Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) (21 page)

After getting our wind, we followed the trail westward, skirting more precipices and crossing other torrents, until, about two o’clock, we rounded a promontory and on the slopes of a bold mountain headland 6,000 feet above the river we caught our first glimpse of the ruins of Choqquequirau. Between the outer hilltop and the ridge connecting it with the snow-capped mountains, a depression or saddle had been terraced and levelled so as to leave a space for the more important buildings of the Inca stronghold.

At three o’clock we reached a glorious waterfall whose icy waters, coming probably from the glaciers on Soray, cooled our heads and quenched our thirst. We had now left our companions far behind, and were pushing slowly along through the jungle when, shortly before four o’clock, we saw terraces in the near distance. We clambered up to a little bit of flat ground, to enjoy the view. Here we were discovered by a huge condor, who proceeded to investigate the invaders of his domain. Apparently without moving a muscle, he sailed gracefully down in ever narrowing circles until we could see clearly not only his cruel beak and great talons, but even the whites of his eyes. We had no guns and not even a club with which to resist his attack. It was an awe-inspiring moment, for he measured about twelve feet from tip to tip of wing. He finally decided not to disturb us, and, seemingly without changing the position of a feather, soared off into space. We were told afterwards by the Prefect’s
aides
that they had been greatly bothered by condors when they first commenced operations here. Shepherds in the high Andean pastures have to wage a constant battle with condors, who have no difficulty
in carrying off a sheep.

Since we had no knapsacks or loads of any kind we arrived ahead of our carriers. The day had been warm, and in our efforts to make climbing as easy as possible, we had even divested ourselves of all warm clothes. Night came on and as usual the air became intensely cold. Our Indians had taken their time and failed to put in an appearance, so we spent an uncomfortable night in the smallest of the little thatched huts which workmen had erected for their own use while engaged in clearing the ruins. It was scarcely 3 feet high and about 6 feet long by 4 feet wide. Notwithstanding the fact that a shelter tent was pulled down and wrapped around us for warmth, and stacks of dry grass piled about us, we were scarcely able to close our eyes for the cold and chilling dampness.

During the four days that we spent on the mountain the humidity was usually 100 per cent, so we were in clouds or mist most of the time, when it was not actually raining. It was not a pleasant introduction to archaeological reconnaissance, especially as I was inexperienced and unacquainted with my duties.

Fortunately I had with me that extremely useful handbook
Hints to Travellers
, published by the Royal Geographical Society. In one of the chapters I found out what should be done when one is confronted by a prehistoric site – take careful measurements and plenty of photographs and describe as accurately as possible all finds. On account of the rain, our photographs were not very successful, but we took measurements of all the buildings and made a rough map.

We found that the ruins were clustered in several groups both on terraces and on natural shelves and could be reached by stairways or winding paths. The buildings appear to have been placed close together, probably in order to economize all the available space. Probably every square yard that could be given to agriculture was cultivated.

Magnificent precipices guard the ruins on every side and render Choqquequirau virtually inaccessible to an enemy. Every avenue of ascent, except such as the engineers determined to leave open, was closed, and every strategic spot was elaborately
fortified. Wherever it might have been possible for a bold mountaineer to gain a foothold, the Incas had built well-faced walls of stone so as to leave an adventurous assailant no support. The terraces thus made served the double purpose of military defence and of keeping the soil from sliding away from the gardens down the steep hillside.

The ruins consist of three distinct groups of buildings. All had been more or less completely hidden by trees and vines during the centuries of solitude. Fortunately for us the treasure-seeking company had done excellent work in clearing away from the more important buildings the tangled mass of vegetation that had covered them. Dynamite had also been used in various likely spots where treasure might have been buried. But the workmen had found no gold and only a few objects of interest including, besides those we saw at Abancay, a few clay pots and two or three rocking pestles or grinding stones of a pattern still in use in this part of the Andes and as far north as Panama.

At the top of the southern and outer precipice, 5,800 feet immediately above the river, stands a parapet and the walls of two buildings without windows. The view from here, both up and down the valley, surpasses what can be adequately described. Far down the gigantic canyon one catches little glimpses of the Apurimac, a white stream shut in between guardian mountains, so narrowed by the distance that it seems like a mere brooklet. Here and there through the valley are marvellous cataracts, one of which has a clear fall of over 1,000 feet. The panorama in every direction is wonderful in variety, contrast, beauty, and grandeur.

North of this outer group of buildings is an artificially truncated hill. It is probable that on this flattened hilltop, which commands a magnificent view up and down the valley, signal fires could be built to telegraph to the heights overlooking Cuzco intelligence of the approach of an enemy from the Amazonian wilds.

We noticed on this hilltop that small stones had been set into the ground, in straight lines crossing and recrossing at right angles as though to make a pattern. So much of it was covered
by grass, however, that we did not have a chance to sketch it in the time at our disposal. It might have been the floor of a hut used by sentries 400 years ago.

North of the lookout and on the saddle between it and the main ridge is located the main group of ruins. In general, all the walls appear to have been built entirely of stone and clay. The construction, compared with that of the Inca palaces in Cuzco, is extremely rude and rough and no two niches or doors are exactly alike. Occasionally the lintels of the doors were made of timber, the builders not having taken the trouble to provide stones wide enough for the purpose. One such lintel was still standing, the wood being of a remarkably hard texture. Probably the ruins today present a more striking appearance than the buildings did when they were covered with thatched roofs.

In one of the niches I found the small stone whirl-bob of a spindle-wheel, in size and shape like those made from wood and used today all over the Andes. This simple spinning apparatus consists of a stick about as large round as the little finger and from 10 to 12 inches long. Its lower end is fitted with a whirl-bob of wood to give it proper momentum when it is set in motion by a twirl of the forefinger and thumb grasping the upper end of the spindle. It is in universal use by Indian women from Colombia to Chile. One rarely sees a woman tending sheep or walking along the high road who is not busily engaged in using this old-fashioned spindle. In the tombs of Pachacamac near Lima have been found spindles fitted with similar whirl-bobs of stone, more than five hundred years old.

The third group of buildings is higher up on the spur, 100 feet or more above the second group. Near the path from the lower to the upper plaza are the remains of a little
azequia
, or watercourse, now dry, lined with flat stones. The Incas never failed to provide water for all their fields and towns.

The south-east corner of the third group is marked by a huge projecting rock 20 feet high and 12 or 15 feet in diameter. Beside it, facing the eastern slope, is a giant stairway. It consists of fourteen great steps roughly made and of varying dimensions. It is
possible to ascend these stairs by means of small stone steps erected on one side or the other. Walls on each side, 2 feet wide, serve as a balustrade. A peculiarity of the construction is the locating of a huge flat stone in the centre of the riser of each step. The view to the eastward from this stairway is particularly fine. Perhaps the rising sun, chief divinity of the Incas, was worshipped here. Mummies may have been brought out here on feast days to dry in the sun.

Beyond the stairway are terraces, alleyways, walls, and story-and-a-half houses, filled with niches and windows. Two of the houses have no windows and one of them contains three cells. Our military escort said they were used for the detention of prisoners. They were more likely storehouses. On the north side of the plaza is a curious little structure built with the utmost care and containing many niches and nooks. It may possibly have been the place in which criminals, destined to be thrown over the precipice, according to the laws of the Incas, awaited their doom.

Above it the hillside rises steeply, and on the crest of the ridge runs a little conduit which we followed until it entered the impenetrable tropical jungle at the foot of a very steep hill. The water in this little
azequia
, then dry, coming straight down the spur, was conducted over a terrace into two well-paved tanks on the north side of the plaza. Thence it ran across the plaza to a little reservoir on the south side. A small outlet had been provided at the end of this basin so that the water could flow underneath the floor of the tank house and then proceed on its way down the ridge to the buildings below.

As the western slope of the Choqquequirau spur is a sheer precipice, little attempt at fortification was made on that side. The eastern slope, however, is not so steep. On this side were enormous terraces hundreds of feet long faced with perpendicular walls 12 feet high. Two narrow paved stairways lead from one terrace to another.

In the jungle immediately below the last terrace, under ledges and huge boulders, had been dug little caves in which the mummified bodies of the dead were placed. I found that
the bones were heaped in a little pile as though they had been cleaned before being interred. No earth had been placed on them, but on top of the pile on one grave I found a small earthenware jar about 1 inch in diameter. There was nothing in the jar, although it had retained its upright position during all the years of its interment. The natural entrance to the little tomb had been walled up with wedge-shaped stones from the inside in such a way as to make it difficult to enter the cave from the front. I found, however, that by digging away a little on one side of the huge boulder, I could easily remove the stones, which had evidently been placed there by the gravedigger after the bones had been deposited in the tomb. Graves dug in the sandy deserts of the coast of Peru usually contain mummies in fairly good condition but here in the rain-soaked mountains of the eastern Andes mummies are seldom found intact.

The workmen had excavated under a dozen or more of the projecting ledges and in each case had found bones and occasionally sherds of pottery. In no case, however, had they found anything of value to indicate that the dead were of high degree. If any of the officers of the garrison or Inca nobles were ever buried in this vicinity, their tombs have not yet been discovered, or else the graves were rifled years ago. But of this there is no evidence.

All conspicuously large rocks below the terraces were found to cover graves. The skulls were not found alone but always near the remainder of the skeleton. The larger bones were in fairly good condition but the smallest ones had completely disintegrated. Some of the largest bones could be crumbled with the fingers and easily broken, while others were white and hard; all that we found were those of adults, although one or two of them seemed to be of persons not over twenty years of age. So far as has been observed, no super-incumbent soil was placed on the skeleton. The Quichua Indian carriers and workmen watched our operations with interest, but they became positively frightened when we began the careful measurement and examination of the bones. They had been in doubt as to the object of our
expedition up to that point, but all doubts then vanished and they decided we had come there to commune with the spirits of the departed Incas.

In one of the buildings we found several slabs of slate on which visitors had registered their names. According to these inscriptions Choqquequirau was visited in 1834 by a French explorer, Count de Sartiges, and by two Peruvians, Jose Maria Tejada and Marcelino Leon; and in 1861 by Jose Benigno Samanez (‘pro Presidente Castilla’), Juan Manuel Rivas Plata, and Mariana Cisneros. On July 4 1885, three Almanzas, Pio Mogrovejo, and a party of workmen did what they could to find the buried treasure, but in vain.

After my return to New Haven I learned that the Count de Sartiges, writing under the
nom de plume
‘E. de Lavandais’, published an account of his visit in the
Revue de Deux Mondes
, in June 1850. His route, the only one possible at the time, was exceedingly circuitous. From Mollepata, a village near the sugar plantation of La Estrella, he went north across the very high pass between Mts Salcantay and Soray to the river Urubamba, to a village called Yuatquinia (Huadquiña). Here, without knowing it, he was within a few miles of Machu Picchu, then unheard of. He engaged Indians to cut a trail to Choqquequirau. After three weeks he found that the difficulties of making a trail were so great that it would take at least two months to finish the undertaking. So he and his companions made their way through the jungle and along the precipices as best they could for four days. On the fifth day they arrived at the ruins. In his projects for exploration, he had failed to take into account the fact that tropical vegetation had been at work for centuries covering up the remains of the Inca houses, and as he was only able to stay at Choqquequirau for two or three days, he failed to see some of the most interesting ruins. The giant stairway escaped his attention entirely. He seems to have spent most of his time hunting for treasure. He had expected to spend eight days here, but the difficulties of reaching the place were so great and the food supply so limited that he had to hurry back without seeing more than the buildings of the lower plaza, the
lower terraces, and a grave or two. It was his opinion that 15,000 people lived here once. One wonders what they lived on. Nevertheless every available foot of arable land had been conserved by extensive terraces. No soil was allowed to escape. Corn and potatoes could grow here.