The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-25
WEALTH OF THE INCAS
STORIES ABOUT THE VAST AMOUNT
 OF COLD
Reported to Have Been Buried in the
 Mountains of Peru.

Reported to Have Been Buried in the
 Mountains of Peru.
 According to the official records ir the
 archives at Quito and also ill the coun-
 cil of the Indies, which had charge of
 American affairs in Spain, the bUried ransom of the Inca has been three times
 discovered during the last four eantu-
 ries--first by an Indian named Fran
 cisco Ybarra, who became suddenly end
 mysteriously rich and was popularly believed to have discovered a gold mine.
 He built the church of San Francisco,
 which still stnads in the City of Quito
 as a votve offering to his patron saint
 Half century later a absolute fel-
 low named Valverde fled to the moun-
 tains to escape arrest, and took up his
 abode in village of Indians, where he
 married the daughter of the cacique, or
 priest. Although the iIndians have
 nominally accepted the Catholic relig
 ion, they still cling to many of their an-
 cient rites. The secret of the buried gold is supposed to be intrusted to the | priesthood, and Is passed down from generation to generation as their most precious tradition with faith and ex- | pectation similar to that of the Aztecs l in Mexico that Atahualpa, like Monte- zuma, will some time return to reestab
 fish his empire, and will require this treasure as working capital. But no amount of persuasion, temptation or torture has scceeded in wringing from 1 the priesthood the location of the de- posits.
 | Valverde is supposed to have obtain ed the information from his wife or | father-in-aw and carried away inn mense quantities of gold by stealth | through series of years, which he sent 1 to Guayquil concealed in packages of | indigo. When he thought he had enough he deserted his family and went to Madrid, where heg lived like Monte Cristo, and, dying, left will bequeath- ing his property to the King of Spain, and a skillfully drawn chart of the Llanganati wilderness showing the To- l cation of the treasure.
 This chart is still on file among the archives of the Council of the Indies. The King sent a copy to the Bishop of Quito, who organized an expedition about the middle of the eighteenth cen tury, under the command of a Francis can friar named Padre Longo guarded by sixty soldiers and accompanied by about 400 natives, who were to do the digging and pack out the gold.
 Padre Longo followed the chart of Valverde until he reached the proper place. There he went into camp late in the afternoon and waited until morning before commencing operations. In the meantime, however, in the heat of his curiosity, accompanied by one other friar and the Captain of the military, he 'hastened down into a ravine and after an hours absence returned with a number of curious vessels and orna ments of gold, which were passed | around among the soldiers and the h. dians of the expedition and caused great i rejoicing Orders were given for cer- | tain number of theipeons to report at | daylight in the morning with shovels, | and others were detailed to make bags in which to carry away the bullion. But | when morning came Padre Longo, the . friar who had gone with him, and the Captain of the guard were found dead in their tents, stabbed in the heart with a cuchillo a broad knife which the Indians carry. The copy of the derro-
  the friar to locate the gold. and vo- luminous journal In which he had de- scribed the landscape and kept an ac- count of the journey were missing. The assassins were supposed to be Indians, who, faithful to the traditions of their nation, determined to prevent the desc cration of the place.
 The senior officer of the guard made every possible effort to carry out the object of the expedition, and, indeed, he the search until his provisions were almost exhausted, when all the Indians deserted him and he was left in the wilderness without supplies to lead him back to civilization. Several E of the soldiers died of starvation and fatigue, and the remnant of the band finally reached the Town of Taguna in a desperate condition, with nothing to show for their labor except the queer objects that Padre Longo had brought Into camp that afternoon. These were { considered sufficient proof that Val ( verde's chart was correct. Baron Won Humbolt, who visited this early in the present century, i followed in the trail of Valvedre in com f lany with Dr. Atanas1o Guzman, To- I ,al naturalist, and reports that while f he topography of portion of the ( has been changed by terrestrial { there is no doubt that the C lerretero was prepared by a man fa- $ niliar with the locality in which the f reasure is supposed to be concealed. , )r. Guzman continued the search with g ;reat energy and persistence, and made !, eports to the capitalist who furnished { i'm means that indicated confidence of uccess His life was suddenly termi- I ated at place called Suitillo, where in I fit of somnombulism he walked over h precipice. - The latest foreigner to undertake the earch was Dr. Spruce, the famous Eng sh botanist, who was sent to South ,merica in 1857 to collect botanical