Leaving Ttica-Ttica, we went northward for several leagues, passed the town of Chincheros, with its old Inca walls, and came at length to the edge of the wonderful valley of Yucay. In its bottom are great level terraces rescued from the Urubamba River by the untiring energy of the ancient folk. On both sides of the valley the steep slopes bear many remains of narrow terraces, some of which are still in use. Above them are “temporales,” fields of grain, resting like a patch-work quilt on slopes so steep it seems incredible they could be cultivated. Still higher up, their heads above the clouds, are the jagged snow-capped peaks. The whole offers a marvelous picture, rich in contrast, majestic in proportion. In Yucay once dwelt the Inca Manco's oldest son, Sayri Tupac, after he had accepted the viceroy's invitation to come under Spanish protection. Here he lived three years and here, in 1560, he died an untimely death under circumstances which led his brothers, Titu Cusi and Tupac Amaru, to think that they would be safer in Uiticos. We spent the night in Urubamba, the modern capital of the province, Page 205much favored by Peruvians of to-day because of its abundant water supply, delightful climate, and rich fruits. Cuzco, 11,000 feet, is too high to have charming surroundings, but two thousand feet lower, in the Urubamba Valley, there is everything to please the eye and delight the horticulturist.
Speaking of horticulturists reminds me of their enemies. Uru is the Quichua word for caterpillars or grubs, pampa means flat land. Urubamba is “flat-land-where-there-are-grubs-or-caterpillars.” Had it been named by people who came up from a warm region where insects abound, it would hardly have been so denominated. Only people not accustomed to land where caterpillars and grubs flourished would have been struck by such a circumstance. Consequently, the valley was probably named by plateau dwellers who were working their way down into a warm region where butterflies and moths are more common. Notwithstanding its celebrated caterpillars, Urubamba's gardens of to-day are full of roses, lilies, and other brilliant flowers. There are orchards of peaches, pears, and apples; there are fields where luscious strawberries are raised for the Cuzco market. Apparently, the grubs do not get everything.
The next day down the valley brought us to romantic Ollantaytambo, described in glowing terms by Castelnau, Marcou, Wiener, and Squier many years ago. It has lost none of its charm, even though Marcou's drawings are imaginary and Squier's are exaggerated. Here, as at Urubamba, there are flower gardens and highly cultivated green Page 206fields. The brooks are shaded by willows and poplars. Above them are magnificent precipices crowned by snow-capped peaks. The village itself was once the capital of an ancient principality whose history is shrouded in mystery. There are ruins of curious gabled buildings, storehouses, “prisons,” or “monasteries,” perched here and there on well-nigh inaccessible crags above the village. Below are broad terraces of unbelievable extent where abundant crops are still harvested; terraces which will stand for ages to come as monuments to the energy and skill of a bygone race. The “fortress” is on a little hill, surrounded by steep cliffs, high walls, and hanging gardens so as to be difficult of access. Centuries ago, when the tribe which cultivated the rich fields in this valley lived in fear and terror of their savage neighbors, this hill offered a place of refuge to which they could retire. It may have been fortified at that time. As centuries passed in which the land came under the control of the Incas, whose chief interest was the peaceful promotion of agriculture, it is likely that this fortress became a royal garden. The six great ashlars of reddish granite weighing fifteen or twenty tons each, and placed in line on the summit of the hill, were brought from a quarry several miles away with an immense amount of labor and pains. They were probably intended to be a record of the magnificence of an able ruler. Not only could he command the services of a sufficient number of men to extract these rocks from the quarry and carry them up an inclined plane from the bottom of the valley to the summit of the hill; he had to Page 207supply the men with food. The building of such a monument meant taking five hundred Indians away from their ordinary occupations as agriculturists. He must have been a very good administrator. To his people the magnificent megaliths were doubtless a source of pride. To his enemies they were a symbol of his power and might.
Mt. Veronica and Salapunco, the Gateway to Uilcapampa
A league below Ollantaytambo the road forks. The right branch ascends a steep valley and crosses the pass of Panticalla near snow-covered Mt. Veronica. Near the pass are two groups of ruins. One of them, extravagantly referred to by Wiener as a “granite palace, whose appearance [appareil] resembles the more beautiful parts of Ollantaytambo,” was only a storehouse. The other was probably a tampu, or inn, for the benefit of official travelers. All travelers in Inca times, even the bearers of burdens, were acting under official orders. Commercial business was unknown. The rights of personal property were not understood. No one had anything to sell; no one had any money to buy it with. On the other hand, the Incas had an elaborate system of tax collecting. Two thirds of the produce raised by their subjects was claimed by the civil and religious rulers. It was a reasonable provision of the benevolent despotism of the Incas that inhospitable regions like the Panticalla Pass near Mt. Veronica should be provided with suitable rest houses and storehouses. Polo de Ondegardo, an able and accomplished statesman, who was in office in Cuzco in 1560, says that the food of the chasquis, Inca post runners, was provided from official storehouses; Page 208“those who worked for the Inca's service, or for religion, never ate at their own expense.” In Manco's day these buildings at Havaspampa probably sheltered the outpost which defeated Captain Villadiego.
Before the completion of the river road, about 1895, travelers from Cuzco to the lower Urubamba had a choice of two routes, one by way of the pass of Panticalla, followed by Captain Garcia in 1571, by General Miller in 1835, Castelnau in 1842, and Wiener in 1875; and one by way of the pass between Mts. Salcantay and Soray, along the Salcantay River to Huadquiña, followed by the Count de Sartiges in 1834 and Raimondi in 1865. Both of these routes avoid the highlands between Mt. Salcantay and Mt. Veronica and the lowlands between the villages of Piri and Huadquiña. This region was in 1911 undescribed in the geographical literature of southern Peru. We decided not to use either pass, but to go straight down the Urubamba river road. It led us into a fascinating country.
Two leagues beyond Piri, at Salapunco, the road skirts the base of precipitous cliffs, the beginnings of a wonderful mass of granite mountains which have made Uilcapampa more difficult of access than the surrounding highlands which are composed of schists, conglomerates, and limestone. Salapunco is the natural gateway to the ancient province, but it was closed for centuries by the combined efforts of nature and man. The Urubamba River, in cutting its way through the granite range, forms rapids too dangerous to be passable and precipices which can be scaled only with great effort Page 209and considerable peril. At one time a footpath probably ran near the river, where the Indians, by crawling along the face of the cliff and sometimes swinging from one ledge to another on hanging vines, were able to make their way to any of the alluvial terraces down the valley. Another path may have gone over the cliffs above the fortress, where we noticed, in various inaccessible places, the remains of walls built on narrow ledges. They were too narrow and too irregular to have been intended to support agricultural terraces. They may have been built to make the cliff more precipitous. They probably represent the foundations of an old trail. To defend these ancient paths we found that prehistoric man had built, at the foot of the precipices, close to the river, a small but powerful fortress whose ruins now pass by the name of Salapunco; sala = ruins; punco = gateway. Fashioned after famous Sacsahuaman and resembling it in the irregular character of the large ashlars and also by reason of the salients and reëntrant angles which enabled its defenders to prevent the walls being successfully scaled, it presents an interesting problem.
Commanding as it does the entrance to the valley of Torontoy, Salapunco may have been built by some ancient chief to enable him to levy tribute on all who passed. My first impression was that the fortress was placed here, at the end of the temperate zone, to defend the valleys of Urubamba and Ollantaytambo against savage enemies coming up from the forests of the Amazon. On the other hand, it is possible that Salapunco was built by the tribes Page 210occupying the fastnesses of Uilcapampa as an outpost to defend them against enemies coming down the valley from the direction of Ollantaytambo. They could easily have held it against a considerable force, for it is powerfully built and constructed with skill. Supplies from the plantations of Torontoy, lower down the river, might have reached it along the path which antedated the present government road. Salapunco may have been occupied by the troops of the Inca Manco when he established himself in Uiticos and ruled over Uilcapampa. He could hardly, however, have built a megalithic work of this kind. It is more likely that he would have destroyed the narrow trails than have attempted to hold the fort against the soldiers of Pizarro. Furthermore, its style and character seem to date it with the well-known megalithic structures of Cuzco and Ollantaytambo. This makes it seem all the more extraordinary that Salapunco could ever have been built as a defense against Ollantaytambo, unless it was built by folk who once occupied Cuzco and who later found a retreat in the canyons below here.
