![]() To try to solve as many puzzles as you can on your own. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.This is actually a very easy game and I would encourage you If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". Join over three million BBC Travel fans by liking us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. And I’m rooting for him to have the last laugh. Until that happens, the story of John and the pirates will never have a happy ending. To get that bond removed, or else get the proper funding to finish off the work.” But I could not give them that satisfaction,” John said. “After so many obstacles placed in our way had been overcome, the bond was the final straw. Since 2009, he’s been doing preparatory work on the site, repairing rock armouring walls, building footpaths to get equipment in and ‘working on measurements, clues and other data to get this right’. “The government owns the land, so they are entitled to 50%, which is the law,” he said.īut still, 50% of £100 million is a lot of money, and John is emphatic that he won’t stop searching. And the question always with people is ‘Why do you treasure hunt? I mean, people don’t do this anymore’,” John said. ![]() “I don’t care what they think, but a lot of them think I’m crazy. As soon as I told them what I was doing, they laughed, and reminisced on the legend they’d known since their childhoods. They all have an opinion on the story, from the taxi driver who drove me to Bel Ombre, to the lady who runs the guest house where I was staying. ![]() Mahé is a small island where everyone knows each other. Based on what he uncovered, he believed the bounty was buried according to a complex riddle inspired by the 12 Labours of Hercules, and, after many years identified the treasure to be in the stunningly beautiful area of Bel Ombre on Mahé’s northern coast, surrounded by turquoise sea, lush vegetation and huge smooth granite boulders sculpted by the waves. Cruise-Wilkins spent years trying to decode the cryptogram, using everything from Greek, Hebrew, astrology, astronomy, mythology and the occult to break the elaborate system of clues. Levasseur was an intellectual, a Greek and Latin scholar who was versed in masonic symbology. He hurled a piece of parchment into the air, shouting 'My treasure for he who can understand’. When Levasseur was finally captured and executed on 7 July 1730 on La Réunion, he apparently knew there were members of his pirate brotherhood in the crowd. No one except Levasseur now knew its location. was placed in a cave, kept for a temporary period, and then when the time came for the proper burial, it was only the burial crew who closed the cavern and they were then executed,” John said. The crew didn’t know where the treasure chamber would be. “He broke up his crew in groups of 20 men, my father thought. The pirate then disappeared and is believed to have hidden his treasure on the Seychelles island of Mahé. There were extra shares for the officers,” John said. “There was a share out each pirate got 42 diamonds and 5,000 gold guineas a piece. The pirates quickly fled to their headquarters in Madagascar with the British Navy in hot pursuit, and the booty was divided between the crew. According to John, a historian described it as ‘a floating treasure house, believed to consist of gold and silver bars, precious stones, uncut diamonds, guineas, church plate and goblets.’ Levasseur, who had no idea what was on the ship, was astonished with the haul. They landed 250 men on board and killed the crew. In 1721, Levasseur and his associates – then with 750 pirates over three ships – came across a Portuguese galleon flying British colours, Nossa Senhora do Cabo, in the port of La Réunion, then called Bourbon Island. But within a few months, Levasseur turned to the more lucrative career of pirating. John explained that the fascinating tale of the treasure started in 1716 when Frenchman Olivier Levasseur, otherwise known as ‘La Buse’ (The Buzzard) because of the speed with which he would attack his enemies, was given a letter of marque to operate as a privateer. His is a story of hope and of never giving up, despite the odds. Even after all these years of searching, he was still the storybook boy hero armed with his backpack and treasure map, trying to piece together the puzzle. His eyes twinkled and his smile was infectious. ![]() But as he showed me around what he believes is the treasure site, and talked about the clues and what he had left to do, the gruff man melted into one you couldn’t help but root for.
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