A Bid for Fortune.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 16, 16 October 1912, Page 44

A Bid for Fortune.

One of the surest roads to the Banlfruptey Court is to start a search for buried treasure. The lost ships of the Spanish Armada and the blood-stained lot of Captain Kidd and other notorious marine highwaymen, and the buried treasure of the Incas, have lured scores of men to ruin. Now, it seems, the cached wealth of the Jesuits expelled from the Spanish dominions in America 250 years ago is to pave another road to the Court in Carey Street. “ Where one man goes another is sure to follow,” may safely be written in connection with buried treasure and bankruptcy, and Mr. Arthur Ormesby, who met his creditors in Carey Street the other day, will probably find, ere many years are out, that he was only the advance' guard of a small army of men “broken” in the pursuit of Jesuits’ treasure. If there is one thing certain in this world, it is that in the earth and under the sea there exists a vast amount of treasure which once belonged' to man, but has, in a way, returned to nature. Untold millions in bullion and jewels only await finding, but the difficulty is to locate them, as treasure-hunters in all parts of the world for centuries past have found to their cost. If .the money epent on expeditions to distant lands, and in diving operations off the coast of Spain, Portugal, Scotland, and Ireland, were compared with the amount of treasure recovered, it would certainly be found that there was a balance on the wrong side. Mr. Ormesby was interested in an expedition begun last year to search for the Jesuits’ secreted wealth at Sacambaya, Bolivia, reputed to amount to about £11,000,000. This treasure was left by the Jesuits at the time of their expulsion from Spanish dominions in the year 1707. That it has not been removed since is due to the fact that seven of the eight Jesuits who lived in the monastery of Sacambaya were hanged by the Pope. The survivor died in Peru, and through him came the data relating to the treasure, and also to the mines worked by the Jesuits. The information was obtained from the daughter of a priest, to whom the original document was sent for translation some years ago, and who 19 now dead. Eight years ago excavations were begun, at a point indicated in the old document, in the ruins of the monastery. A tunnel was made in a hill which it was supposed hid the buried millions, and it was fondly supposed that further efforts would bring them to light. Mr. Ormesby had an agreement with Major-General Sir John Campbell whereby, in consideration of his services rendered in the formation of the expedition, Sir John had agreed to pay him £20,000 in the event of £500,000 of the treasure being recovered. Thus far, however, Mr. Ormesby’s bid for fortune has landed him with £5OO debts and assets valued at £BO to satisfy his creditors, apart from any value that m'ay be attaching to his £20,000 interest under the agreement with Sir John Campbell.