9A Gold Fever 99

The legend of the Inca gold begins in 1533 when the Inca were at war with the Spanish The Spanish commander Francisco Pizarro captured1 the Inca king Atahualpa at his palace2 in Cajamarcamdashnow part of Peru

Pizarro made a deal with the Inca He would let Atahualpa go but he demanded a huge amount of gold Pizarro received some gold but then he told his soldiers to kill Atahualpa Angry at the murder3 of their king the Inca put the rest of the gold in a secret mountain cave4

Fifty years later a poor Spanish soldier named Valverde fell in love with an Inca woman The womanrsquos family took him to see the treasure He wrote an account of the trip and explained how to find the gold

With Valverdersquos instructions a Canadian named Barth Blake may have found the gold in 1886 In a letter he wrote ldquoThere are thousands of gold and silver pieces rdquo He also described ldquo the most incredible jewelryrdquo Blake says he took a few of the objects ldquoI could not remove5 it alonerdquo he said ldquonor could thousands of menrdquo

No one knows whether Blakersquos story is true as he disappeared6 soon afterwards Mark Honigsbaum author of Valverdersquos Gold thinks the gold was likely taken out centuries ago ldquoIf notrdquo he says ldquoand [if] itrsquos still there I think itrsquos lost foreverrdquo

1

5

10

15

1 If you capture someone or something you catch them2 A palace is a very large impressive house usually the

home of a king or queen3 Murder is the crime of killing someone intentionally

4 A cave is a large hole in the side of a cliff or hill or under the ground5 If you remove something from a place you take it away6 If someone or something disappears they go or are taken away

where nobody can find them

Inca

Lost Treasure of the

An illustration of Pizarro capturing the Inca Emperor Atahualpa

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