JESUIT GOLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 189, 11 August 1934, Page 7 (Supplement)

JESUIT GOLD.

A COLUMBIAN HOARD. AN3> A GRIM WARNING. STORY OF A SEARCH. Twelve million pounds' worth of treasure is a tempting bait. It was certainly strong enough to lead a party of searchers from England into the middle of Bolivia. The treasure was reputed to have been hidden by the Jesuits 150 years ago, when they were driven out of the country. One of the deported priests, says Mr. Stratford D. Jolly, a member of the search party, left a document describing the hiding place. Having given the position, it goes on encouragingly: — "If you proceed along the passage you will find in the first room 37 heaps of gold, and many gold and silver ornaments and precious stones. On entering the second room you will find in the righthand corner a large box clamped with iron bars; insole this box are 90,000 Duros Reales iu eflver money and 30 ba,"s of gold. Districted in the hollows on either side of the tunnel and in the two are, altogether, 100 heaps of gold, of which the value has been cstimate'd as' 00,000,000 Duros Reales. Great care must bo taken on entering these rooms, as enough poison to kill a regiment of the king has been laid about." A Warning to Searchers. Apart from this warning about poison, Dr. Edgar Sanders, the leader of the expedition, found another in the true "thriller" tradition. It read:— "You who reach this place withdraw. This spot is dedicated to God Almighty and the one who dares to enter a dolorous death awaits him in this world and eternal condemnation in the world he goes to. The riches that belong to God our Master are not for humans. Withdraw and you will live in peace and the blessing of the Master will make your life sweet and you will die rich with the goods of'this world."

But the thought of the £12,000,000 proved, stronger than the "curse." A company was formed and subscribers invited. The money, says Mr. Jolly, came in from just the sources from which one would least expect it. One old lady produced 20 sovereigns, each carefully wrapped in tissue paper. She must have been hoarding them for nearly 14 years. Clerks in business, servants and small wage-earners formed themselves into little groups to subscribe for a £o share; in fact, nearly all the capital was eventually subscribed in small sums; often by people who could not really afford it, but who hoped the long chance would come off. Help From Photographs. Science was called in to help. Dr. Sanders got into touch with a scientist "who had a process for discovering metals by their emanations, which, he claimed, could be discerned on a photographic plate." He sent some 40 photographs of Sacambaya to the scientist, and he located the position of the treasure chamber,-and made the remarkable statement that it contained £2,500,000 in gold and' £18,000 worth of silver in a chest, and that there was more treasure deposited in a tunnel leading off the chamber towards the iron door and the statue of the Madonna. He told us that it was difficult to work out the values because the phonographs submitted to him were horizontal. It was necessary, ho said, to have vertical photographs in order to locate the spot exactly. So much, he added, depended on the angle and height of the camera.

In Bolivia all kinds of difficulties were met with. They had stacks of equipment and machinery, but roads were practically non-existent. At a place called Inquisivi a motor road "had been started with a great flourish of trumpets some five years previously. Since then all that had been done was to clear the weeds off it. It liad not occurred to anyone to bother with the considerable sections which had been washed quite away. No drain or culvert had ever been made, and, mind you, the rainy season is quite wet in this part of the world. I have scon it come down at the rate of an inch in 15 minutes. The best thing about the whole work was the bandstand, which had been erected before the road was commenced, for the purpose of welcoming with musital honours the first car to arrive in the town. I fancy they are still waiting." Attacks by Vampires. Besides mosquitoes and other insects there were vampire bats that attacked the mules and horses: "They usually bite in the neck or in the spine, making a hole between the vertebrae and sucking the blood. Mules have sense enough to roll when attacked, but horses have not, so we were obliged to make tarpaulin covers, which wero strapped on the animals at night. It scorns strange that any animal should quietly submit to having a hole bitten in its hide and its blood sucked, but the general idea seems to be that the vampire injects some soporific which deadens the pain of the puncture.". Fleas were another addition to the white man's already heavy burden. But one day a flea "devil doctor" arrived—a quiet old Indian wearing a blue shirt: "'Yes,' he said, 'I can free your tents from fleas, but you must leave me in peace and not jeer at me.' \Wc readily promised this, and watched. The old man picked up a piece of dry bamboo from the ground and lighted it. He then went three times round the tents, muttering incantations. Each time he came to the entrance he knocked off the ash from his burning stick and spat upon it, making a small mud ball. These curious proceedings over, he turned to Sanders. 'There will be no fleas to-night,' he eaid, 'but not many, and after to-morrow there will never be any more.' And it was so."

• Wonders of Cuzco. After weary months of work the rainy season came and flooded out the treasure seekers. The party broke up and the hidden wealth—if it really is thereremained undisturbed. Mr. Jolly, instead of returning to England, set off with one companion for the wilds of Peru. At Cuzeo, the old Inea capital, he remarks on the astonishing architecture: "These wondrous walls and buildings are perfect in symmetry and line, untouched by time or even earthquake. Each stone is cut with consummate artistry and skill to fit the contours of the next, with such exactness that it is literally impossible to insert a needle point between them. There is no cement or mortar to cover up any deficiencies. . Had these huge granite blocks been square a solution would have been more easy to find, but some of them have as many as twelve sides, and all at different angles. It would have been sufficiently wonderful had these blocks been small in size, but some of them, as at the Sacsahuaman fortress, are not less than 2oft long and 12ft thick." At Cuzco, too, there were tales of buried treasure. The numerous tunnels that pierce the rocks at the fortress of Sacsahuaman had been closed because

people have lost their lives exploring them: "Years ago a party of six men went down the tunnel called the Chincana. Three days later one only returned, carrying an ear of corn beautifully made of pure gold, but either from fright or privation he was unable to speak, and two days later he died without giving any explanation of what had happened."

In British Honduras Mr. Jolly visited the great mahogany forests. There is an odd fact in connection with the felling of mahogany trees: "The trees must not be cut at the time of the new moon, which, apparently, has some influence on the sap. Logs cut tl*on split in a short time, and worms get into them. The Indians will not even cut palms for the roofing of their huts at the time of the new moon, because they say that insects get in and eat them. This, mind you, is not a superstition, but a proved scientific fact."