TREASURE TROVE.

Kumara Times, Issue 805, 30 April 1879, Page 4

TREASURE TROVE.

[LONDON GLOBE. A magnificent treasure has been brought to light at a point 70 miles north of Taganrog, just outside the boundaries of a Welsh settlement, which, after its founder, Mr Hughes, lias received the official designation of “Uzovka.” A peasant, being observed to grow suddenly rich and to launch into a luxurious style of living without any obvious cause, except an occasion excursion to Taganrog, was watched for some time by the police, and at last conveyed before the Slavianovski Magistrate. To himhepersisted that he had received a legacy from an uncle, but being reminded that he had never had a relative of that degree, he confessed that his opulence arose from the discovery a hidden treasure. The locality of this happy “ find ” of his he refused to disclose until he had been promised the clemency of the Government, when he led the Magistrates and officials to an ordinarylooking mound, not very far from where the Welsh colonists were burrowing for coal and iron. Here he unearthed a°piece of stone, which on being lifted disclosed the entrance to a vault, which apparently had served as the cellar to some castle or mansion before the Cossack invasion. Inside this vault at the foot of some stone steps, were found 17 oaken kegs or cheats, crammed with Turkish gold ducats. The weight of the gold, we are assured by the Official Journal, was found to exceed 200 poods, or 72001 b., which if tolerably pure metal, should realise’at least a quarter of a million sterling. All this goes into the pocket of the Czar, and, unless the Official Journal has appended an extra “o” by mistake, His Majesty should be very flush of coin for a considerable time to come. The Welsh colonists, who number about 200 families, are greatly aggrieved, we are told, that the treasure was not discovered by them, in which case we have no doubt there would have been a rapid migration of Oymri, with portmanteaus full of ducats, to the Russian frontier. But they have some consoliation in the sanguine belief that other hords of Turkish gold may exist upon the < “steppe;” and every leisure moment is now spent in excavating suspicious tumuli in the outskirts of their settlement.