notorious on our coast were known as robbers,
pillagers, and ruthless destroyers of life and property, but Captain
Kidd's fame was of another kind. We do not think of him as a pirate who
came to carry away the property of American citizens, for nearly all the
stories about him relate to his arrival at different points on our
shores for the sole purpose of burying and thus concealing the rich
treasures which he had collected in other parts of the world.

This novel reputation given a pirate who enriched our shore by his
deposits and took away none of the possessions of our people could not
fail to make Captain Kidd a most interesting personage, and the result
has been that he has been lifted out of the sphere of ordinary history
and description into the region of imagination and legendary romance. In
a word, he has been made a hero of fiction and song. It may be well,
then, to assume that there are two Captain Kidds,--one the Kidd of
legend and story, and the other the Kidd of actual fact, and we will
consider, one at a time, the two characters in which we know the man.

As has been said before, nearly all the stories of the legendary Captain
Kidd relate to his visits along our northern coast, and even to inland
points, for the purpose of concealing the treasures which had been
amassed in other parts of the world.

Thus if we were to find ourselves in almost any village or rural
settlement along the coast of New Jersey or Long Island, and were to
fall in with any old resident who was fond of talking to strangers, he
would probably point out to us the blackened and weather-beaten ribs of
a great ship which had been wrecked on the sand bar off the coast during
a terrible storm long ago; he would show us where the bathing was
pleasant and safe; he would tell us of the best place for fishing, and
probably show us the high bluff a little back from the beach from which
the Indian maiden leaped to escape the tomahawk of her enraged lover,
and then he would be almost sure to tell us of the secluded spot where
it was said Captain Kidd and his pirates once buried a lot of treasure.

If we should ask our garrulous guide why this treasure had not been dug
up by the people of the place, he would probably shake his head and
declare that personally he knew nothing about it, but that it was
generally believed that it was there, and he had heard that there had
been people who had tried to find it, but if they did find any they
never