GREAT TREASURE TROVE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 99, 26 April 1879, Page 4

GREAT TREASURE TROVE

"A magnificent treasure has been brought to light," the Globe states, "at a point 70 miles north of Taganrog, just outside the boundaries of a "Welsh settlement, which, after its founder, Mr Hughes, his 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 occasional excursion to Taganrog, was watched for some time by the police, and at last conveyed before the Slavianovski magistrate. To him be persisted in telling that he had received a legacy from an uncle, but being reminded that he had never bad a relative of that degree, be confessed that his opulence arose from the discovery of a bidden treasure. The locality of this happy • find' of his he refused to disclose until he bad been promised the clemency of the Government; when he led the magistrates and officials to an ordinary-looking mound, not very far from where the Welsh colonists were burrowing for coal and iron. Here he unearthed a piece of atone, which on being lifted, disclosed the entrance to a vault, which apparently had served as tho 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 chests, crammed with Turkish gold ducats. The weight of gold, we are assured by the Official Journal, was found to exceed 200 poods, or 72001b5., which, if of tolerable 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 '0' 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 greately 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 the Cymri, with portmanteaus full of ducats, to the Russian frontier. But they have some consolation in the sanguine belief that other hoards 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."