Adventure Magazine Cover — page 71: 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 ers of the castle, during a life that extended over more than one hundred years, spent his entire time not only in robbing all the rich caravans within striking distance of El Jowf and in warring on his neighbors but in tracing out the traditions of all the tribes. And in this work, guided by dreams and visions, he recovered vast quantities of treasure, bringing it all to El Jowf and hid- ing it in the castle. Twenty-five years ago this tale was put in the same category with the entertaining yarns of the Arabian Nights. But each year of study of the relics of the ancient peoples of Egypt, Arabia and Palestine produces corroborative evidence in carvings, writings and traditions that El Hadj was a great treasure-collector, that the supposed fabu- lous hoards he is supposed to have found once existed and that so far there is nothing to show that El Hadj was ever despoiled or that his treasures were found and dissipated by his successors. For instance, as early as the Fourth Egyptian Dynasty, 4500 years ago, rich, turquoise mines had been found and worked at Meghara, south of Elim, and to-day there are still to be seen the signs of vast workings there. The story is that at the time of the fall of the Pharaohs there was a great store of the green malachite jewels at the mines and when the slaves fled, during the panic of their masters, the jewels by the ton were hidden in a drift in one of the workings. The Jofee tradition is that El Hadj, learning of the Meghara tradition, went there with a great force, hunted for and found the mines and the jewels, and conveyed the wealth to the castle at Marid. Egyptologists “ discov- ered’’ the mines nearly a thousand years later. Likewise the discovery of the rock city of Petra, one of the most marvelous ruins of the world, is said to have been subsequent, by asimilar length of time, to the Arabs’ de- scent upon it. It stands in a canyon with two very narrow entrances, once paved and arched, and the buildings of the town are hewn out of solid rock. As a stronghold it was unassailable. One of the most beautiful buildings to-day is Pharaoh’s Treasury, with an exquisitely carved entrance and three great chambers cut deep in the rock. His- tory and tradition are confused and at variance as to the time of the removal of the vast wealth hidden in this strange bank, but in the separate tribal traditions, found uni- formly reliable in other matters, the last 827 word is that El] Hadj, the terrible chieftain of El Jowf, got it ultimately. Petra stands in the land of Edom south of Moab, and not far away is the route over which the gold of Ophir traveled to Solomon. There are bare hints in the ancient writings that many caravan loads of this were buried to prevent capture, and there are traditions that the seers of El Jowf found these by supernatural guid- ance, but these statements are unreliable. It is reasonably certain, however, that the castle of Marid or its vicinity conceals a staggering amount of wealth. There are three obstacles to its recovery: the necessity of securing the permission of the Turkish Government; guarding against Bedouin robbers, and inducing the Jofees to assist in the searching of the castle and environs. A CLUE IN THE ACROPOLIS ARROLL NEIDE BROWN, in 1806 or 1897, discovered nineteen Greek in- scriptions built into the outer face of the Acropolis at Athens, in that corner where there are evidences of Turkish or Roman repairs. These inscriptions have been trans- lated, after a great deal of study of the older languages, and they tell of the stowing away of many gold and silver vessels and in many cases give the location and the date of the burial of them. There are the troves of Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre and Sidon; the gold of Ophir, of Solomon and of the Eastern emperors. In eleven cases the dates of caches, location and the value are given, and there is inscribed a note of a treasure which is interred with a vase dedicated to Athena, near the Erectheum. Twenty years before the finding of this tablet by Carroll Neide Brown the vase referred to was found, but the treasure was not. It is expected that great discoveries will be made at Hessaelek and Elalea by following out the directions of the ancient Greeks. A TREASURE THAT CAN BE SEEN N THE China Sea is a reef well known to mariners called Sycee Reef. The word “sycee”’ is the name given in the Orient to the fine soft silver ingots that are the basis of the Chinese currency system. Just when nobody seems to know, some junks heavily laden with silver were driven on this reef and wrecked and the vessels broken and battered till the great piles of silver were C© MICLOOOKS ©