A. E. V err ill — The Bermuda Islands. 615 



the Flying Dutchman), where no real ships could sail for the shallow- 

 ness of the water. 



Others swore that when they tried to go to Ireland Island in boats 

 to look for treasure they always encountered adverse winds and 

 squalls, so that they could not land. Even the half-wild hogs were 

 accused of being in league with the demons to drive intruders away. 

 One testified that when he tried to dig there he was "possest with a 

 panick ffeare, unwilling to make any ffurther prograce in serening 

 or digging." This was very likely the case with others who were 

 less frank in their testimony. 



One party were convinced that they would be struck blind, tem- 

 porarily, in case they should find the treasure, and so quit digging, 

 saying "they would not trust the Devil with their eyesight," even 

 temporarily. 



Some of these deponents also repeated the tradition that the two 

 Spanish ships that were attacked and driven off from Castle Island 

 by Governor Moore, in 1612, had come here to find and take away 

 the buried treasures. 



Governer Butler, himself, in 1619, alluded to these legends of 

 buried treasures, and to these ships as possibly coming to seek it, 

 but he said there had been " divers greedy searches " for it even 

 before then. 



He, however, thought that there was evidence that Spaniards had 

 been here : " Witnesse certaine crosses left erected upon rocks and 

 promontories.* Some peeces of their coyne found scattered under 

 trees, and the like signs of their being here. Upon which grounds, 

 joyned with some intelligences (as they save) out of Spayne itselfe, a 

 report hath bin raysed of a great treasure, that should be hidd 

 therabouts, which hath caused divers greedy searches ; which all of 

 them hitherto have proved vaine and effect-lesse." 



Some of the depositions of 1693, which are of certain historical 

 value, are as»follows : — 



" The Deposition of Mr. John Keeling of Somerset Tribe, aged 

 11 years, being sworne saith : — That about nifty years since this 



* Possibly one of the crosses that he here refers to was the one sculptured 

 on the '• Spanish Rock," with the date 1543 still legible, but he may also refer 

 to the wooden one on Cross Island, which could hardly have lasted more than 

 thirty or forty years, in that situation. 



As Governor Butler understood the Spanish language, and probably Latin 

 also, it is singular that he did not translate and record the inscriptions on the 

 "brass tablets," had they been known to him. Probably they were discovered 

 after he left the islands. 



