his "prospectus"
of his island, Harden-Hickey himself describes it thus:

"Trinidad is about five miles long and three miles wide. In spite of
its rugged and uninviting appearance, the inland plateaus are rich with
luxuriant vegetation.

"Prominent among this is a peculiar species of bean, which is not only
edible, but extremely palatable. The surrounding seas swarm with fish,
which as yet are wholly unsuspicious of the hook. Dolphins, rock-cod,
pigfish, and blackfish may be caught as quickly as they can be hauled
out. I look to the sea birds and the turtles to afford our principal
source of revenue. Trinidad is the breeding-place of almost the entire
feathery population of the South Atlantic Ocean. The exportation of
guano alone should make my little country prosperous. Turtles visit the
island to deposit eggs, and at certain seasons the beach is literally
alive with them. The only drawback to my projected kingdom is the fact
that it has no good harbor and can be approached only when the sea is
calm."

As a matter of fact sometimes months pass before it is possible to
effect a landing.

Another asset of the island held out by the prospectus was its great
store of buried treasure. Before Harden-Hickey seized the island, this
treasure had made it known. This is the legend. In 1821 a great store
of gold and silver plate plundered from Peruvian churches had been
concealed on the islands by pirates near Sugar Loaf Hill, on the shore
of what is known as the Southwest Bay. Much of this plate came from
the cathedral at Lima, having been carried from there during the war
of independence when the Spanish residents fled the country. In their
eagerness to escape they put to sea in any ship that offered, and these
unarmed and unseaworthy vessels fell an easy prey to pirates. One of
these pirates on his death-bed, in gratitude to his former captain, told
him the secret of the treasure. In 1892 this captain was still living,
in Newcastle, England, and although his story bears a family resemblance
to every other story of buried treasure, there were added to the tale of
the pirate some corroborative details. These, in twelve years, induced
five different expeditions to visit the island. The two most important
were that of E. F. Knight and one from the Tyne in the bark _Aurea_.

In his "Cruise of the _Alerte_," Knight gives a full description of the
island, and of his attempt to find the treasure. In this, a landslide
having cove