Pirates and buried treasure

Rodrigues island has a rich history in regards to piracy and pirates. Laurent Lemoine, the infamous pirate, supposedly hid treasure on the island (Ile Hermitage to be specific). Other sites of supposed hidden treasure include L'Anse Aux Anglais and Caverne Provert. Many have tried to search for the hidden treasure in L'Anse Aux Anglais with no success (including Leon Le Clezio). My Grandfather used to tell the story of holes dug all over the place in L'Anse Aux Anglais when he was a child on the island. Caverne Provert also has an interesting legend regarding buried treasure. The story goes that there is a hidden chain in the "cavern like" formation at the end of the beach. It is said that the chain, if found and followed, leads to hidden treasure. I recall looking for this chain when I was last on the island but I didn't see anything. The cave was full of sand so maybe it's buried under the sand!

To this day no treasure has ever been found in Rodrigues. The closest thing found are old coins dating back 100s of years. There is an interesting story relating to coins which have been found on the island. Apparently the ghosts of pirates come to certain people in their dreams and tell them exactly where the hidden treasure is located and to go off into the night and start digging. Apparently some people claim they have followed through on the dream and they did end up finding old coins but no treasure.

Is there hidden treasure buried somewhere on the island just waiting to be found? The evidence so far suggest there isn't. On the other hand maybe there is treasure but nobody has found it yet.

Lady Broome's account of Rodrigues island

Lady Broome (1831-1911 pictured left) was an author who wrote the book Colonial Memories. Colonial Memories, her last book details her life in the British colonies in the 1800s. Her travel to Rodrigues (late 1800s) is mentioned in the book. Looking at the way she wrote, it does seem rather racist and politically incorrect. Here's a snippet from the book.

"All the men in the settlement had crowded round F. and the priests, so I found myself the centre of a large gathering of the women of Gabrielle, Children were there in numbers, but had no chance of getting near me, and there was always the difficulty of the language. What my smiling jet-black friends seemed most curious about was my "civil status," and that of the other lady. " Madame ou Ma'amzelle ?" was the incessant question to both of us. I singled out one extraordinarily ugly but beaming and big, fat girl to put the same question to, and I can never forget the' droll air of coquetry with which she laid one black finger against an equally black cheek, turned her head aside, and murmured bashfully, "Moi, je suis Modeste.""