Peruvian writers like Paz Soldan and the great geographer, Raimondi, are positive that Manco Ccapac’s “Vilcabamba” was really Choqquequirau. They base their belief on the fact that in 1566 an Augustinian Friar, Marcos Garcia, undertook to penetrate to “Vilcabamba,” where poor old Manco Ccapac had found a refuge. In describing his tour, Father Calancha, the author of the “Chronica moralizada del Orden de San Augustin, Libro III, Cap. XXIV and XLII,” says that Garcia founded a church in Pucyura, “two long days’ journey from Vilcabamba.” Raimondi calls attention to the fact that Pucyura is only two leagues from the present village of “Vilcabamba,” and while he admits that it is possible that Father Calancha wrote “days’ journey” instead of “leagues” by mistake, he believes that the reference is to Choqquequirau which is in fact two long days’ journey from Pucyura. It is at least a very roundabout method of inference.[6]
Raimondi may be correct, but until some one shall have explored the present village of Vilcabamba and its vicinity, I am inclined to the opinion that Choqquequirau was merely a fortress.
Since writing the above I have received, through the kindness of Prof. Roland Dixon of Harvard University, a copy of a pamphlet by the distinguished Peruvian historian, Carlos A. Romero, entitled “Las Ruinas de Choqquequirau,” which gives the result of his careful researches through all the works of writers who refer to Choqquequirau. It does not add to our actual knowledge of the early history of the ruins.
CHAPTER XXIV
ABANCAY TO CHINCHEROS
One of the conditions on which we had based our decision to visit Choqquequirau was that the Prefect was to see to it that animals should be ready for our departure as soon as we got back, and that his officials along the road should facilitate our progress in every possible manner. To his credit be it said that he kept his promise faithfully, notwithstanding all the rules in the books to the effect that a South American rarely remembers his promise.
The next day after our return to Abancay, we spent in re-arranging our luggage and making ready for a rapid march to Ayacucho. The Prefect sent in an official request for a report on the ruins of Choqquequirau. Not being a Latin-American, I was unable to sit down and dash off a “thorough satisfactory official report” in an hour and a half and had to explain that it would take days and even weeks to draw plans from the data in our field-books and from the ten dozen negatives we had exposed.
On the following day, much refreshed in body and mind, we succeeded in getting an early start. We were accompanied out of town by a score of enthusiastic friends whose interest in our undertaking was perfectly ingenuous and of whom we had learned to be very fond. They not only decided to extend
