The favorite stories are those relating to buried treasure. During the vicissitudes through which the island has passed and especially during the troublous period at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century many persons who left the country first secreted their valuables in the belief that their absence would be only temporary. They did not return, their property passed into other hands and the treasure was forgotten. Occasionally, too, people buried their money for safe-keeping and died without imparting the secret. There have been authenticated cases of treasure-trove, especially in the first half of the nineteenth century. The finds have almost always been accidental, as when in hanging a hammock a nail gave way and revealed a cavity, or in rebuilding a hidden orifice was disclosed. In many popular stories a foreigner with a map plays a part. According to one of these tales a stranger appeared some years ago near Mercedes church taking measurements, so that the neighbors thought him insane. He finally approached the owner of one of the houses and offered to rent it. When his increased offers were refused he drew from his pocket a paper which he said showed the location of a hidden treasure and offered the houseowner a share if he were permitted to make the search. The cupidity of the other was aroused and he would agree to take nothing less than three-fourths of the whole, whereupon the stranger in a rage lit a match and burnt the paper before the horrified houseowner's eyes, exclaiming: "Now you will never find it." For months afterwards the proprietor delved through the ground below the house and perforated the walls in scores of places, but the prediction of the stranger would probably have been verified had it not been for an accident. Some four years later, after a heavy rain, a woman of the neighborhood came to draw water from the cistern of this particular house. As the rope stuck in the pulley she gave a tug, slipped and fell into the cistern to her waist in water. Her screams brought assistance and as she was drawn out it was noticed that in her descent, she had loosened several bricks in the wall of the cistern. An examination revealed an aperture large enough to hold a man, and filled with plate, jewelry and coins.