612 A. E. Verrill — The Bermuda Islands. 



down by a Captain Seymour, about 1640. This was done, according 

 to Joseph Wing of Cooper's Island, for the purpose of shipping the 

 trunk, with its tablet attached, to the London Company, and prob- 

 ably by their orders. But in towing the trunk out to the ship, 

 behind a boat, the rope broke and it went to the bottom, from 

 whence it could not be raised without more trouble and expense 

 than was thought warranted. The} - stated, also, that this tree trunk 

 could be seen upon the bottom for many years afterwards. These 

 depositions confirm Governor Moore's statement, in 1612, that the 

 wood was very hard and heavy, and had been mistaken for lignum- 

 vitce. 



In several of the depositions it was stated that a cross had been 

 found in the early days nailed to a tree trunk on Cross Island, a 

 small island close to the east side of Ireland Island.* This island was 

 named Cross Island on Norwood's map of 1663, but it was named 

 Sober Island on the Admiralty chai't, and it is now called Magazine 

 Island. The cross stood with one of its arms pointing to Spanish 

 Point and the other to the marked Yellow-wood tree on Ireland 

 Island, where they also found three stone monuments, enclosing a 

 triangular space, supposed by them to indicate the spot where the 

 gold was buried, according to several depositions. 



But the natives were so superstitious at that time, and so afraid of 

 the ghosts and demons that were supposed to guard ill-gotten 

 Spanish treasures, that no careful search seems to have been made, 

 nor is there any record of treasures recovered there, except a few 

 small lots of coin and some silver spoons. 



This cross, the stone monuments, and labelled trees were believed 

 to confirm a tradition of buried treasures, said to have been derived 

 from two different persons, who had been told by old Spanish sailors, 

 in foreign ports, that they had belonged to the shipwrecked crew of 

 the Spanish vessel and had helped to bury the treasure under the 

 vessel's hatches, and to erect the cross and signs by which to find it 

 again. According to one of these accounts, the vessel was that of 

 one Juan Bermudez, but not necessarily that of the one who dis- 

 covered the islands, for the name was a very common one in Spain 

 at that time, like John Smith in England. 



* As this cross was of wood and in a very exposed place, it is not probable 

 that it could have been put there many years before the settlement : otherwise 

 it would have decayed. One of the deponents stated that he had seen the tree 

 trunk to which it was fastened, still standing, about 1650. 



