Lost Treasure

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 275, 21 November 1935, Page 12

Lost Treasure

EXPEDITION’S QUEST LAND OF "PHANTOM PEOPLE” Captain Erin Loch, British explorer, sailed from New York recently on one of the most dangerous quests of modern times. Ho is leading an expedition of adventure-loving scientists into unexplored regions of the dreaded Andes mountains. ' Ho liopos to reach a land seen by only two white men in the history of the world. Ho hopes, too, to locate the lost treasure of the Inca Indians, millions of pounds’ worth of gold at the bottom of an unknown lake, and to meet an bpper Amazon tribe who, because no one is known to have seen them for more than a fleeting second, have gained the name of the "Phantom People.”

Captain Loch is accompanied in his quest by another Englishman, Alastair Loch, his nephew. The expedition wilt penetrate the uncharted fastness of a lost world that is peopled with wild savages, whose weapons are poison arrows, a world ravaged by disease and protected from the white man’s approach by natural barriers. Before sailing Captain Loch, calm, tall, and handsome, told in crisp tones of the hopes and ambitions ho has pinned on this expedition. Ho was packing in a hotel room, collecting scores of tubes of toothpaste, packages of cereals, razor blades, -and a multitude of other things they will bo unable to obtain in tho wild land of the lost Incas.

Another member of tho expedition popped his head through the door. “Ammunition 0.K.,” he said, “Thanks,” said Loch. ‘‘We’ll probably need it,’ ? Then he grabbed a parcel containing scores of long, thin knives, and put them into a packing case.

“These aro machets,” ho said. "They use them in South America for everything from cutting bananas to killing. I’m taking them as gifts for the natives.” Captain Loch is passionately interested in tho lost civilisation of the Incas. When he discussed it his calmness left him, his. eyes flashed. Greatest Drama. “The riso and fall of the Incan civilisation is ono of the greatest dramas of the world,” ho said. “If we could shed more light on it we could show the world a uew pago in its history. High in the mountains above wild parts of Ecuador there lies a lake that only two white men havo seen. That is our main quarry. “Beneath the waters of that lake one of the world’s greatest secrets, tho lost treasure of the Incas, has remained hidden for moro than four hundred years. If legends are right that lako is littered with enough gold to alter tho entire financial system of the present-day world, i “Ineans brought the gold there and sank it to keep it from tho grasp of the Spanish conquistador Pizarro, who, with 189 soldiers, destroyed tho empire of 12,000,000 people in his greed for gold to replenish the empty coffers in Spain. ' Conqurered by Treachery, “Though treachery Pizarro and his men' seized Atahuaipa, last of tho Incan rulers, and demanded gold as his ransom. About £2,000j000 of gold was paid him, but from that moment tho empire of the Children of the Sun began to disintegrate. One of tho two white men who saw the lake was a Spaniard named Valdeverde, who died at Seville at the end of the sixteenth century an 6 left a secret document describing tho route, i “lii 1912 Captain C. E. Brooks, au American, managed to reach the lake through the help of three Indian guides. lie saw on the opposito side of the lake a vagno-looking structure, which seemed to be like the porch of a church. He hastened to cross tho lako to reach this, but a cloudburst held him back. Dangerous Journey. “His Indians fled, and Brooks had a hard light to return to civilisation alive. Brooks died in New York several years later, but he told a friend about the lake. That friend told me. “We shall take the samo j*ath trodden by Valdeverde more than 300 years ago. It is a dangerous journey round tho side of a precipitous mountain, but it is the easiest way to get there;”

Loch is used to tho ardours and dangers that will confront him during his journey. He served in tho British Army and in tho Cameroon campaign, and traversed, with only one native, a region not previously travelled by white met. Ho was wounded four times on tho Western front, and later served in the Intelligence Department.