Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (19 page)

P
eople often say to me: ‘How did you happen to discover Machu Picchu?’ The answer is, I was looking for the last Inca capital. Its ruins were believed to be in the Cordillera Vilcabamba. My search for it began in this way.

Some forty years ago, in a desire to qualify myself to teach South American history, and to write about the great General Simón Bolívar, I followed his route across the Andes from Venezuela to Colombia. Elihu Root, then Secretary of State, was interested in my trip and closely questioned me about what I had seen. He liked my report and the next year very graciously gave me the opportunity to see a lot more of South America by appointing me a delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress, which was held in Santiago de Chile in December 1908.

My experiences in Venezuela and Colombia had taught me the great advantage it was to an explorer to have government backing, so I determined to take advantage of my position as a
Delegado Official de los Estados Unidos
, to penetrate the Central Andes and follow the old Spanish trade route from Buenos Aires to Lima. From Cuzco, accompanied by my friend, Clarence L. Hay, I undertook to cross Inca Land on mule-back.

It was the month of February. Unfortunately we knew nothing of the usual weather in the Central Andes during the so-called summer months. The climate of Argentina had been pleasantly warm. That of Chile had been agreeable. We expected Peru to treat us as well. As a matter of fact, February is
the very worst month in which to explore the highlands where the Incas flourished. The rains start in November and continue well into April. This particular February turned out to be ‘the rainiest month of the rainiest season’ that anyone remembered having experienced in Peru for a quarter of a century, so that we saw the mountain trails at their worst. It was an unfortunate introduction to exploration in Inca Land. The continuous downpour frequently overcame the conscientious scruples of local dignitaries who wished to escort us in and out of town. However, the Prefect, or chief official, of the Province of Apurímac, the Honourable J. J. Nuñez, had taken the trouble to come to Cuzco and urge me to visit his province, and particularly to explore the ruins of Choqquequirau. He said it had been the home of the last of the Incas. Since Choqquequirau means ‘Cradle of Gold’, a number of attempts had been made in fairly recent times to explore the ruins in order to discover the treasure which it was believed the Incas had hidden there instead of allowing it to fall into the hands of the Spanish conquerors.

Owing to the very great difficulty of reaching the site, it had been seen only three times in a hundred years by bold mountain climbers. It was generally believed among the officials and sugar planters of the Abancay region that Choqquequirau had once been a great city ‘containing over 15,000 inhabitants’ and that the buried treasure was well worth the expense of an adequate expedition.

The Prefect told us that a small party of adventurers had once succeeded in reaching the ruins with enough food to last them for two days. They had dug two or three holes in vain efforts to find the buried treasure. The tale of their sufferings, which lost nothing in the telling, kept anyone from following their example for many years, although they brought back reports of ‘palaces, temples, prisons, and baths’, all covered by dense jungles and luxuriant tropical vegetation.

A local magistrate, dreaming of hidden gold, had once endeavoured to construct a path by which it might be possible to reach Choqquequirau and maintain a service of Indian carriers who could provide the workmen with food while a systematic
effort was made to explore the Cradle of Gold. Although the official had at his disposal the services of a company of soldiers and as many mountain Indians as he could use, he succeeded only in reaching a pass at the top of the range, which is 12,000 feet above the Apurímac river. The great valley is at this point a canyon 2 miles deep. He was unable to pass the precipices that protect Choqquequirau.

Others tried to utilize the path he had made. The latest of these was our new friend, Prefect Nuñez of the Department of Apurímac. Under the patronage of this ambitious and energetic official, who later greatly improved conditions in the city of Cuzco, a company of treasure seekers was formed and several thousand dollars subscribed for the new venture.

The first difficulty that they had encountered was in the construction of a bridge over the frightful rapids of the great river Apurímac. Nevertheless, due to the courage of an aged Chinese pedlar who had braved the terrors of the rugged Andes for many years and who succeeded in swimming across the river when it was low in the ‘dry season’ with a string tied to his waist, a suspension bridge made of six strands of telegraph wire was finally constructed. A trail that could be used by Indian bearers was made through 12 miles of mountain forest and over torrents and precipices. The task which had defied all comers for centuries was finally accomplished.

The results, however, had not been satisfactory, at least as far as securing any valuable treasure was concerned. The only metal articles that had been found were several ancient bronze shawl-pins and a small crowbar. The latter had a yellowish tinge that gave rise to the story that it was pure gold. Unfortunately, however, it was only bronze, made of copper hardened with tin. So the Prefect was particularly anxious that I should visit the ruins and be able to report their importance to the President of Peru.

He insisted that as I was a ‘Doctor’ (Ph.D.) and a government delegate to a scientific congress I must know all about archaeology and could tell him how valuable Choqquequirau was as a site for buried treasure and whether it had been, as he believed,
Vilcapampa the Old, the Capital of the last four Incas. My protest that he was mistaken in his estimate of my archaeological knowledge was regarded by him merely as evidence of modesty.

My previous studies of South American history had been limited largely to the Spanish colonial days, the wars of independence, and the progress made by the different republics. Archaeology lay outside my field and I knew very little about the Incas except the fascinating story told by Prescott in his famous
Conquest of Peru
. My efforts to avoid visiting the ruins of Choqquequirau were also due partly to the very inclement weather and partly to the extreme difficulty of reaching that site.

Secretary Root had impressed upon us the importance of developing international good will by endeavouring in every way to please the officials of the countries we visited. Accordingly, I agreed to the Prefect’s proposal, not knowing that it was destined to lead me into a fascinating field. It was my first introduction to prehistoric America.

Had it not been for Prefect Nuñez and his very practical interest in Choqquequirau I should probably never have been tempted to look for Inca ruins and thus find the two cities which had been lost to geographical knowledge for several centuries.

We left Cuzco on the morning of the first of February. The day promised ill. Rain fell in torrents. The preceding day we had received calls from a number of local dignitaries, all of whom assured us that they would be on hand in the morning to escort us out of town. But the continuous downpour overcame their sense of appropriate courtesy. Even the Cuzco Prefect’s polite
aide de camp
, who had been unremitting in his attentions, was glad enough to take our hint that we were sufficiently honoured by his accompanying us for three blocks from the hotel.

The Prefect had been very solicitous about our welfare, and, although we assured him that we preferred to travel without a military escort, he insisted that a sergeant and at least one soldier should accompany us as long as we were in his Department. I never discovered why he was so insistent. There was no danger, and highway robbery is unheard of in Peru. Possibly he
was afraid that the
delegados
might otherwise go hungry at villages where inhospitable, half-starved Quichuas would say that there was no food on hand; or he may have thought it undignified for us to travel without an escort. Whatever his reasons, he meant well. It was not a case of graft, for the soldiers were ordered to accompany us at the expense of the government.

We started off in a north-westerly direction, leaving the marvellous Cyclopean fortress of Sacsahuaman on our right. We were amazed to find that some of the polygonal blocks in it, as has been said, weighed over 200 tons! After climbing out of the Cuzco valley we descended gradually to the great plain of Anta, famous as the scene of numerous battles in the wars of the Incas. We crossed it by the ancient Inca road, a stony pathway 5 or 6 feet wide, with ditches and swamps on either side. It had been allowed to fall into decay, and for a good part of the distance it had disappeared. We had to make long detours in order to avoid the swamps and ponds that in the wet season cover the road. Skirting the hills north of the Plain of Anta, we passed several great terraces a third of a mile long and 14 or 15 feet high, and towards evening entered Zurita, a small Indian town. Here we were directed to the house of a hospitable
Gobernador
(village magistrate).

We left Zurita the next morning, accompanied by the
Gobernador
and his friends. Leaving our muleteer and his pack mules to follow in charge of our military escort, we pushed on at a good pace and found ourselves at noon at Challabamba on the divide that separates the waters of the river Urubamba from those of the Apurimac. In marked contrast to the grassy, treeless plain of Anta from which we had just ascended, we saw before us deep green, wooded valleys.

The trail, a rocky stairway not unlike the bed of a mountain torrent, led us rapidly into a warm tropical region whose dense foliage and tangled vines were grateful enough after the bleak mountain plateau. Beautiful yellow broom flowers were abundant. The air was filled with the fragrance of heliotrope. Particoloured lantanas ran riot through a maze of agaves and hanging creepers. We had entered a new world.

A steep descent brought us to the town of Limatambo where there are interesting terraces and other evidences of the Inca fortress which was used in Pizarro’s day. The valley of the Limatambo river is here extremely narrow and the fortifications were well placed to defy an enemy coming against Cuzco from the west and north. An exceptionally bloody encounter took place there between the Spanish conquerors and the Inca forces.

Rain had been falling most of the day and the river Limatambo had risen considerably. The ford was impassable, and we were obliged to use a frail, improvised bridge over which our mules crept very cautiously sniffing doubtfully as it bent under their weight. Soon afterwards we crossed the river Blanco and left the old trail, which goes through the Indian village of Mollepata, described by E. G. Squier
¹
as ‘a collection of wretched huts on a high shelf of the mountain with a tumbledown church, a drunken Governor … a place unsurpassed in evil repute by any in Peru’. Fortunately for us, since the days of Squier’s visit, an enterprising Peruvian has carved a sugar plantation out of the luxuriant growth on the mountain side, at La Estrella. Here we were given an extremely cordial welcome although Señor Montes, the owner, the fame of whose hospitality had reached Cuzco, was not at home. Our military escort did not arrive until nearly three hours later, with a sad story of wretched animals and narrow escapes.

The next morning we descended from the canefields of La Estrella by an extremely precipitous winding trail. In places it seemed as though our heavily laden mules must lose their footing and roll down the 1,500 feet to the raging Apurímac river below. At length, however, we came to Tablachaca, an excellent modern bridge which we were actually able to cross without dismounting, something that rarely happened to us on that journey.

In the old days a wonderful, lofty suspension bridge made by the Indians in the Peruvian fashion was the only means of crossing this river. Vivid pictures of it, no two alike, are given in
such famous books of travel as Squier’s
Peru
, Markham’s
Cuzco and Lima
, and Lt. Gibbon’s
Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon
. Although they all differ as to its height above the water and its length, all were greatly impressed by the remarkable canyon that it crossed. Gibbon says ‘the bridge was 150 feet above the dark green waters’, Sir Clements Markham, who crossed the bridge two years later, says, ‘the bridge spanned the chasm in a graceful curve at a height of full 300 feet above the river’. As he crossed it in the middle of March just at the end of the rainy season when it may be supposed the waters were high, while Lt. Gibbon crossed it in August, the middle of the dry season, when the river is very low, the contrast between their estimates of the height of the bridge above the river is all the more striking. Unfortunately it has disappeared and travellers can no longer dispute over its dimensions. Squier’s picture of it was one of the reasons why I decided to take this trip at a time when I was tempted to go down the Amazon from La Paz by way of the Beni. So I was disappointed, but not for long.

The scenery was superb, the great green mountains piling upon one another, their precipitous sides streaked with many lovely waterfalls. Green parrots overhead and yellow iris underfoot lent additional colour to the scene. To add to our joy the sun shone all day long. A comparatively easy journey over steep but well-travelled mountain trails brought us to the town of Curahuasi, where we were met by Lt. Caceres,
aide de camp
to Prefect Nuñez, who had been directed to act as our escort, and who proved to be a most genial and exceptionally high-spirited young Peruvian, a member of an old and distinguished family.