ASIA'S MOST FAMOUS TREASURE-HOARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 59

ASIA'S MOST FAMOUS TREASURE-HOARD.

There are very few stories about hoards of hidden treasure that do not stir the imagination, and the recital of them has sometimes led to exciting and perilous adventures in search of the concealed wealth. There is one such story that has always held the imagination of almost all Asia in thrall. From Yokohama to faroff Khiva, from Bokhara and Samarcand to Basrah, from Urga in north Mongolia to Bangalore in southern India, the tradition of this cache of the kings of an empire of long ago ; still inflames the imagination* of the story-tellers and their listeners in the towns of Asia. That there is some truth in this 60Q-years-old tradition has recently been established by facts, as will be told later.

When w© take into consideration the gold, . silver, and jewels lying in the graves of kings and emperors long dead, the valuables concealed in the ruins of the cities of Central Asia buried under the white desert sand,. where but 500 years ago all wa3 green and life went on busily, and the. treasure left in forgotten mountain temples, Central and Southern Asia may be said to be the tomb of lost millions. _, The greatest and most famous of these reputed treasure-hoards is that buried in the tombs of the great khans or emperors of the Mongols—that formidable military race which poured out of Middle Asia early in the thirteenth century, and ravaged Eastern and Central Europe from Dantzic, on the Baltic, to the Adriatic. Now, during the past few years many large precious stones, . including turquoises from the Syr Daria—one of Central Asia's great rivers, where turquoises were obtained for the Court of the khans—together with thirteenth and fourteenth century Asiatic ornaments, rare jewellery, and pieces of Tartar-worked gold, have been coming out of the State of Nepaul into Indian bazaars, without any adequate explanation as to their source.

Some , years ago a few similar articles of ancient Asiatic workmanship and a quantity of rubies and other precious stones -were sold in Bokhara by two. men of Yarkand, and passed ultimately into the collection of the Tsar of Russia. In each instance, the goldwork and the precious stones came from the long-lost tombs of the once mighty khans of the Mongols, for the two men of Yarkand had chanced on the place of sepulchre and treasure. The story they related, as vouched for by Russian authorities in Bokhara, reads like a chapter out of the " Arabian Nights' Entertainment." The two men belonged to a caravan trading between Yarkand and the towns that fringe the great desert of salt, and sand that forms part of_Eastern Turkestan. They soon quarrelled with the headsman, however, and set out on their return to their native place—Yarkand. On the fourth morning they lost- the track among the defiles of the mountains, and after wandering for two days they happened on a trail that was hewn out of the solid rock, and was only wide enough for two men to pass abreast. After travelling for some time along this deep and gloomy defile, they found it led them into a little rocky, arid valley. Here they saw a number of huge images in a row before a heavily sculptured doorway. Beyond the square open portal lay a cavern, in which was a series of tombs, each filled with many objects of immense value. They averred that they saw-of precious stones alone more than 60 camels could carry. It is interesting to note here that mediaeval Chinese historians and travellers, when touching on the burial of the great khans, mention the enormous wealth of gold and silver and jewels utilised to adorn the tombs.

The two traders brought off as much treasure as they could carry, but had to throw practically all of it way in the effort to save their lives before they found succour and regained the caravan route to Yarkand. They made careful observation of the trail, however, and left heaps of stones to mark it. 'On reaching their native town they resolved to sell the few remaining articles in Bokhara, where a higher price was obtainable than in their native town, and after a few days proceeded to that city by wav of Kashgar and Khodjend, taking advantage, for safety's sake, of a caravan going thither. Here, in Bokhara, that most picturesque town of Central Asia, they came in contact, when in the bazaar, vith an adventurous Englishman, H. Spanlding, who for some years had been enlaced in exploration in Ferghana and Turkestan.

Spaulding, who at once recognised that the goldwork they were selling was of anoient Tatar origin, won their confidence,

and to him the two men related their tale. It appealed to him with invincible force, and he had little trouble in organising an expedition, though the two men were with difficulty persuaded to return with him. By this time the rumour had run through Bokhara that the treasures of the Mongols, about which all Central Asia had been dreaming for centuries, had been discovered, and Spaulding fully realised that his expedition was in danger of being attacked on its way back. Despite this knowledge, however, he determined to proceed, s It is known that the route he took was one of the old and now wholly unused cara,van trails between China and Western Asia. The tombs of the great khans, five in number, are said by the Russian authorities who interviewed the two traders to lie north-east of the Kashmir border, on the way to Khotan from Yearkand. Whether Spaulding reached them we do not yet know. It is believed that he and his men died in or hard by the desert. In the bazaars of Samareand and Kashgar it was whispered that he had penetrated to the tombs secured part of the treasure, and. had been murdered with his men on the verge of the desert, the murderers making for refuge In Nepaul. Certain it is that since Spaulding's disappearance the jewels and the goldwork of the Mongols have found their way into India out of Nepaul. And so this quest for the Mongols' treasures ended in both success and failure.— Chambers's Journal.