did. Even at this place when one of the mules went a few yards off the

beaten track, he began to sink, and floundered back only just in time. Palca was some five leagues further on, in the belt of forest at the foot of a valley, and surrounded by hills. In this valley I saw many bushes and flowers very similar to what is seen in Trinidad, which was rather strange, considering that the height of Palca is 7,500ft. and the highest hill in Trinidad is, I think, only 2,800ft. Near Palca are a good many large farms where wheat, barley and maize are grown, and sheep, cattle, mules and horses are reared. I hired a hut on the banks of the river this side of the village, from a very obliging Indian, whose business was tanning hides with the quebracho bark, and decided to take on from him an Indian who knew Cuti, so remained there for the next day. From here there was no real path between Palca and Cuti, only a few beaten tracks leading over the hills to the different Indian settlements. With the exception of a few large farms owned by seven or eight men, who work them on the share system already described, all these vast lands are quite unoccupied and unexplored: there are just a few Indian squatters here and there living far apart.

The town of Palca consists of a few houses and has a church and a priest. It is noted for its excellent brew of chicha, which makes a wholesome and refreshing drink.

The tanner’s wife, a pleasant, civil Indian woman, asked her brother to take me to the ranch of a very old Indian, who lived on a sheep and maize farm at the foot of the Sapo mountain, and who, he said, would know all the old men in the district. He took me there the next day, and I put up at the old man’s house. His name was José, and he claimed to be 99 years old; he knew José Maria well, and said that he was some years older than he was himself. He was a strong, healthy fellow, and had lived all his life in this pure atmosphere. The scenery round here was very fine; the lands for leagues around belonged to a man at Palca, and were worked by several families of Indians, who grew maize, wheat and barley on the share system, and had flocks of sheep feeding on the extensive grass lands between the River Cori Mayo and the forest. José sold me sheep whenever I wanted one for 4/-each, rented me two huts, one for myself and the other for a kitchen, and lent me the oven for 2/-a day. By his advice, I sent Zambrana down the river to José Maria Ampuera with a present of tea, sugar, cocoa, tobacco, matches, biscuits and cheese, and a few pounds of coca leaves, with a note, telling him I had come to look for the treasure with the data supplied by Corina San Roman, and wanted to visit him. Mariano was sick just then with a sort of cholera, which had been brought on by his own greed. On the way to Palca, I had bought half a sack of apples at a farm with an orchard, and he had eaten too many. He wanted to return to his home in Cochabamba, so I paid him off, gave him provisions for ten days, and took the Indian boy from Palca in his stead.

José told me that the Sapo Mountain, as far as he knew, had never been visited for thirty-five years, that there were several abandoned socabons (mining tunnels) there, and that the settlers occasionally washed gold out of the Cori Mayo, so I decided to explore this mountain while waiting for Zambrana to come back. The next day, after breakfast, I rode off on the white mule up a path which José showed me, which led to a dip in the mountain where he said I should find a big socabon. I took Juan and the Indian from Palca with me to clear the path when necessary, leaving Manuel to look after the horse, mules and donkey, and his wife to make bread and attend to the kitchen. It was not more than two leagues to the hollow, but it took from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. to get there, as we had constantly to clear the track, which was overgrown in most places, so we went down again, intending to go and look at the tunnel next day. I saw lots of bush chickens in the forest on the way up, and decided to take the gun with me next day. Next morning I took Manuel’s son, Juan, and the Indian boy with me, and rode off with the white mule to explore the socabon. It was situated at 14,200ft. just above the forest line, which stops at about 14,000ft. The view from here was quite magnificent; a vast expanse of country could be seen for miles around, entirely unoccupied except for three or four isolated huts. The socabon was thirty-five yards long, fifteen yards wide, and fifteen high; there was no dump to be seen, and everything had been taken away. The rock was so hard that no timbering up was required at all; in fact, there was not a post to be seen, although there were many hard wood quebracho trees in the forest below, ready to hand. The roof was ventilated in six parts. In the left-hand corner near the entrance it appeared to be hollow on sounding. I took some samples of blue quartz rock and lime from the lode, where the Jesuits had left off. There was no doubt that this was one of the old Jesuit mines, which had been lost to sight and abandoned for many years. There were several other old workings in the vicinity on the mountain, all showing the same clear work, and no dumping. Another big tunnel ran underneath the hill about a quarter of a mile from the first one. This mine had no supports, or timbering of any kind. I saw another tunnel of the same sort high up on the top of the mountain, of the same blue rock quartz. I took samples from the first mine; some of them gave indications only, others which I had essayed later in London by Mix, a mining engineer, gave 2ozs. 3dwt. of gold, and 3ozs. 6dwt. of silver to the ton. The priest at Palca told me afterwards that the lapis lazuli sent to Rome by the Jesuits and the famous chain worn by the Archbishops of the La Paz Province of Ayacucho, called Upper Peru in those days, had come from a mountain called Mount Sapo, but that nobody had ever been able to locate the place, until I found it. On my return to Cochabamba I took up the concession and denounced two hundred per tinencias, which was about five hundred acres. Mr. J. O. Gentry, of Kansas City, a partner of Haggin & McEwan, and the owner of the Cerro Pasco, Peru, told me that if I put on eighty men, got out quartz during the six months’ dry season, and left it there, they would then send one of their mining expert engineers to report, and if the report was favourable they would take it over, putting on as many stamps as the mine would carry, and giving me one-third of the profits. There was plenty of water and wood near and good grazing ground all around, at the foot of the mountain, but up to now I have never been able to get any Company to take up this proposition.

Zambrana returned soon after with an answer from old José Maria, saying that if I would come and see him in a fortnight he would take me to the foot of the hill, where the bulk of the treasure was supposed to be buried.

I spent most of the fortnight doing prospecting work on Mount Sapo, and shooting bush chickens, which were so plentiful that I got them whenever I wanted. One day I winged a big condor at long range, but failed to get him. In the valley just outside the forest, I several times saw beautiful golden and silver pheasants; there were never more than two at a time, and they were always at the same place. They were far too pretty for me to fire at, and exceedingly tame, as were the bush chickens; all that was necessary was just to go to the roosting trees at dusk, and take a chance shot. Two days after Zam got back, I sent him down the valley, to get half a bag of flour crushed by a water-mill, which only cost 3/6, 2/6 for the wheat and 1/-for the crushing. He returned in the evening with a tall, well-made Indian, who asked me to come down and see his boy, aged fourteen, who had a bad attack of malaria. I promised to do so next day, and the Indian returned to his home. The following day I took Zam to lead his mule and my chestnut horse, and the boy to carry my gun, as there were plenty of fat pigeons on the lower ground where the Indian lived. We walked leisurely down the valley along a good Indian path for about nine miles, taking three hours, and got there at 11 a.m. I saw the boy, and gave him some pills, and told his mother and father before I left to give him hot boiled cow’s milk and stop cramming spoonfuls of pearl barley and boiled maize down his throat, which I found they were doing. I shot six pigeons there, and they gave me some cabbages, young onions and a pine. On the way back, I enjoyed the lovely scenery on both sides of the valley. Next day I went to see the boy again, taking the white mule to ride back on, and the red roan mule to bring back two bags of potatoes. I found the boy improved, put him on weak tea and toast, and hot milk, and gave him a dose of quinine, leaving another dose for his mother to give him two hours after dark. I shot four pigeons, and the Indians gave me six fresh eggs and another cabbage. Next day I went down again with the horse, and found the boy much better, and sitting outside. I gave him some quinine, and made him some hot Liebig’s Extract, giving his mother a big pot, and telling her to make him drink three cups a day for four days, and then come up and let me know how he was. I also left a tin of tea and some sugar for her, and two pigeons to grill for the boy. They were very grateful, and wanted to give me all sorts of things; I accepted a young kid, and had it done on the spit next night for dinner.

Four days afterwards, the Indian came with a large bunch of bananas, his wife with two bottles of milk and a fowl, and his little girl with some pines and eggs. I remonstrated with him, but he said I had cured his boy, and so long as I was here it was his duty to bring me supplies, a sure proof that these people are grateful and easy to get on with if properly treated. At the appointed time, we started off to the home of José Maria Ampuera, getting there early in the morning on the second day. The old man told me he would show the hill to anyone coming from a daughter of General San Roman. He said his father had told him that this was the place, and that his grandfather had been with the priests, Gregorio and San Roman, when they hid the treasure. His grandfather and father had been very well off, and owned land and cattle, and he himself had inherited land and cattle from his father. The Bolivian Government took away his land, and eight hundred of his cattle, leaving him only with his present holding and fifty head; this was in Malgarejo’s time, and for that reason, when President Malgarejo came down to the River Sacambaja with half a regiment of soldiers to dig and hunt for the treasure, he refused to show them the place. He showed me afterwards where President Malgarejo prospected for it; they were not very far off, but on the wrong side of the river. José told me how fifty years ago he and his sons found a gold bell weighing 40lbs., which they sold, and bought land and cattle, but in uncovering the tapada some rocks fell and killed one of his boys; he and his other son took this as a bad omen and never tried to find any more. He promised to show me the place where they found it. The reason he had not sent in for his money from the agent of Father San Roman was that after the priest died he did not know to whom to apply, and he thought the family in Lima would be sure to send something in to him.

José thought it advisable that we should go separately to the place where the treasure was, as if people were to see us travelling together they might suspect something and follow us and the law of treasure is very stringent. So he suggested I should go a roundabout way along the valley of the Calatranca Range, cross over the highest pass, and make for the River Sacambaja below, and he would go by a more direct and easier path and meet me down below on the banks of the Sacambaja. I left the cook to go with the old man, and sent Zambrana to Cuti to get a sheep for 4/-and follow on with the old Indian in two days’ time, while Manuel, his boy and the two other men went the other way with the mules and donkey and horse. We camped that night near the path over the mountain, but soon after we had pitched the tents and let loose the mules, with the chestnut horse as bell mare, Manuel brought me the news that there were other travellers evidently going the same way as we were, and that he could see their fire behind us, but he thought it did not matter, as they would now follow us over the high pass. Where we camped there was no forest, only a few hardy trees and bushes growing in the gully; we were 15,200ft. up, very near the snowline. There was a light layer of frozen snow near the camp on either side of the gully, plenty of long tufty mule grass growing all about, and a stream of very cold water with ice and snow on the edges. After the sun went down it got very cold; but we had a good Irish stew for supper, and plenty of everything, and with two big fires going, one near my tent, the other near the men’s, we passed a comfortable night. Next morning after a bath in the cold stream I dressed in front of a big fire, made a good breakfast and started off at 9.30, riding my mule, but getting off at steep places. The path was one of the Inca tracks, broad and well made, cut out of rock, with very gradual inclines, and I was able to ride most of the way. At 11 a.m. the aneroid registered 17,000ft., and at 1 p.m. we got to the top of the pass; the last hour and a half going over frozen snow. I wrote down 19,000ft. in my diary for the height of the pass, and was probably not far off the mark, as the aneroid does not register over 17,000ft., and Lisandro Mendizabal, the wealthy owner of Cuti and the Alcalde of the district, afterwards told me that was very likely the height as the top of the mountain was 21,500ft., and always covered with snow. We were not followed any more. From the cairn of stones on the summit we saw an immense expanse of country; nobody was to be seen, no dwelling and no living thing, except some big white collared condors sailing magnificently in the clear air without any apparent movement. Down the hill we followed the broad Inca and Jesuit road, which is cut out of the rock and in places runs along the extreme edge of the precipice, and after ten miles, of which the last few miles were through forest, reached the River Sacambaja.

José Maria, Zam and Manuel’s wife were waiting down below, and we pitched camp there for the night. Next day, after nine miles of fairly level going up the river, we got to the foot of the Caballo Cunco Hill, where José said the treasure was buried. I pitched my two tents and kitchen on the level river beach which is about half a mile wide, and extends all the way up and down the Rivers Cato and Sacambaja, and Manuel ran up a rough shed for the mules to feed in, and another for himself. There was plenty of wood all over the beach, and the forest all around was full of fat wild cattle. Near the camp just inside the forest was a clear stream of water with some deep pools, and there were plenty of guava trees in the forest. The big Rivers Cuti and Sacambaja were only two hundred yards away, but their water is not very good to drink, as the broad sandy beach is full of nitrate. José Maria told me that in the rainy season, which starts down here in the middle of October, these two rivers form one big sheet of water; the Caballo Cunco Hill becomes an island, and the water is so deep and the current so strong that no one can cross for weeks and months at a time.

José Maria was too old to walk up the very steep path which could be seen leading up to the top of the hill where the big stone was. Next day I went up with Manuel, Zambrana and the two boys, all carrying machetes to clear the way. At the top I found the big stone shaped like an egg; and on looking to right, left and behind we saw the Rivers Cato and Sacambaja down below, running into one main stream. The scenery was exactly as described by the paper in my possession. I took the exact position of the hill, and at once sent Zam to inform Don Lisandro Mendizabal, who lived at Cuti, twenty-seven miles off. The nearest house was José Maria’s, eighteen miles off. Through Don Lisandro I sent my application to the Government in La Paz, who two months later sent down one of their officials with six soldiers to give me the documents of formal possession. These documents still hold good, and are in my possession, signed by the Minister of Mines, and witnessed according to law.

It may be of interest here to give the rules issued by General José Manuel Pardo regarding tapadas (hidden or buried treasure).

“A tapada shall be the property of the finder provided he comply with the following conditions:

“The finder must not absent himself from the spot even for a day until he has been given formal possession. He must notify the owner of the soil, if it has an owner. The finder on finding buried treasure must at once notify the authority appointed by the Government of La Paz, who will at once inform the supreme authorities in La Paz;

they will despatch a detachment of soldiers and one or more mining engineers to take out the buried treasure, which will be divided up in La Paz, 25 per cent going to the Government and 75 per cent to the finder.

“The owner of the soil may participate in one half of the finder’s share, provided he comply with the following conditions. Six weeks or forty-two days after the authorities have been notified, he must present himself at La Paz, and give information. He must then within the time specified render assistance to the finder by providing, paying and maintaining thirty men to uncover the tapada. If he fails to comply with these conditions within the time allowed, namely, forty-two days, he loses all rights.”

Keeping my saddle mule down here to use when wanted, I sent Manuel with the horse and the other animals up the valley where the grass was good, telling him to come down in a week’s time for more provisions. José Maria wanted to make himself useful, so I gave the old man the job of bringing down a 4/-sheep and 2/-worth of potatoes every Saturday. One day I asked José how old he was, and he replied he did not exactly know, but was certainly several years over one hundred. He said his father told him the convent was completed in 1705, but in 1745 the Jesuits abandoned Sacambaja, knowing they were going to be expelled from Peru. The remains of the convent, several other buildings, some stone mounds, and the great mud and stone wall still exist.

I started off the excavation by blowing the big, egg-shaped stone to pieces with dynamite. The stone was exactly ten feet high above the ground, five feet below, and fourteen feet wide round the middle. The roof of the cave was covered over by earth and grass for eighteen inches or two feet, except at the end where the big stone was, where it was covered rather deeper. The roof itself was divided into three equal squares, each twenty-five feet long, and the whole roof was, as far as could be judged, seventy-five feet long and thirty feet broad; it was covered all over with stone, cut and shaped like bricks, and large slabs of big slate stone. The partitions were divided by stone bricks, six inches high. All the work was very well and carefully done. After we had exposed the roof, the question was, which side to tackle first. Eventually, I decided to make a start on the south side. Mendizabal, who always took, and still takes the greatest interest in the uncovering of the top of this hill, had sent me a reinforcement of three Indians, or colonias as they are called, whom I paid 1/-per day, and their food, and I replaced Manuel’s son by Manuel himself, letting the boy tend the animals. This made four men and a boy, and myself for the work. We started at 7.30 every morning, and dug away for all we were worth until six o’clock at night, knocking off only from twelve o’clock to one o’clock for the cold lunch and water which we carried with us.

After a breakfast of Irish stew at 7 a.m., we walked at once up the hill, which was so steep that no mule was ever made to go up with more than 50lbs. of cargo. The distance was measured by hexemeter as 2,600 metres. Manuel and the men always got to the top before me, but not by much.

During the whole time I did the crowbar work myself, and the others rested while I was moving the big stones to be rolled down the cliff and through the forest to the river below. After working on the south side for two days, I abandoned that end, as I saw no signs of the hand of a man, and began digging down on the north side facing the River Cato. It was soon evident by many indications that the formation here was the work of man, and not of nature. I found the bones of birds, guinea-pigs, some snail shells that are generally found on trees, and stones and pebbles from the river beach below, and when, at the depth of nine feet, I picked up a wooden cork, and, at twelve feet, a yellow altar slab with flowers nicely engraved on it, there was no longer any doubt in my mind. Mendizabal, who had just arrived with the authorities from La Paz, was of the same opinion. Don Tomas, the engineer, told me that the journey back to La Paz would take them eight to ten days, and they wanted meat, so, before the officials returned to La Paz, we organized a hunt for wild cattle, and got two young bulls and a cow, which we made into charque or dried meat, by cutting them into strips, and then salting them out in the sun. I shot one bull and the cow, and Mendizabal the other with my double sixteen bore Holland and Holland. All the cattle without a brand in Bolivia are considered wild, and belong to the Government, and anybody may catch or kill as many as they like, provided they pay the nearest authority £2 a head on behalf of the State. Mendizabal told me that a few years ago, some twenty days’ journey further, he bought two thousand heads in that way down the River Sacambaja near the Brazilian frontier. He made four trips, two each year in the dry season, and drove down two hundred tame cattle to the vast grassy prairies in the interior where the wild cattle were plentiful. The Indians living there make a business of rounding up wild cattle; they first fence in big tracts of land, and drive numbers of cattle into these open savannas, then they round off a certain number into a corral, and the tame cattle are then allowed to mingle with them, and they are eventually driven off to their new home. The Indians always accompany the herds for the first four or six days for about 10/-a head, and in this way very few are lost. Mendizabal drove back one hundred of the tame cattle with each batch of five hundred of the wild. Don Lisandro also told me he bought his big estancia (ranch) at Cuti, from the Government; it is nine leagues wide, mostly grass with plenty of water. The boundary on the north is the River Sacambaja. There are all sorts of climates on this estate, from tropical heat to the intense cold of the Calatranca Range. When he bought the place, there were one hundred and five families of Indian squatters on the land, whom he valued more highly than the land. They all stayed and became Colonists under him, and he has a code of rules which are just and strict. They all look up to him very much, and call him Tata (father). There is no drunkenness and no thieving. When any man wants to marry, he has to show a hut and a plot of ground, ready for sowing, and enough food in the house for one year, and seed for the next. Everything is done on the half share system, Don Lisandro supplying the land, implements and seed. When the harvest comes round all the grain is taken to the estancia house, and equally divided between him and the growers. They are at liberty to go and work outside whenever they like, provided they get his permission, which is always given except in crop time. I had several of his men working for me at various times, but they never stayed very long; they used to say there was no necessity for them to work outside, except when they wanted some money to buy something. Don Lisandro did not keep any stock, but grew maize, barley, wheat, ochres, potatoes and onions in large quantities; he had sheep and llamas feeding on the higher ground, and horses, mules and cattle on the more sheltered ground. He took great pride in his horses, and bred from a pacer and a half-bred Arab; he was a great believer in the Arab strain. The estancia house, stables, wool-shed, granary and other buildings form a square round a large open yard with grass plots in the middle, and the whole is surrounded by a broad walk twenty feet high, and entered by a gate of the same height, opening from within.

The climate is good and the scenery grand; there is plenty of shooting, and no neighbours nearer than thirty-six miles. There was a horse and mule-breaker and a carpenter kept on the premises. The farm was not fenced in at all, there were merely a few paddocks near the house for convenience, as the Bolivian law does not, like Argentine law, oblige the owner of an estancia to fence it in within so many years, a very expensive item. He has a church, which he built himself, and he keeps it in very good order; the door is kept open from daylight to dark, as the custom is in these countries, and a priest comes from Palca twice a year, and remains a week or ten days. All the produce is sent to Oruro and La Paz by cargo mules.

Don Lisandro said he had often been looking for the Jesuit treasure during the last twenty-five years. He once found a lot of skulls and bones near the convent, and opposite on the hill called the “Negro Muerto,” where the men were buried that died in the fever epidemic. He never found any treasure, but the Indian owner of the Caballo Cunco Hill, that I denounced, had found over £20,000 worth, and he had bought large tracts of land and many cattle and sheep with the money. Just before I left Sacambaja the owner of the soil sent his wife to say he hoped I would be lucky enough to get something, and, as far as he was concerned, he did not wish to participate.

The dry season was now at an end. I left Manuel at the hill, with provisions, as caretaker, and returned in the middle of October to Cochabamba, going on from there to Oruro by the same way by which I came. I disposed of the mules at an advantage. I stayed a few days there, and went on by train from Oruro, which takes two days and two nights, travelling only by day, down to the important town of Antofogasta, the nearest port to Bolivia--and so home.