LOPE DE VEGA. 47 



generations meant very ancient. Had I been the last sur- 

 vivor and had nothing left but half a helmet full of musket 

 balls and the chart and log of our ship, I should have been 

 able to preserve my treasures to show my King how faith- 

 fully I had carried out the trust reposed in me, and Lope 

 de Vega could do the same and they would be perfectly 

 safe for 1,000 years. I should have made a cylindrical hole 

 in the sand with a piece of bamboo, and stood a smaller 

 stick in the centre of the hole ; then melted the lead in the 

 helmet and poured it into the annulus. The treasure would 

 be placed inside the lead pipe thus cast, and the ends 

 hammered up tight with a stone. I should have covered 

 it with the gum so as not to attract the cupidity of the 

 natives, told the guard to stick a red seed in the gum with 

 much ceremony and hold a turtle feast at the return of every 

 N.W. season, keep the little hut in repair and pass the 

 word on to his successors, and a very large reward would 

 be given for an apparently worthless article. The Spanish 

 word 'Muerte' is extremely well selected. 



When the brass guns were found in^l906, I wrote to the 

 Rev. B. Baxter Riley, asking him in the course of his rounds 

 to obtain this curio and forward it intact with every scrap 

 of information as to its origin that the natives possessed and 

 I would pay all expenses ; and authorized him to pay guns, 

 knives, axes, or anything in his store, and if he had not got 

 what they wanted, it would be sent from Sydney. In due 

 course Mr. Riley went to Hogar and ascertained from the 

 teacher there, and the oldest inhabitant, that the little 

 hut and its contents, which the teacher called a god, had 

 been burnt about 20 years ago. (Note, no trifling thing 

 would be remembered 20 years). The teacher with the 

 consent of the people, set fire to the place ; there was 

 great difficulty in getting the people to talk about Ma-te. 

 I am quite familiar with the obscene little figures it is 



