folk-lore of almost every race is rich in buried treasure stories. The
pirate with his stout sea chest hidden above high-water mark is
lineally descended from the enchanting characters who lived in the
shadow land of myth and fable. The hoard of Captain Kidd, although he
was turned off at Execution Dock only two hundred years ago, has become
as legendary as the dream of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Many a hard-headed farmer and fisherman of the New England coast
believes that it is rash business to go digging for Kidd's treasure
unless one carefully performs certain incantations designed to placate
the ghostly guardian who aforetime sailed with Kidd and was slain by
him after the hole was dug lest the secret might thus be revealed. And
it is of course well known that if a word is spoken after the pick has
clinked against the iron-bound chest or metal pot, the devil flies away
with the treasure, leaving behind him only panic and a strong smell of
brimstone.

Such curious superstitions as these, strongly surviving wherever pirate
gold is sought, have been the common property of buried-treasure
stories in all ages. The country-folk of Japan will tell you that if a
pot of money is found a rice cake must be left in place of every coin
taken away, and imitation money burned as an offering to any spirit
that may be offended by the removal of the hoard. The negroes of the
West Indies explain that the buried wealth of the buccaneers is seldom
found because the spirits that watch over it have a habit of whisking
the treasure away to parts unknown as soon as ever the hiding-place is
disturbed. Among the Bedouins is current the legend that immense
treasures were concealed by Solomon beneath the foundations of Palmyra
and that sapient monarch took the precaution of enlisting an army of
jinns to guard the gold forever more.

In parts of Bohemia the peasants are convinced that a blue light hovers
above the location of buried treasure, invisible to all mortal eyes
save those of the person destined to find it. In many corners of the
world there has long existed the belief in the occult efficacy of a
black cock or a black cat in the equipment of a treasure quest which is
also influenced by the particular phases of the moon. A letter written
from Bombay as long ago as 1707, contained a quaint account of an
incident inspired by this particular superstition.

"Upon a dream of a Negro girl of Mahim that there was a