Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-09-15
P0ST-MORTEM MINING.
A .;SACRILEGI0Us SOURCE FOR
GAINING WEALTH.
A GraVe-Robbing Company, With
$4,000 Capital, to Dig Up
Dead PeruyiaHs.

The New York San says that limited
liability company has been formed at
Mellendo, with capital of $4,000 1t is
called the Compania Anonima ExpIora-
dora de Las Huscas del Inca, and its bust
ness Is to be the searching of the old
burial-grounds of the Peruvian Incas. for
buried treasure in money or other val
uables. 1t has received concession from
the Peruvian authorities, and proposes to
go at its work in systematic, business
like fashion. The field of the company
has been pretty well worked over already
by the horde of hap-hazard plunderers
from all parts of the world, who have
hocked to Peru from the time of Pizarro
till the present day, but there are vet
some very substantial legends of buried
wealth that has not yet been discovered.
Under the old castle of Cuzco, for instance.
Felipe de Pomanes tells that there is a
vault containing figures of all the Incas
wrought in fine gold, and that in his own
day they had been seen by certain Dona
Maria de Esquevil. She, the story goes,
was married to descendant of the Incas.
and reproached him for being too poor to
support her properly. This, at last, SO If
ritated him that he led her blindfolded
through many winding passages into
room where she saw wealth such as no
mortal ever dreamed OF, and asked her
what she thought of that for poor mans
nest-egg. When Humboldt was exploring
in the neighborhood of the Temple of the
Sun, at Cuzco, poor lad, descendant of
the ancient kings, told him the story, which
is still current among the Indians, that the
golden chair of the Incas was sunk in
the baths at Pultamarac, and that there
are gardens with artificial trees of the
purest gold beneath the temple. These
gardens, by the way, are mentioned by the
earliest historians of the Conquest. Hum
bold's lad, when asked why he did not
seek for this hidden treasure, said that it
would do him no good if he found it. but
would only cause his neighbors to hate
and injure him. ave have a little field"
he said, "and good wheat" That con-
tented him. This same spirit seems to
have animated all the descendants of the
ancient race of Peru, and encourages peo-
pie like those who have Just put $4,000
into the Society Exploradora to hope that
only part of the ancient treasure has
ever be N discovered 1t is alleged that
the Indians can generally get gold when
they actually needed it, as at the time of
the rebellion of Pumacaqua, in 1914, when,
according to the story of an old woman of
the Astete family, told to Mr.. Markham
some thirty years ago, her father having
been a colleague of Pumacaqua and pres
ent at the time Pumacaqua entered the
council chambers laden with gold and
dripping wet, from journey he had made
up the bed of the Huatanay to a cave
filled with golden figures 1t was always
believed then, according to the historians,
that the rebel chiefs had some such store
to draw upon, and it is certain that after
his final defeat Pumacaqua offered to give
pile of gold bigger than that of Atahu-
alpa, the ancient chieftain, as ransom
for his life. The offer was declined, and
he died with the secret unrevealed, at
least to his conquercrs
This Atahualpa, it is matter of his
tory, when in captivity, offered room
filled with gold as ransom, but Pizarro
demanded double the amount, and the In
cas- agreeing, sent messengers all over the
kingdom to bring it. These messengers,
on their way to the capital, heard that
Atahualpa had been strangled, and they
threw down their loads of gold, and, it is
said, buried them somewhere in the noun
tains of Llanganati, to the northwest of
Quito, though no search has ever revealed
the spot Then there is the golden chain
Of the Incas, every link as thick as a mans
arm, and its length so great that it went
twice around the great square of Huaca-
capata, and which is said to have been
thrown in the great lake of Urcos to save
it from the Spaniards. There still can be
seen a drift which the Spaniards started
through the mountains to drain the lake,
but which was never completed. While
these and similar legends do very well to
fire the ardor of dubious investors in the
stock of the Society Exploradora, it is
highly probable that the actual work of
the company will be in the less romantic
line of digging up the bones of ancient in
habitants for the sake of the trinkets which
may have been buried with them This
sort of petty thievery is less attractive to
the Imagination than the exhumation of
forests of golden trees and conventions of
golden Incas, but it will probably pay bet
ter in the end