18 ' 
DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. II.—B. S. 
Jesuits’ College, and there lived quietly for some time ; 
but one fine morning he was gone, and a large and 
deep hole had been dug in the very spot where tradi¬ 
tion insisted the Jesuits’ treasure was buried. Who 
can tell how much or how little was removed ? That 
the Jesuits of Panama at the time of their expulsion 
were well off is evident from the ruins of their un¬ 
finished college, which occupy nearly a whole block 
of the city • hut they may have been able to find a 
much better hiding-place for their valuables than an 
unfinished building, where everybody could overlook 
them and watch their movements. 
Gossip of this kind is catching. As you cannot he 
many days in the-East before you find yourself talking 
about magicians, so you cannot he many days at 
Panama before you at all events catch yourself listen¬ 
ing to stories of treasure-trove. And it is not only 
Spaniards, hut also less imaginative Teutons, who be¬ 
lieve in and act on them. How many expeditions have 
there not been from Panama and elsewhere to the 
Cocos Island, for the purpose of recovering the trea¬ 
sure buried there by pirates ? I remember very well 
the men who more than twenty years ago made the 
first expedition thither. The prime mover of it was an 
English carpenter, whose ambition in life, as he often 
assured me when packing up my natural history spe¬ 
cimens, was to become a Pellow of the Eoyal Society, 
which was in his mind identical with life at Court; 
and this ambition he thought might he gratified by 
spending a sufficiently large sum of money on science. 
Once, hut only once, the object had been almost within 
