, the perils of landing, the attacks made on us by the multitudes of hideous land-crabs and ferocious seabirds, our difficult climb over the volcanic mountains, and finally our anything but regretful departure from one of the most uncanny and dispiriting spots on earth, are fully set out in my book, The Cruise of the Falcon. On turning to that book I find that I state there that I had had more than enough of Trinidad, and would on no account set foot on its barren shores again—a rash resolution which I was destined to break nearly ten years after my first visit to the island.