Grosvenor Glacier and Mt. Salcantay
When we first visited Salapunco no megalithic remains had been reported as far down the valley as this. It never occurred to us that, in hunting for the remains of such comparatively recent structures as the Inca Manco had the force and time to build, we were to discover remains of a far more remote past. Yet we were soon to find ruins enough to explain why such a fortress as Salapunco might possibly have been built so as to defend Uilcapampa against Ollantaytambo and Cuzco and not those well-known Page 211Inca cities against the savages of the Amazon jungles.
Passing Salapunco, we skirted granite cliffs and precipices and entered a most interesting region, where we were surprised and charmed by the extent of the ancient terraces, their length and height, the presence of many Inca ruins, the beauty of the deep, narrow valleys, and the grandeur of the snow-clad mountains which towered above them. Across the river, near Qquente, on top of a series of terraces, we saw the extensive ruins of Patallacta (pata = height or terrace; llacta = town or city), an Inca town of great importance. It was not known to Raimondi or Paz Soldan, but is indicated on Wiener's map, although he does not appear to have visited it. We have been unable to find any reference to it in the chronicles. We spent several months here in 1915 excavating and determining the character of the ruins. In another volume I hope to tell more of the antiquities of this region. At present it must suffice to remark that our explorations near Patallacta disclosed no “white rock over a spring of water.” None of the place names in this vicinity fit in with the accounts of Uiticos. Their identity remains a puzzle, although the symmetry of the buildings, their architectural idiosyncrasies such as niches, stone roof-pegs, bar-holds, and eye-bonders, indicate an Inca origin. At what date these towns and villages flourished, who built them, why they were deserted, we do not yet know; and the Indians who live hereabouts are ignorant, or silent, as to their history.
At Torontoy, the end of the cultivated temperate Page 212valley, we found another group of interesting ruins, possibly once the residence of an Inca chief. In a cave near by we secured some mummies. The ancient wrappings had been consumed by the natives in an effort to smoke out the vampire bats that lived in the cave. On the opposite side of the river are extensive terraces and above them, on a hilltop, other ruins first visited by Messrs. Tucker and Hendriksen in 1911. One of their Indian bearers, attempting to ford the rapids here with a large surveying instrument, was carried off his feet, swept away by the strong current, and drowned before help could reach him.
Near Torontoy is a densely wooded valley called the Pampa Ccahua. In 1915 rumors of Andean or “spectacled” bears having been seen here and of damage having been done by them to some of the higher crops, led us to go and investigate. We found no bears, but at an elevation of 12,000 feet were some very old trees, heavily covered with flowering moss not hitherto known to science. Above them I was so fortunate as to find a wild potato plant, the source from which the early Peruvians first developed many varieties of what we incorrectly call the Irish potato. The tubers were as large as peas.
Mr. Heller found here a strange little cousin of the kangaroo, a near relative of the cœnolestes. It turned out to be new to science. To find a new genus of mammalian quadrupeds was an event which delighted Mr. Heller far more than shooting a dozen bears.[3] Page 213
Torontoy is at the beginning of the Grand Canyon of the Urubamba, and such a canyon! The river “road” runs recklessly up and down rock stairways, blasts its way beneath overhanging precipices, spans chasms on frail bridges propped on rustic brackets against granite cliffs. Under dense forests, wherever the encroaching precipices permitted it, the land between them and the river was once terraced and cultivated. We found ourselves unexpectedly in a veritable wonderland. Emotions came thick and fast. We marveled at the exquisite pains with which the ancient folk had rescued incredibly narrow strips of arable land from the tumbling rapids. How could they ever have managed to build a retaining wall of heavy stones along the very edge of the dangerous river, which it is death to attempt to cross! On one sightly bend near a foaming waterfall some Inca chief built a temple, whose walls tantalize the traveler. He must pass by within pistol shot of the interesting ruins, unable to ford the intervening rapids. High up on the side of the canyon, five thousand feet above this temple, are the ruins of Corihuayrachina (kori = “gold”; huayara = “wind”; huayrachina = “a threshing-floor where winnowing takes place.” Possibly this was an ancient gold mine of the Incas. Half a mile above us on another steep slope, some modern pioneer had recently cleared the jungle from a fine series of ancient artificial terraces.
Page 214On the afternoon of July 23d we reached a hut called “La Maquina,” where travelers frequently stop for the night. The name comes from the presence here of some large iron wheels, parts of a “machine” destined never to overcome the difficulties of being transported all the way to a sugar estate in the lower valley, and years ago left here to rust in the jungle. There was little fodder, and there was no good place for us to pitch our camp, so we pushed on over the very difficult road, which had been carved out of the face of a great granite cliff. Part of the cliff had slid off into the river and the breach thus made in the road had been repaired by means of a frail-looking rustic bridge built on a bracket composed of rough logs, branches, and reeds, tied together and surmounted by a few inches of earth and pebbles to make it seem sufficiently safe to the cautious cargo mules who picked their way gingerly across it. No wonder “the machine” rested where it did and gave its name to that part of the valley.
Dusk falls early in this deep canyon, the sides of which are considerably over a mile in height. It was almost dark when we passed a little sandy plain two or three acres in extent, which in this land of steep mountains is called a pampa. Were the dwellers on the pampas of Argentina—where a railroad can go for 250 miles in a straight line, except for the curvature of the earth—to see this little bit of flood-plain called Mandor Pampa, they would think some one had been joking or else grossly misusing a word which means to them illimitable space with not a Page 215hill in sight. However, to the ancient dwellers in this valley, where level land was so scarce that it was worth while to build high stone-faced terraces so as to enable two rows of corn to grow where none grew before, any little natural breathing space in the bottom of the canyon is called a pampa.
