“I know, Jack,” Mr. Hampton explained, “but Don Ernesto and I have talked the matter over from every angle, and have decided against going to Potosi at this season. The summer months are January and February. And even in summer, it is bleak in that region. The hottest day ever recorded in Potosi went to only about 59 in the shade. The elevation is great; Potosi is built on top of a mountain, and there is no fuel. The mountains are bare of timber, and a camping expedition would run grave danger of freezing.
“For three hundred years, Potosi has been the center of a silver mining region that has given up wealth seemingly without exhaustion. More than two billion ounces of silver have been taken from the mountain on which it stands, and the mines are still in operation. It is probably the most famous mountain in the world, this Cerro of Potosi.
“It was from Bolivia,” Mr. Hampton added, “that the Inca civilization started on its career of conquest. Combination of two Indian races, the Aymares and the Quibchuas, the first warlike and the second industrious, the Inca nation absorbed other civilizations, brought wild tribes under subjection, and set up an empire remarkably like that of Rome. And yet,” added Mr. Hampton, “there were earlier civilizations of which next to nothing is known, which also had reached a high state of development.” He spoke not only of the Chimu civilization of which Ferdinand earlier had told the boys, but added that ruins on the shores of Lake Titicaca in Bolivia showed there was a civilization in that region antedating that of Egypt.
“However,” said he, “I digress. The point is that, because of the rigors of winter in Bolivia, we shall not try for the hidden Inca treasure but shall seek to make our way at once to the Enchanted City.”
The above conversation took place several days after the boys had returned from Almahue, and when Mr. Hampton and Senor de Avilar got back to Santiago.
“The discovery of this manuscript,” Mr. Hampton continued, “is what has lifted the legend of the Enchanted City out of the mythical. It may be a hoax, of course. There is always the possibility that someone went to infinite pains to perpetrate a joke. Yet the evidence is against that. Apparently the manuscript is very ancient. And Senor de Avilar’s experts, to whom he has submitted it, say that the writing and spelling are those of an educated Spanish gentleman of the period of the Conquerors. There were few enough educated men at that time; Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, his comrade, you know, could neither read nor write. Yet there were educated men, of course, and one such must have been this Luis de Pereira, gentleman adventurer, wrecked with de Arguello.
“Since two men, reaching Concepcion in 1557, first gave the outside world the tale of the Enchanted City, many expeditions have set forth in search of it. None were successful. At length, a century and a half later, Fray Menendez, a Franciscan explorer and missionary, after two years of systematic search, declared the story mythical. And that has come to be the general opinion. Yet early in the nineteenth century, silver drinking cups were found among a tribe of forest Indians in the south, and once more a party of explorers set out. This time, they started from Punta Arenas, in Patagonia, trying to follow northward the route pursued by de Arguello. They disappeared, were never heard of again.”
“Perhaps they reached the Enchanted City and stayed there,” suggested Frank, who, like Jack and Bob, was listening with absorbed interest.
“That may have been the case,” said Mr. Hampton, “supposing, of course, that such a place existed. But, what I was going to say, was that the discovery of this manuscript of Luis de Pereira puts a new complexion on the matter. While he was not a geographer, and could not give latitude and longitude, yet he was a keen observer. And his manuscript gives very definite natural locations of mountains and river, by which we can be guided. Further, we know the Enchanted City lay on the southern borders of the land of the Auraucanos.”
“Oh,” interrupted Jack, “those are the Indians, the great fighters, that Ferdinand told us about.”