of
birds rose screaming and circling overhead. The sandy beach on which
the seekers landed is strewn with boulders, on each of which is carved
the name and business of some vessel which has called at Cocos. Some
of the dates carry one back to Nelson's time; and all sorts of ships
seem to have visited the lonely little island, while many a boulder
testified to blighted hopes and fruitless errands after treasure.

"Captain Shrapnel's party set to work with the highest expectation. No
previous expedition had been so well furnished with clues. Once on the
right track, it seemed impossible that they should fail. They searched
for ten days, encouraged now by the finding of the broken arm of a
battered cross brought from some Peruvian church, again by a glimpse
into what promised falsely to be a treasure cave; but all blasting,
digging, and damming of streams proved useless. Captain Shrapnel at
last called a council of war, and declared his opinion that the search
was hopeless; landslips, previous excavations, and the torrential rains
of this tropical region had so entirely altered the face of the island
that clues and directions were of little avail, nor did their agreement
with the owners of the _Lytton_ permit of a longer stay on Cocos.

"We did not leave the island, however, without paying a visit to its
governor, Gissler, whose little settlement is on Wafer Bay. Rounding
the headland from Chatham Bay, we came into the quiet little nook where
he has made his home, and he at once waded out in the surf to greet the
visitors,--a tall, bronzed man, with a long, gray heard reaching below
his waist, and deep-set eyes which gazed with obvious suspicion.
Gissler had learned to distrust the coming of strangers, who have paid
small regard to his rights, pillaging his crops, killing his livestock,
and even making free with his home.

"Reassured by Captain Shrapnel's party that he had nothing to fear from
them, he invited them to his house and clearing, and told them of his
long and lonely hunt for the pirate's treasure. When he first went to
live on Cocos, he found many traces of the freebooters. There were
traces of their old camps, with thirty-two stone steps leading to a
cave, old fire-places, rusty pots and arms, and empty bottles to mark
the scene of their carousing. He had found only one gold coin, a
doubloon of the time of Charles III of Spain, bearing the date of 1788."

In 1901, a company was formed in Vancouve