HOW THE INCAS GUARD THEIR HIDDEN TREASURE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3145, 27 November 1922, Page 2

HOW THE INCAS GUARD THEIR HIDDEN TREASURE.

Mr C. H. Prodgers, in "Adventures in Bolivia" gives hair-raising accounts of his attempt to get tlie Indians on the Challana river to tap rubber for the company by whom he was employed. The Indians, realising that white settlers were likely to be the ruin of their race, had set .strict guards on the passes of the river, and defeated all expeditions sent against them. Mr Prodgers first of all had to reduce- his weight of 2651b by a series of hot baths; next he had to secure the friendship of a Spanish senora, who was in league with the Indians. He then started out on a stout mule, well supplied with rum and whisky, passing along the edges of precipices, swinging over torrents on a rope, through a land of Alpine flowers and parrots, snakes, monkeys and jaguars, until eventually ho reached the, Indian village of Paroma, where he found that he was expected to plead his own cause with the Indians. He won the day by saying that London and New York had always regarded the Challanas as brave Christians, and not savages. Mr Prodgers is full of praise for the Challana country, and reminds all Europeans that with .energy and capital there is much money to be made there. The rice and coffee are of the best quality—the coca yields 5 per cent, of cocaine and the cinchona bark 5 per cent, of quinine. The only things required from the outside world are hardware, drills, cottons and prints, salt, soap, and flour. The Indians make their own rum, grow their own cattle; both the shooting and fishing are excellent. Tho latter part of the book describes treasure-hunting-among the Incas of Peru. Mr Prodgers made three valiant, but unsuccessful, attempts to discover the Caballo Cunco treasure from a document which contains these helpful passages : 'lt'll' you find a steep hill all covered with dense forest, the top of which is flat, with long grass growing, from where you can see the River Sacamhaja on three sides, you will discover on the top of it a large stone shaped like an egg, so big that it took 500 Indians to place it there. "If you dig down underneath this stone for five yards you will find tho roof of a large cave, which it took 500 men two and a-half years to hollow out. The roof is seventy yards long, and there are two compartments and a long narrow passage leading from tho room. .... On reaching the door you exercise great care in opening. "The door is a large iron one, and inside on the right you will find an linage made of pure gold three feet high, the eyes of which are two large diamonds. This image was placed there for the good of mankind You will find in the first room thirty-seven large heaps of gold, in the second room ' a large box and thirty-seven big heaps of gold. ' "CJreat care must be taken on entering these rooms, as enough strong poison to kill a regiment has been laid .bout," J Five hundred Indians were employed by the Jesuits to bury tho treasure, I md 288 of tliem died of fever. Mr [ Prodgers was himself poisoned with" j strychnine, but cured himself with arsenic, while searching for the trea- j Hire. J Though he was unsuccessful, lie ', I notes cases of men who have become Millionaires through the discovery of r hose fabulously wealthy mines of gold, lilver, lapis lazuli, and quicksilver, vhicli were abandoned by the Jesuits. The silver mines of Potosi have vield- ii •d €310,000.000 worth of silver iii 300 ;i •ears, and are still giving £50,000 a rnrtli every year. But these are high s 15.000 feet) and more or less inacces- n ible. All the richest mines, Mr Prod- d ers declares, are in the most iliac- a essiblo places. t< \\

There was a little coinedy at the si Vangamti Magistrate's Court the' other oay (states an exchange). A J.P. of t< enevolent disposition was on the tench, and' there was a) light, charge « licet of one. drunk. A const able went si ito the witness-box and gave the neces- n nry evidence:, while another constable T 1 plain clothes stood'nearby. His Wot- oi hip was under the impression that the la it tor was the offender, and 1 after de- T vering the bewildered minion of the in i.w an eloquent homily on the evils of is i temperance,- he imposed a nominal tc ne. When the police sergeant man- is ged to get a word in, he said, "You in ave made a mistake, your Worship, the in reused is not here." to