I Dive for Treasure

By Lieut. Harry E. Rieseberg

This classic of all underwater treasure-hunting books takes the reader into an amazing world: Terryfying battles with the barracuda, shark and giant octopus; Hair's-breadth escapes from death in storm-churned seas; Mutinies, pirate attacks, undersea adventures galore; Plus names and locations of buried shipwrecks as revealed by the world's most renowned treasure-hunter

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frederick Fell Publishers, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780883915745

Lieut. Harry E. Rieseberg

LIEUT. HARRY A. RIESEBERG, co-author with A. A. MIKALOW of Fell's Guide to Sunken Treasure Ships Around the World, was recently named "Mr. Treasure Hunter of 1964" by the National Treasure Trove Club. He has written 19 books and over 3,700 articles on treasure hunts and under-sea exploring. Former Chief in the U.S. Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection, he has been a successful salvager for more than 25 years.

Book preview

Treasure

CHAPTER 1.

The Green Ghost of the Merida

The superstitious, who believe in the legend of the evil spell wonder if the clean waters of the Atlantic may not have washed away the curse an old Burmese priest is supposed to have put upon the Mérida’s sunken riches….

There is a fabulous treasure waiting on the wild and broken ocean floor off the Virginia Capes.

At least five and a half million dollars’ worth still rests there, in gold and silver ingots, in specie, in jewels, in copper, mahogany logs and silver ore, in Jamaica rum, and the long-lost historic pearl and ruby necklace of Charlotte, one-time empress of Mexico, all guarded by rock-strewn shoals and storms that annually lash the sea to chaos. Superstitious folk also believe in the legend of an evil spirit supposedly called forth by an old Burmese priest to guard part of the ill-fated liner Mérida’s treasure.

I have been down on that jumbled ocean bottom, far beneath the surface of the Atlantic seaboard. I actually saw and photographed this modern green-and-brown barnacled hulk which in 1911 was a proud liner of the Ward Steamship Company. I sent up to the surface in the sling many small objects unearthed from the strewn debris which surrounded this ghostly relic.

I know at first-hand what lies there. I know the precise location of this wrecked steamer, for I had it right at my finger-tips. I also know, from years of arduous training in deep sea treasure salvage, just how to bring its salvaged precious freight up to the surface sunlight once more; for I am the only man to actually locate this fabulous prize.

It all started in the summer of 1933, when the then leading salvage expert Captain Harry L. Bowdoin, of White Plains, New York, first visited me in my office in the United States Bureau of Navigation & Steamboat Inspection Service, in Washington, D.C., where, at the time, I was the chief in charge of licensing all merchant vessels of the United States.

Captain Bowdoin and his salvage crew had been searching the waters of outer Chesapeake Bay for the resting place of the ill-fated liner Mérida, which sank when it collided with the steamsehip Admiral Farragut on May 11, 1911. For three summers he had tried without success to locate the site, and during the previous winter, thinking at last that he had finally come upon the exact spot, he had buoyed it in preparation for his return in the spring when the weather would permit further operations. However, upon his return in the spring, he discovered that his claim had been jumped by a Gloucester fisherman, Captain John Hall, and his crew.

I took steps in the matter, and under the navigation laws, I had ordered the hijackers to immediately withdraw.

The story which Captain Bowdoin had related to me about the sunken liner’s loss and her fabulous cargo of treasure enticed me greatly. Later, after Captain Bowdoin had given up further search, I delved into the history of the Mérida, came up with the background account, and even made an expedition on my own and located the exact site of sinking.

This is the story:

Out there on the rugged sea floor, where the outflowing waters of the Chesapeake meet the backwash of the Gulf Stream’s turbulent sweep, the long-shattered hulk of the once stately Ward liner Mérida rests today. Encrusted with a thick coating of barnacles and green sea growth, strangely quiet, she lies where she went down fifty-eight years ago, a tragic monument in the heart of what was once known as Rum Row.

Schedules and timetables no longer to be met; chronometers, dividends, and whirring propellers long forgotten; half buried by the strong eddying of conflicting currents which have heavily silted up the huge hulk with mud, sand, and ooze; decks now caved in and her hull filled with a twisted mass of steel wreckage—she is considered the greatest treasure-bearing shipwreck on the entire Atlantic seaboard!

Fifty-eight years ago, at a time when one of Mexico’s many revolutions sent President Porfirio Diaz fleeing from his palace in Mexico City, the liner Mérida steamed out of Yucatan’s harbor on her last voyage. She went down to the bottom of that passage, her huge treasure cargo protected, according to an old legend, by a double curse. If this ancient tale can be believed, it was Maximilian’s wealth on board that was cursed and double-cursed because some of it had been looted from the sacred Temple of Aama, in the interior jungles of Burma; the rest was filched from an Aztec temple far in the center of Old Mexico.

However, it is known from ancient records in the Vienna Archives that the high priest of the holy Temple of Aama had invoked the anger of the gods against those who laid hands on the temple or its treasures. Perhaps this curse had nothing to do with the tragic death of the Emperor Maximilian, the insanity of Charlotte, his empress, or the fall of the entire House of Hapsburg and the tragedies which befell practically every member thereof, and even Austria itself. Very probably it was the luck of the sea that the Mérida was rammed in a collision with the steamship Admiral Farragut of the United Fruit Company Line.

In any case, the Mérida, sailing out of the Gulf of Mexico and off the Virginia Capes, ran into a dense fog which had been misting for many days. Out of the denseness of the fog and night loomed the steamer Admiral Farragut, en route from Philadelphia to Port Antonio, Jamaica. The Mérida was cut in two by the Farragut. When the tragic disaster struck there were scenes of the wildest panic. Rockets and flares were sent up, keeping the darkness of night brightly lit; lifeboats were lowered as fast as possible; there were hoarse shouts and the clanging of bells; helms were thrown hard over; and both the officers and crews had great difficulty in preventing the boats from being swamped by the panic-stricken passengers.

The Farragut had given the Mérida a death blow amidships, and down went the liner and her huge and valuable treasure cargo. The passengers and crew were safely transferred from the sinking vessel to the Admiral Farragut. There was no loss of life, for every man, woman, and child was saved. However, they were compelled to leave the sinking Mérida so hurriedly that they had no time to return to their staterooms to recover their valuables, and not a scrap of any of their treasures was saved!

The catastrophe happened on May 11, 1911. The Mérida’s value as a vessel was one million dollars. The Admiral Farragut was seriously damaged to the extent of some $52,598 and proceeded to New York City for repairs. However, eleven days later, the disaster was investigated. The second officer of the Admiral Farragut, Ralph R. Pendleton, was tried on charges of willful negligence, lack of skill, and willful violation of navigation law, for having failed to maintain a proper lookout, for not keeping out of the way of the ill-fated Mérida, as required by Articles 19, 22, and 23 of the International Rules, and for failure to sound fog signals as required by Article 15 of said rules. The master of the Mérida, A. Mader, was tried on charges of willful violation of the law, for having failed to sound fog signals as required by the same rules. Both cases, however, were later dismissed.

Stowed aboard the Mérida was the huge Hapsburg treasure—$5,500,000 in gold, silver, and jewels, together with a consignment of 827 silver bars, originally insured in Paris and valued at $237,500. This treasure was locked in one of the two purser’s safes. In the other safe there was an additional $50,000 in gold specie and another $100,000 in like currency of various denominations belonging to the passengers. There was the fabulous historic pearl and ruby necklace of Charlotte, the unfortunate empress of Maximilian, as well as a part of the Crown Jewels which had been surreptitiously smuggled out of Mexico at the last minute. Had the revolutionists known they were on board, they would have been seized.

In addition to all these valuables, stowed in the liner’s hold were some 699 ingots of copper valued at $25,730, $90,000 in mahogany logs, and some 6,000 tons of Jamaica rum. The officials of an American mining company that operated in Mexico, realizing that they would be looted of their mined ore by the revolutionists, placed aboard the Mérida approximately fifteen tons of pure silver ingots. And, though not authenticated, it was rumored that President Diaz had stowed on board at Vera Cruz the famous emeralds of Quetzalcoatl. To date, these priceless gems, together with the fabulous historic necklace, have never been located anywhere, and it is almost certain they still rest in the purser’s safe in the old wreck.

The legend of the famed cursed treasure, authenticated and substantiated down through the years in Austrian archives, seems to be one of fact; yet it is as strange as fiction. The real reason that all these Hapsburg riches got so far away from the treasure vaults of the palace in Vienna, Austria is that the late Emperor Franz Josef believed them cursed himself. He made a gift of the treasures to his brother, Maximilian, the unfortunate emperor of Mexico. Though many people had said this treasure carried a curse for anyone who gained possession of it, the world had paid little attention to it until Franz Josef generously presented it to his brother.

At that time, Franz Josef, then emperor of Austria, was known throughout the world to be exceptionally good at taking, but was never known before to have been accused of generosity. The crowned heads of Europe agreed among themselves that the treasure must be poisonous indeed. Evidently, Maximilian was not a superstitious man!

The vast riches had been accumulating down through the centuries, bit by bit, in the Temple of Aama, in Burma, until the sixteenth century when Count Hermann of Hapsburg succeeded in looting the sacred temple of everything worth filching. The high priest went into meditation for one whole week, as the ancient records relate. Then, on the eighth day he arose at dawn and pronounced the curse which took him until noon to recite and which is said to have been the most elaborate and complete malediction ever conceived by man. It provided every conceivable misfortune for anyone who should ever make contact with the stolen wealth.

Nonetheless, Count Hermann triumphantly brought every bit of loot to Vienna. He presumed that there he was perfectly safe because his relatives were all-powerful during that period. However, they were too powerful. Having heard his story and dazed at the glittering pelf, they told him he had done wrong in taking that which did not belong to him —and they confiscated it in its entirety. They did not believe it would be right to return the plundered riches to a heathen temple in the jungles of Burma, so they kept it for themselves. And Count Hermann, the noble temple looter, cried out at this injustice. But the first time he made a public scene, he was locked up in an institution in Vienna as a lunatic. He promptly justified this act by going insane, and shortly thereafter died a raving maniac.

Shortly after this ill-fated event, the Hapsburg relatives who relieved the count of his ill-gotten treasures proceeded to go through a serious of misfortunes, frustrations, and tragedies that made bad luck and the name of Hapsburg almost synonymous. However, those who do not believe in curses can find reason enough for the royal troubles in the endless chain of Machiavellian connivings, plots, and double-crossings of the members of that ancient House of Hapsburg.

Eventually, after some years, as did most all of the other estates and valuables of his relatives, the Aama temple treasure found its way into the lean, grasping hands of Franz Josef himself. When he, as emperor, ascended the double throne of Austria-Hungary, he may have had fears about that curse, but they were not enough to make him refuse five million dollars. Franz Josef just wasn’t built that way. However, things began to occur that may have changed his attitude toward the Oriental fortune. Few rulers of Europe have had such a long and unhappy reign. As emperor, he had the power and strategic position to make himself master of the world, yet he was frustrated in almost every ambition.

From the very start the House of Hapsburg became divided against itself; every member of the royal family hated its head, Franz Josef, so much that some forfeited their wealth, titles, and everything else to flee as penniless commoners. Then his queen, Elizabeth of Bavaria, was suddenly murdered by a shoemaker who, happening to get within reach of a member of the reigning household, improved the situation by stabbing her with the only weapon he possessed, his shoemaker’s awl. This tragedy was followed by one in which the emperor’s son, Rudolf, either committed suicide or was murdered after the shooting of his sweetheart, the Countess Vetsera.

Still later more disaster followed. A nephew, Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated at Sarajevo, precipitating the First World War that resulted in the defeat of Austria and the end of the Hapsburg reign. Then, the old man of the Hapsburg House died of a broken heart before the final collapse of the dynasty. But just before he passed away, his aged eyes saw the handwriting on the wall for his reign and Austria itself. Not only was everything he had worked for during a long life frustrated, but his dynasty was destroyed and even European civilization threatened.

Franz Josef, just before he died, rid himself of the temple treasures. But those who still believed in the curse said that its deadly poison carried on, and that if any part of it came into a person’s possession for a fleeting instant, the infection remained until death.

Now we come down to the time of the American Civil War, when neither the North nor South gave heed to what was happening across the border to the south. While this struggle went on, Napoleon III knew he could do as he pleased, but after the war what? At the start the South was winning all the battles. This seemed to indicate that the United States would be split into two bleeding and exhausted countries, neither of which would be in a position to interfere with French meddling and eventual conquest of Mexico.

This venture was a bright idea for Napoleon. Bearing the mighty name, some of the ambition, but very little of the ability of the first Napoleon, he was searching for a showy conquest that would not require an outlay of too much money or talent at generalship. There was nothing in Europe that could be snatched without a first-class war; but across the Atlantic was Mexico, an easy plum and victim of conquest, except that the United States threatened to intervene. Napoleon had in mind the same sort of tyrant puppet state for Mexico that the Japanese had earlier installed in Manchukuo.

Then, suddenly, with great detachments of French troops, small loans, and promises of larger ones, Napoleon III permitted his ideas to materialize and finally persuaded the then Mexican government that it needed an emperor, a successor to Montezuma, to bring prestige to the nation. And for the throne he needed a suitable puppet, some wealthy dupe who would wear the imperial title, but do as Napoleon III told him. For this stooge, he selected the Archduke Maximilian, a member of the House of Hapsburg and a quiet, studious personage, satisfied with the vast wealth he possessed and with no ambition whatever for fame and, above all, no desire to rule a nation. Unfortunately, the Archduke Maximillian was already cursed by another sort of treasure, his exceptionally beautiful wife, Charlotte. Charlotte had seen her father, Leopold of Belgium, steal the huge territory of the Belgian Congo for a mere song, and, through terrific tortures and extreme cruelties to the ignorant and passive natives, make it grow into an empire. Unfortunately, too, Maximilian adored his wife and let her coax and badger him into accepting the offer against his wishes and better judgment.

Then, suddenly, and to the amazement of the entire world, Franz Josef donated that five-million-dollar treasure of the Burmese temple to Maximilian and Charlotte. It wasn’t long thereafter that the archduke and his wife, together with the cursed jewels and treasure of the Temple of Aama, arrived in Mexico City together. The curse accompanied them.

Napoleon’s fantastic scheme was doomed to quick failure from the very start, because the Mexican people were determined not to tolerate foreign rule. Yet, for a period, a comparativly small number of French troops continued to keep Maximilian on the throne while his empress, Carlotta —as the Mexicans called her—basked in the joy of being called Your Imperial Majesty.

Finally the American Civil War came to an end, and it was obvious that Napoleon III had guessed wrong. The United States remained united and full of seasoned veterans who could quickly make good America’s threat to oust the French troops from North American soil. Seeing that his scheme had failed, Napoleon quickly removed his soldiers, recalling them back to France.

Immediately, as the last detachments of troops departed, an uprising started in Mexico, which, in the end, could not fail to succeed. It was time for Maximilian to escape with his life and his treasures but his flighty empress persuaded him to remain while she hurried back to Europe for help. She believed it would be easy to