In the spring of 1721, a French corsair named Olivier Levasseur beat a retreat from the Malabar Coast of India and sailed west to Madagascar. Levasseur was known as “La Buse,” or “the Buzzard.” He actually wore a patch to hide a mutilated eye.

In any event, he was wreaking havoc on the Malabar Coast when, finally, the British East India Co. decided it had had enough of La Buse and sent the entire Bombay fleet to hunt him down.

The Malabar Coast is one of my favorite places in India. The Western Ghats run the length of Malabar’s eastern edge. The monsoons run in from the sea and slam up against the mountain range, depositing heavy rains on the coastal lowlands. This produces the lush green tropical environment so different from the interior of India.

During my trip to India, we visited some of the coastal towns. We also took a houseboat and lazily made our way inland on one of the sleepy rivers. The food here was also very good — fresh fish, sweet bananas and coconuts.

Since medieval times, the maritime towns that grew up along the Malabar Coast have been known for trading rice, coconuts, gemstones, indigo and other dyes. Malabar is also rich in pepper, which became its cash crop in overseas trade. The dense forests on the slopes of the Ghats provide the only woodland around the rim of the Arabian Sea. So Malabar also exported teakwood, and its boats were also made of twine and teakwood.

As you can imagine, Malabar provided lots of good targets for a pirate. But things got too hot for La Buse with the Brits on his tail. He took off for Madagascar. Along the way, he decided to stop off in Reunion (then known as Ile de Bourbon) because his ship was low on water. Reunion is a little mountainous island east of Madagascar.

There he sailed into the harbor at St. Paul only to discover the Portuguese man-of-war Nostra Senhora de Cabo mooring there. Of course, La Buse could not resist. His ship fired a full broadside on the surprised Portuguese ship. His pirates then boarded it virtually without resistance.

And then, La Buse captured his greatest prize.

The ship was laden with gold and gemstones belonging to the viceroy of Goa, on India’s Malabar Coast. The ship had been on its way home to Lisbon when La Buse caught it unawares. The total haul was worth over $1.5 million, maybe the biggest prize a pirate ever snatched.

But all did not end well for La Buse. In 1730, nine years after his big haul, a slave-trading bounty hunter captured him. Fittingly, La Buse would hang in Reunion. But he did not leave this world without putting on a little drama at the end.

At the gallows, the old pirate threw out a set of maps on parchment that supposedly revealed the location of where he buried the treasures of Nostra Senhora de Cabo. They were in code, and he told the crowd that whoever cracked the code would find the treasure.

To this day, no one has found La Buse’s treasures. Many adventurers have tried.

William Dalrymple tells this tale in his book The Age of Kali, a collection of essays on India and Pakistan. It’s a great tale and somehow appropriate for investors in India today. India still is home to great treasures of a different sort: It is home to one of the fastest growing economies in the world. It’s also an extremely volatile market full of pitfalls. While I was there, the market was going crazy in a steep run-up to all-time highs.

Regards,

Chris Mayer
February 27, 2008

Finding the Treasure in India Just Got Easier was originally featured in the Penny Sleuth.