GUARDED GOLD

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2310, 1 December 1925, Page 3

GUARDED GOLD

MILLIONS HOARDED UNDERGROUND. TREASURE OF THE THREE PANCAKES'. From Peru comes a story that tho latest of the many expeditions sent out to search for the treasure of the Tres Tortillas has failed to return and is presumably lost. The Tres Tortillas (Pancakes) are three flat-topped hills which stand over the head water of the River Secure, which’rises in an a most forgotten valley hemmed in by precipitous cliffs and reeking with virulent ague. Yet here, before the coining of the Spaniards, were great and flourishing gold mines, and rums of whole towns built of stone or adobe may still be seen, half hidden .in tho encroaching jungle (says a write In “John o’ London’s Weekly”). Expedition after expedition has struggled to reach this Eldorado, but of them all only two men have ever returned. One was dying on his logs of fever, the other was mad, but they brought a story of a huge dim tunnel in which lay piles of smelted gold ready for removal. Vast Treasure. Treasure-seeking is one of the poorest methods of making a living, yet it [is beyond any possible doubt that the ! gold buried by man in the bosom of i Mother Earth far exceeds all that is jin circulation at the present time. No I need to talk of the hoards of pirates or buccaneers. ( There are first the vast treasures buried by the Indians of .South America when fleeing before the covetous Spaniards, then there are the millions hoarded underground in India and China and in all other countries where banks have never been in fashion. In Morocco alone there must be tons of such treasure, because, ror centuries past it has been the habit of the Moors to hide gold in the earth. Quite apart from the difficulty of discovering such hiding places, the belief is general that ill-luck awaits the treasure-finding, and the stories supportin gsuch superstition are countless. Near Johnsville in Nova Scotia a hole in a cliff was revealed by a tree blown down in ,a storm. Two men went to investigate, and did not return. They were found dead, suffocated by bad airy and further in were found two skeletons, apparently of earlier seekers. Beside the bones stood an old iron kettle containing a few pieces of seventeenth century gold.. . In Britain. Our own country is full of legends of guarded treasure. At Bransil Castle, in Herefordshire, there is said to be a chest of gold watched over by an evil spirit n ■ the shape of a . black crow. jAll that part of the countiy is stiff with similar stories. ■ Hulme Castle and Stokesay Castle were each supposed to have treasure chests secreted in their vaults. Som years ago when Hulme Castle was pulled down, a search was made, but without result

In ~ e South of Scotland Hermitage Castle- - J believed to have vast treasure hidden in its ruins. But the gold is in the keeping of the Evil OAe and whenever efforts are made to find it, the sky darkens and a feaful storm of thunder and lightning paralyses the seeker. Another Scottish hoard is the pot of gold hidden in a pool under Craufurdland Bridge, near Kilmarnock'. A former laird of Craufurdland dammed the burn and had almost emptied the pool when a voice was heard shouting that his house was afire. He and his men ran, only to find that the report was a false one, but when they returned the dam was broken and the pool full.