Adventure Magazine Cover — page 73: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Lost Treasures of the Orient down on the ship at anchor. In the excite- ment the adventurer was to steal the box containing the jades, lug it to the ship’s side and get it aboard the junk at the moment of collision. In the execution of this plan all went as planned up to the moment of collision. Then, unfortunately; the junk moved away too quickly and, clasping the box in his arms, the man dived from the American ship under a hail of revolver-fire and tried to swim to the junk. In the water, however, he was compelled to let go of the precious box to keep it from dragging him down to death. The swimmer made his escape, but the jades of the ancient Emperors of China lie in the mud in the bottom of the harbor and nopody as yet dares dredge for them openly, though the spot is carefully marked officially and by every adventurer in the East as well. HOARDS IN THE DUTCH EAST INDIES T HAS been said that the life of the Dutch soldier of to-day consists of three periods: “ Anxiety over and enthusiasm con- cerning the Life of Inundation; dreams of the buried treasure of Soerabayan temples; figuring off the days till pension time.’”’ One portion of this is literally true so far as it pertains to the troopers sent out to Sumatra, _ Java and the other islands, after they have been properly drilled and seasoned in Hol- land. Over one hundred thousand men are maintained in the Dutch possessions in the East Indies, where there has been constant warfare for over one hundred years, though the world pays it no attention whatsoever, unless a post gets wiped out and then there are a few lines in the world’s morning cable news and that is all. On the way out the soldier will begin to hear aboard ship of concealed treasures in the strange land to which he goes, and never an hour of the time he serves in the tropics will he be free from the sense that at any moment he may pick up the clue to vast wealth. Many men have gone home wealthy as the result of smaller finds and always, always there is the possibility just in front of their noses. Strictly speaking, the treasure-haunted temples are not those near Soerabaya alone, for from Acheen in Sumatra to Kupang in Timor one is never sure when one is not walking over the site of a cache from f 829 some temple or shrine not far away. The mountains are a continuous ridge in the center of the long narrow islands, and in the dense growth of the sides stand old build- ings of uncertain age, though it is now be- lieved that they were built some twelve hundred years ago at the time of the con- quest of the islands by people of Aryan blood and Buddhist belief from India. A great and prosperous empire once existed there, falling at last before disease and insular wars. When the final calamity was at hand and . raiding piratical bands, according to the old Sanskrit records, were devastating the realm, the priests in each locality were com- pelled to despoil every temple and shrine of the great wealth of jewels, gold and silver and hide it in the earth in caves in the mountains. Then came the Moslem raiders and that was the end of all hope of ever restoring to the temples the gold and silver overlaid work, and to the eyes, ears and fin- gers of the idols the beautiful jewels taken from them. Gradually the secret of each cache has perished, save in one or two locali- ties where Buddhist priests have been able to remain continuously and pass the secrets on from generation to generation. One renegade who knew where the vast hoard from an old temple near Soerabaya was concealed persuaded a Dutch colonel to help him exhume the treasure and then get him out of the country, but by some myste- rious means the plot became known and the colonel was found dead at his breakfast- table in his bungalow one morning, choked to death by a great ruby set in jade. It had been thrust far down histhroat. Though the place was surrounded by sentries they had seen no native come or go. The story created some excitement in Holland, so now to the stay-at-home Dutch all East Indian temple treasures are Soerabayan. All through the East Indies are places where pirates have hidden treasure. One of these is on the island of Celebes, on the Macassar Strait side, where the great Dyak robber Sauk-Bulan put in with his proas and pintas and, according to the British Admirality records, took all of his wealth ashore and came boldly out to fight the sloop-of-war Nestor only to be blown out of the water by her guns. As nearly as this can be traced it was at the mouth of a little river that runs down to the sea between Macassar and Palos. C© CloOOOkKS C©