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the time of the visit of the American archæologist, E. G. Squier, who spent some time here, and whose account of the ruins in his book on Peru is one of the most complete and satisfactory that we possess. Unfortunately, his drawings give an erroneous impression of the size of many of the monuments which are not so large as he has represented them.
Squier saw no subterranean vaults or passages, but we were more fortunate, for only a short time previous to our visit, thanks to the activity of Mr. John Pierce Hope of La Paz, who has taken a great interest in the work of exploration, a small vault was discovered and we were able to enter and examine it. It is about six feet square and the same in depth and is made of beautifully cut stones, accurately fitted together. Nothing of value was found in the vault and it is probably one of those to which Von Tschudi, who was here before Squier’s visit, refers. The winds that blow over these sandy plains will soon fill the vault and cover it up again and leave it to be rediscovered by some future traveller.
The largest monolithic doorway, now broken, is covered with figures not unlike some of the Central American monuments. It is very different from anything else here or in Cuzco. The story goes, that when the Spaniards first arrived, it was lying on its side, and there appears to be no record to show who raised it nor when the crack developed which led finally to the door breaking into two parts. The southern and larger half has lost its balance and will soon be lying on the ground. By a curious coincidence,Mr. Barbour, who made a careful photograph of the carvings on this doorway, afterwards secured from a grave near Pachacamac in the vicinity of Lima, a textile that was decorated with a similar pattern.
After examining the ruins, we spent an hour or more in the village itself where we were struck by the great number of finely cut stones inserted into the walls of the huts and used as paving in the streets. The church on the plaza is built entirely of blocks brought from the ruins. It has a fence or wall in front composed of a row of arches that reminded me of Potosí and Bartolo. The exterior of the church gives no evidence of the extraordinary magnificence within, which is quite in keeping with the ancient importance of this little village. Here we found religious paintings, some of them very good, elaborate gilded carvings, and an altar built of pure silver, beautifully worked.
La Paz has two or three remarkable collections of antiquities which consist largely of material brought from Tiahuanaco. Perhaps the best is in the National Museum, which owes its existence to the enlightened patriotism of Sr. Don Manuel Vicente Ballivian, a descendant of one of the most distinguished Bolivian families, and the leading antiquarian in the republic.
Of the ancient Tiahuanaco, there is comparatively little left now. Not only did the Spaniards use cartloads of it in building the churches of La Paz and Guaqui, but the modern Guaqui-to-La Paz railroad has taken away within the past ten years more thanfive hundred trainloads of stone for building its bridges and warehouses. From the point of view of the railroad manager, whose business it is to secure lasting results with the greatest possible economy, it must have seemed a most fortunate circumstance that within a few rods of his tracks there should be such a quantity of nicely cut stone, and “a lot of old stone walls,” all ready to use!O tempora! O mores!
Weleft La Paz on January 26, 1909, at 8.30A.M.When we reached Guaqui we found that our steamer was to be the old Yavarí that we had before. She was late in arriving from Puno; the afternoon was spent in unloading her cargo; and we did not sail until eight o’clock that evening.
The night was wet and chilly. Thunder-storms and squalls made the lake quite rough and we had the usual discomforts. The storm and the late start kept us from reaching Puno before 11A.M.The regular train had gone, but a special was made up for the convenience of the Arequipa passengers and we reached Juliaca at one o’clock. Here I bade the last of thedelegadosfarewell and asked for the train for Cuzco. “It had left several hours before and the next train was due to leave day after to-morrow!”
Thanks to the courtesy of the railway officials, however, a special train, consisting of half a dozen freight cars and a small passenger coach, was made up to take me as far as Checcacupe.
The coach which had been put at my disposal was old and very small, about the size of an ancient bob-tailed horse-car. Moreover, it was already occupied by a dozen native passengers who, like myself, had missed the regular train. As usual,they had no end of bags, bundles, and boxes. There was hardly room to squeeze inside the door. Undoubtedly they had better right on the train than I did, for they had paid their fares while I was riding on a pass. So I relinquished any claim to the coach and took the fireman’s seat in the locomotive, which afforded me a better opportunity of seeing the country.
We pulled out of Juliaca shortly after two o’clock and rattled along over the plains north of Titicaca. Here I saw for the first time llamas tied to stakes. Of all the thousands of llamas seen in Bolivia, I do not remember one that was tied. But I soon found that the practice is customary in and around Cuzco.
The inquisitive Indians who gathered at the stations to stare at our train while the engine was getting a drink of water were mild-mannered Quichuas. Puno is the northern limit of the Aymarás. The Quichua women here wore broad-brimmed black hats covered with velvet and ornamented with tinsel.
We did not reach Ayavari until six o’clock and it was dark before we approached the upper part of the valley of the Pucará River and began to climb up over the Vilcanota mountains. The night air was exceedingly cold, but fortunately, by this time, most of the native passengers had left the train and I was able to get a seat in the coach.
The highest station on the road, La Raya, is 14,150 feet above sea level. From here, there is a rapid descent of 2500 feet to Sicuani which was for many years the northern terminal of the railroad.Here, in search of supper, I stumbled through the dark streets with the train-crew to a filthy little Indianchicheriawhere a half-drunken brigand and his besotted spouse were persuaded to give us hot tea, beer, and stale bread. The conductor of the train said I would have to spend the night at Sicuani as he did not propose to go any further in the dark. Unfortunately for him, orders came directing him to proceed at once twenty-five miles further to Checcacupe in order that I might catch the north-bound morning train. The engineer declared that it was a dreadfully risky run from Sicuani to Checcacupe and that we would probably never reach our destination at all. But I was too tired and sleepy to care very much, and as soon as I got back into my little bobtailed car, pulled out my sleeping bag, and promptly forgot all about the train and the danger of falling into the Vilcanota River. The next thing I knew the Checcacupe station agent was flashing his lantern in my face and telling me to lie still as this was much the best place for me at this time of night (1A.M.), and I should not be disturbed until morning. I thanked him and dropped off to sleep again, dimly conscious that some kind of an animal was scratching about on the floor of the little car among my dunnage bags. When I woke up, aroused by the shouts of the train-men who were making up the train for Cuzco, I found that my visitor was a little seven-year-old Quichua street-Arab who could speak no Spanish, but who said as plainly as possible that he would be my slave for ever after and desired to travel in my company.I gave him part of my breakfast and thought little more about it, especially as Mr. Clarence Hay, who had kindly agreed to accompany me overland from Cuzco to Lima, met me here. Mr. Smith had gone back to New Haven to pursue his studies.
Mr. Hay and I were soon installed on the train for Cuzco. We were already well on our way when the polite Peruvian conductor smilingly informed us that there was a boy in the second-class car who insisted he belonged to me. It was too late to put the little fellow off, so I decided to be responsible for him; but he was a foxy little rascal, slipped out of the train at some station before we reached Cuzco, and disappeared. Children mature early in the Andes.
At the time of our visit, the Cuzco railroad had only just been completed. The track runs along the steep side of a valley which has an embarrassing habit of sending down landslides quite unexpectedly, so the journey was a bit slow and uncertain. The natives are fond of exaggerating its irregularities, and said it would take several days, but we were to reach Cuzco on time, notwithstanding all their dismal forebodings.
The scenery was very pretty. The Vilcanota valley rapidly narrows as it descends, and the river becomes a roaring torrent. The climate is delightful and has been likened to that of Italy. The soil is extremely fertile and produces a remarkable variety of crops.
The road follows the west bank of the Vilcanota until it is met by the Huatanay River. Here it turnsabruptly to the left and enters the lovely region that was once the very heart of the Inca Empire. The valley of the Huatanay is still densely populated, as it always has been. In quick succession the train passed the large Indian cities of Oropeza, San Geronimo, and San Sebastian. Suddenly we stopped in the fields and took on a group of laughing Peruvian sports who had waved a piece of red flannel to save themselves the trouble of going to the nearest railway station. One of the joys of this railroad is that everybody that is anybody flags the train whenever he pleases. The habit interferes somewhat with the time-tables, but no one cares (except the railroad people), and it gives an individual a great sense of his own importance to make a train stop while he climbs on board. A few minutes later we reached the temporary Cuzco station, a group of small, corrugated-iron buildings which stand in a plain a quarter of a mile south of the city.
The most agreeable approach is by way of the Alameda, an ill-kept avenue with a double row of alder trees, on the west bank of the Rio Huatanay. From it we had a fine view of the convent of Santo Domingo, the ancient Temple of the Sun, across the ravine to the east. On the west of the Alameda is the new rifle range of the local shooting club. The avenue itself leads into one of the principal streets of the best residence quarter, where Spanish houses have almost completely obliterated all traces of Inca occupation. As soon as we reached the centre of the city, long walls of beautifully cut stone, laid without cement, and fitted together with the
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patience of expert stone-cutters, assured us that this was verily the Cuzco of Pizarro, Garcilasso de la Vega, and the Spanish chroniclers. The one distinctive feature that separates Cuzco from all other cities in America is the prevalence of these long, dark, sombre walls. When you look at a building from a distance, it seems to be an ordinary two-story Spanish house with a red-tiled roof, wooden balconies, and white-washed adobe walls. As you come a little closer, it strikes you that the whitewash has been worn off the lower part of the walls, but when you come closer still, you find that this portion consists of unpainted Inca stone-work, still fresh and attractive.
The most striking wall in Cuzco is that of the palace said to have belonged to the Inca Rocca, which is composed of very large irregular boulders. They are of all sizes and shapes, some with as many as a dozen angles, but all fitting perfectly. The stones used in most of the ancient palaces and temples are more nearly rectangular. The corner-stones of buildings are frequently rounded off, but there are almost no circular walls in Cuzco. The principal exception to this is in the Dominican Monastery, once the temple of the Sun, where the end of one of the buildings is rounded like the chancel of a church. This is, perhaps, the finest bit of stone-cutting in Cuzco, and is shown off by the Dominican Fathers with great zest. E. G. Squier, who lived for some time in the convent and made a minute examination of these walls, found that the sides of contact of each stone are true radii of a doublecircle, and that the line of general inclination of the wall is perfect in every block.
In some of the walls, the outer surfaces of the stones are perfectly flat, but in general, they are slightly convex. The blocks vary in length from a few inches to several feet, although it is very rare to find any more than five feet long. All are laid with remarkable precision and at first sight appear to be absolutely rectangular. On closer examination, you find that there is scarcely an absolute right angle in the whole wall. Each block is slightly irregular, but this irregularity matches so exactly with that of the next that there is no space for a needle to enter. The result of such careful workmanship, combined with the use of dark-colored stone, is to produce a dignity and solidity that is very impressive.
The characteristics of Inca architecture are in part the same as those of the older Egyptian ruins: individual blocks of great size; doors narrower at the top than at the bottom, and walls with a base markedly wider than the apex so that the sloping front is a distinct feature. Probably the same methods which the Egyptians evolved in order to put in position large monoliths too heavy to be lifted by hand, were employed by the Incas. They seem to have thought nothing of fitting carefully into place, on top of a wall fifteen feet high, boulders weighing several tons.
The followers of Pizarro who divided Cuzco among themselves, built their homes on the massive walls of the Inca palaces. Sometimes they left theInca wall standing to a height of six or seven feet. In other instances it still rises to fifteen or twenty feet.
It is unfortunate that the Incas did not use cement. In that case the Spaniards would have found it much more difficult to have destroyed the ancient palaces, and more would have been left for the delectation of students and travellers to-day. Under the circumstances, it was a simple matter for the faithful disciples of the church to raise temples and towers of great beauty by the simple process of tearing down Inca palaces and using the material according to the ideas of ecclesiastical architecture which they had brought with them from Spain.
Many travellers have studied Cuzco but none with so great care as Mr. Squier, in whose “Peru” may be found many drawings and plans of the rooms.
Thirty years ago, when he was here, there was no inn, and he was obliged to depend on the kindness of the local officials and the hospitality of the monasteries. But there is now a commodious Hotel Comercio where reasonably good meals and decent bedrooms enabled us to be very comfortable. Of course, the “plumbing” was conspicuous by its absence, and there was by no means so much luxury as at the Hotel Marone in Arequipa. However, even the Incas were not remarkably cleanly and it is as well not to have too many of the conveniences of the twentieth century when living in a metropolis of the fifteenth.
Cuzco has long been notorious as one of the dirtiest cities in America; and it justifies its reputation. The stone paving of the streets is extremely rough and unspeakably filthy. To add to the slime, the sewers are open conduits running through the middle of the narrow streets. In the wet season, they are kept flushed by heavy downpours. In the dry season, they are unspeakable.
One has to be very careful where one steps while investigating the ancient structures, for the present inhabitants are no more cleanly or sanitary in their habits than their predecessors. It is pathetic to see the filth and squalor that surround the walls of the magnificent old edifices.
Although we rarely forgot to pick our way carefully through the streets, the practice soon became a habit and did not interfere with the enjoyment of the brilliant colors affected by the Quichuas. Their home-made ponchos and shawls, fastened with one pin instead of two as in Potosí, are woven of native wool and cotton. Yet though the material may be as rare and uncommon as real alpaca, vicuña, or llama wool, the brilliant hues are unmistakably aniline. In fact, in the market-place of almost every city in the Andes, one is pretty sure to find a native peddler whose specialty is the sale of German dyes.
The most striking part of the Cuzco Quichua costume is the pancake hat. It is reversible, being made of a straw disc with a cloth-covered hole in the centre. On one side, for rainy weather, the disc is lined with coarse red flannel or some other worstedstuff, but the dry weather side is elaborately covered with tinsel on black velvet. Likewise, the loose, baggy cloth that covers the opening in the centre is lined with velveteen on the fair-weather side and coarse woolen stuff for rain. The men’s hats are slightly larger than the women’s, but otherwise the fashion seems to be alike for both sexes.
Opposite our hotel was the church and convent of La Merced. Its cloisters are noted for their fine old paintings, their elaborately carved stone columns and arches. Its gardens are filled with rare flowers and shrubs. In the crypt beneath the altar, Pizarro’s partner, Almagro, and his son are supposed to have been buried. The obliging Brother who showed us the monastery had never heard of any such tradition. “Quien sabe?” and a shrug of the shoulders was all he would reply.
Not far from La Merced is the warehouse of Sr. Lomellini, Cuzco’s leading merchant, an Italian gentleman who, while building up an extensive business, has devoted himself to a study of the Inca civilization. He has brought himself in as close touch with it as possible; the very entrance to his warehouse is a fine old Inca doorway, while his home, half way up the side of Sacsahuaman, was once the site of the palace of Manco Capac, the first famous Inca. He showed me with a sad smile a few elaborately carved bronze figures or idols that looked very much as though they had been buried for centuries in the mould of a royal mausoleum, but instead were “made in Germany.” Later I found similar specimens in Lima, where one “antiquarian” had the effrontery to have three of identically the same pattern, differing only in color, exposed for sale in the same showcase.
West of Sr. Lomellini’s warehouse is the monastery and plaza of San Francisco. The plaza is chiefly interesting for the Beggars Fair which is held here every Saturday evening. There are practically no pawn shops in Cuzco, but this fair takes their place. We were told it was an excellent opportunity to obtain bargains. It may be so for the natives, but as we were branded at once as “foreigners who had plenty of money,” the prices of everything were put up to the highest possible notch and kept there. I was surprised at the amount of old rubbish, rusty nails, bits of broken pottery, and worn-out second-hand clothing, hundreds of things that one rarely sees exposed for sale in a pawn shop, and many on which no one but a junk dealer would advance a penny. As a picturesque spectacle, however, the Fair was most attractive. The plaza was lit up by smoking torches and crowded with a swarm of bargain hunters who jostled each other noisily up and down the long lines of traders seated on the ground behind their wares.
Nearly all the fairs in the Andes are held on Sunday mornings. The market-places are usually entirely deserted in the evening. I suppose in this fair it would not do to expose cast-off household treasures to the full light of day. Not only is the chance of making a sale much greater when the article can only be seen by torch-light, but thenewly-poor individual, who is forced to bring hither his household goods, may more easily avoid the scrutiny of his newly-rich neighbors.
Looming up in the darkness, above the torches, the tall tower of the Franciscan church added a touch of solemnity to the scene. One afternoon we had an opportunity to visit the monastery and examine the beautiful wood-carvings in the choir. Like all the Franciscan establishments that we visited, the rule of the order is strictly enforced, the gardens are well kept, and although one can easily see that the Order has seen better days, there is little to criticise.
The Great Plaza of Cuzco, once much larger than it is now, and the scene of many Inca carnivals, is still very attractive. On its east side stands the massive cathedral and its chapels, said to have been built entirely of stones taken from Inca palaces near by.
On the south are the beautifully carved stone towers of what was formerly the Church of the Jesuits. Flanking these are picturesque two-story buildings with red-tiled roofs and overhanging wooden balconies supported by a row of columns and arches. In the arcades numerous small tradesmen display their wares. On the west and north of the plaza are more two-story houses with arcades filled with interesting little booths. Here, and on the stones of the Plaza, are cloth merchants who have gathered their wares from England and the Continent, North and South America; venders of pottery and Quichua toys, made in the neighborhood;market gardeners with corn and potatoes; and peddlers of every variety of article imaginable; some protected from the rain by cloth shelters that look as though they had been taken from the top of a prairie schooner in the “days of ’49”; others squatting on the rough pavement, their wares spread out on the skins of sheep or llamas, exposed to wind and weather.
The Plaza has had a varied history. Perhaps its most tragic day was when it witnessed the death of Tupac Amaru. It was on the morning of the 18th of May, 1781, that the Inca was brought forth to his execution from the old Jesuit church. In order to prevent a repetition of Indian uprisings, such as he had started, the Spanish authorities felt it necessary to practice the most diabolical cruelties on both him and his wife. She was placed on a lofty scaffold, her tongue was cut out, and an attempt was made to garrote her with an iron screw. When it was found that her neck was so small that she could not be strangled in this manner, the executioners placed a lasso around her neck and pulled and hauled until she was dead. After witnessing the death of his wife, the Inca was taken into the centre of the square, his tongue was cut out, and his body was drawn and quartered by four horses.
The immediate effect of his revolution was to cause laws to be promulgated prohibiting the use of the native language, ordering the Indians to give up their national customs and to destroy all their musical instruments. Fortunately, these laws were not carried out. In fact, the Quichua tongue is
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still used to a large extent. It was supposed by Sir Clements Markham and other travellers fifty years ago that owing to the constantly increasing corruption of the ancient dialect and the introduction of Spanish modes of expression, the language of the Incas would soon be a thing of the past. We found, on the contrary, that nine out of ten Indians, even those who occupied stalls in the market-place of the largest cities, either could not or would not converse in Spanish. There was usually an Indian in the crowd who was willing to act as an interpreter, but the great majority of the people seem to have no acquaintance with Spanish. Furthermore, we found that the Spanish-speaking residents all recognize the necessity of learning Quichua.
The Prefect of Cuzco put his orderly at our disposal for the entire time of our stay. He proved to be most useful and agreeable. A word from him opened to us the doors of monasteries and churches, and his knowledge of prices enabled us to get examples of Quichua handiwork without being obliged to pay much more than the regular price. In our shopping excursions whenever we began to accumulate more Indian toys and trinkets than we could easily carry in our pockets, the orderly would summon the next police officer and tell him to act as our porter. It was rather hard to keep from laughing. Imagine a Broadway policeman toddling up Murray Hill carrying bundles for a foreign delegate to a Scientific Congress!
After my experience in the La Paz jail, I was curious to see what that of Cuzco might be like.Our obliging cicerone willingly consented to show all there was to be seen. The jail consists of an old-fashioned Spanish dwelling built around a large courtyard. Into this inclosure all classes of prisoners are put without any regard as to whether they are awaiting trial or condemned to life imprisonment. There did not seem to be any cells, and the forty or fifty prisoners were enjoying themselves after the fashion of the inmates of English prisons of the eighteenth century. The Government’s provision for food does not include any luxuries, but it is possible for the prisoners to earn money and purchase what they need. So far as we could see, there was no forced labor, and the men were thrown entirely on their own resources. Several were busily working at hand-looms making ponchos which they were glad enough to sell. Others had cups carved out of horns. One unfortunate, who happened to be asleep at the time of our visit, sent to the hotel a gaudily painted trinket with a note saying that he hoped we would purchase it for a good price, as he was much in need of funds. On the whole, although the building was old, dilapidated, and quite inadequate, according to our ideas, the prisoners seemed to be having a good time, and there was no evidence of cruelty. The Quichuas are such a mild, inoffensive folk that the jailers do not have the same incentive to punish them severely as do those in La Paz who have to deal with the cantankerous Aymarás.
On the south side of the historic plaza, next door to the Jesuit Church, is the University of Cuzco,rather squalid by comparison with the church, but containing some fine stone cloisters. It was founded in 1598, thirty-eight years before Harvard College. I had a very pleasant call on its distinguished Rector, a well-read lawyer. The principal work of the University at present consists of training men for the law. According to the annual report of the Rector, during the year 1907 the University conferred the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy and Letters on four candidates, that of Bachelor of Jurisprudence on two, Bachelor of Political Science on two, and Doctor of Jurisprudence on four. There are eighteen instructors. They receive salaries of $35 a month, and give, on the average, one hundred and thirty-five lectures a year. The Faculty of Letters has a three-year course and thirty-three students. The Faculty of Jurisprudence, a five-year course and forty-six students. The Faculty of Political Science, a three-year course and twenty-four students. The Section of Natural Science, a three-year course and nine students. The total income for the year is in the neighborhood of $10,000. Of this the Government gives $5500, and the rest is made up largely of students’ fees. One source of revenue for 1907 was $40 in fines levied on the members of the Faculty, “for failing to attend their classes and for other acts”!
The question of the education of South American youth is an interesting one. The opinion of the majority of British residents has been well expressed by an English mining engineer who has recently published a book on Peru. He says: “The Spanish-Americanyouth educated in the United States, is not a happy product. London is the real home for the cosmopolitan refinement suited to their character”!
South American institutions of learning are built on such different lines from those in the United States that it seems to me extremely unlikely that a large number of students from South America will ever come to American universities. Ought we to do anything to encourage more to come? Spanish-Americans now studying in the States are devoting their attention chiefly to engineering and dentistry. Very few South Americans are likely to care for our academic or collegiate course or anything corresponding to it. It does not fit in at all with their customary scheme of education. To the average South American, a “college” means a kind of high school from which a student graduates to enter at once upon his professional studies. At first glance it looks like the familiar German idea of a gymnasium course followed immediately by professional studies in the university. But it would be unfair both to the gymnasium and thecolegioto place their curriculum in parallel columns.
A large number of physicians in South America claim to have studied in Paris. The dentists usually advertise the fact that they were educated in Philadelphia or New York. Lawyers rarely ever receive any special training outside of the local university. On the other hand, while a large percentage of the native civil engineers are trained in the local engineering schools, a very considerable number havestudied abroad. It is a generally recognized fact in South America, outside of Argentina and Chile, that the best engineers are Americans.
On the whole I am not disposed to agree with those who disparage American training for Latin-American youth. I am inclined to believe that it increases their efficiency more than the “cosmopolitan refinement” of London.
Todefend Cuzco from attack by enemies coming from the north, the Incas built a great fortress on a hill overlooking the city. To reach it, the easiest way is to take a mule and ride through Cuzco’s narrow streets, up the ravine to the ancient gateway in the east side of the hill. At first sight it might seem ridiculous not to walk, as the fortress in only 600 feet above the city. But Cuzco has an elevation of 11,500 feet, and hill-climbing at this altitude is best done on mule-back.
The Prefect kindly supplied us mules and an escort. On our way we passed the church of Los Nazarenes whose superstructure is laid on ancient walls that are noteworthy because of the many serpents that are carved in relief on the stones. Among the crude pottery dishes that I bought in the streets of La Paz was one decorated with these same little wriggling serpents.
Beyond Los Nazarenes the street narrowed until presently it became simply a path in a rocky gorge. As we entered the gorge there was at first little to be seen. Then in its narrowest and most easily defended part we came suddenly upon a pile of massive rocks, roughly hewn. Huge blocks of stone, five or six feet high, slightly rounded off and accurately fitted together, are here built into a gateway twelve feet high that opens into a passage defended by a wall of large boulders. This leads to the hilltop. On the side toward the city, the slope is nearly precipitous, but the approach was made even more difficult near the summit by a series of three terraces each twelve or fourteen feet high. There is nothing remarkable about the summit except the beautiful view of Cuzco which one gets from here.
The immediate front of the hill just below the upper terraces is extremely steep. About half-way down to the city the spur broadens and flattens out. It was there the first Inca built his palace. On the lower continuation of this spur, between two rivulets, the palaces and temples of the later Incas were built.
It is the north side of Sacsahuaman, the side away from Cuzco, that is the chief object of interest. Here the slope is very gentle and it was necessary to fortify the place artificially. Furthermore, it was on this side that attacks might be expected, not only from the savages of the Amazonian wilds, but also from the hostile tribes of the Andean plateau, including the Caras of Ecuador. Accordingly, here the Incas exerted their utmost skill in the construction of a powerful line of defence.
The fortifications extend for a third of a mile entirely across the back of the hill, and are flanked by steep valleys at each end. They consist of three lines of zigzag terraces, one above another, each faced with walls of colossal boulders, some of them twelve feet in diameter. The lower terrace has anaverage height of about twenty-five feet; the middle and upper ones are some six feet less. There are few sights in the world more impressive than these Cyclopean walls.
The Incas were accustomed to build great terraces and I have seen them in many places in Peru. In every other case, however, the terrace walls are straight, or nearly so. Here, although the walls are parallel, they are also zigzag and consist for the entire length of salients and reëntrant angles. The apex of each salient in the lower wall is usually formed by a conspicuously large block, twenty-five feet high and ten or twelve feet thick.
The size and strength of the walls and the employment of salients which enabled the defenders to cover the entire face of the fortification with a flanking fire, a device unknown even to the European Crusaders, made the Inca fortress practically impregnable. It was certainly quite secure from the assaults of any Indian assailants, armed only with such primitive weapons as bows and arrows, slings and spears.
Next to the colossal size of the stones which the builders used for the lower wall, the most impressive thing is the care they took to fit the stones together without cement, so that they should stand for ages.
It is said that most of the smaller stones have been carried off for building purposes in the city. Be this as it may, what remains is the most impressive spectacle of man’s handiwork that I have ever seen in America. Photographs absolutely fail to
Image unavailable: A SECTION OF THE LOWER TERRACE, SACSAHUAMANA SECTION OF THE LOWER TERRACE, SACSAHUAMAN
do it justice, for at best they show only a few boulders, a small part of one of the walls. If taken far enough away to show the whole fort, the eye loses all sense of the great size of the stone units owing to the fact that they are so much larger than any stones to which it is accustomed.
The Inca author, Garcilasso de la Vega, wrote, in the sixteenth century, as follows of Sacsahuaman: “This was the greatest and most superb of the edifices that the Incas raised to demonstrate their majesty and power. Its greatness is incredible to those who have not seen it.... It passes the power of imagination to conceive how so many and so great stones could be so accurately fitted together as scarcely to admit the insertion of the point of a knife between them. And all of this is the more wonderful as they had no squares or levels to place on the stones and ascertain if they would fit together. How often must they have taken up and put down the stones to ascertain if the joints were perfect! Nor had they cranes, or pulleys, or other machinery whatever.... But what is most marvellous of the edifice is the incredible size of the stones, and the astonishing labor of bringing them together and placing them.” Compare this with what a recent writer on the Caroline Islands says, in describing the colossal stone ruins on the Island of Lele near Kusaie: “Looking at their solid outlines, seamed and furrowed with the rain and sun of untold generations, one cannot help marvelling at the ingenuity and skill of these primitive engineers, in moving, lifting, and poising such huge andunwieldy masses of rock into their present position, where these mighty structures, shadowed by great forest trees, stand defying Time’s changing seasons and the fury of tropic elements.”
Also this from Captain Cook’s “Voyages”: “The platforms are faced with hewn stones of a very large size. They used no sort of cement, yet the joints are exceedingly close and the stones mortised and tenoned one into another in a very artful manner and the side walls were not perpendicular but sloping a little inwards.” This is an accurate description of Sacsahuaman. Yet Captain Cook never came to the highlands of Peru and probably never even saw a picture of these walls. In this paragraph he is describing the stone ruins on Easter Island.[3]
The resemblances between the ruins of upper Peru and those of Easter Island and the Caroline Islands offer a remarkably interesting field for ethnological speculation. Unfortunately as yet they have told us but little of the builders of Sacsahuaman.
It is generally conceded that the fortress was commenced in the reign of the Inca Viracocha, two hundred years before the Spanish Conquest. Whether this tradition is well founded, it is difficult to say. It may be due to the fact that the name “Viracocha,” as Sir Clements Markham points out,was simply the term applied to a powerful character, a term of admiration, equivalent to the word “gentleman” in English.
Whoever built it, the task was certainly heroic. Many of the stones were undoubtedly quarried near by. As for methods of transportation, we know that the Incas understood the manufacture of strong cables, for they built suspension bridges across many of the chasms of central Peru. By the aid of these cables and of wooden rollers, it would have been entirely possible to have dragged very large stones for a considerable distance, up inclined planes. Although they had no draft animals, llamas being only accustomed to carrying, they had thousands of patient Quichuas at their disposal, whose combined efforts, extended over long lines of cables, would have been amply sufficient to move even the largest of these great blocks. Nevertheless, when one considers the difficulty of fitting together two irregular boulders, both of them weighing eight or ten tons, one’s admiration for the skill of these old builders knows no bounds.
The modern Peruvians are very fond of speculating as to the method which the Incas employed to make their stones fit so perfectly. One of the favorite stories is that the Incas knew of a plant whose juices rendered the surface of a block so soft that the marvellous fitting was accomplished by rubbing the stones together for a few moments with this magical plant juice!
Discussion and speculation will undoubtedly continue indefinitely, yet one can come to at least twoconclusions: the Incas had an unlimited amount of labor at their disposal, and time was no object.
Furthermore, they were apparently very fond of playing the game of stone-cutting. From the fortress we rode across the little grassy plain that separates the terraces from the rocks of Rodadero hill. On its summit, terraces have been hewn out of the solid rock, and it is said that the Incas were fond of sitting here to watch their patient workmen engaged in putting together the magnificent walls of Sacsahuaman. On the north side of the hill, the rock has been worn into grooves by the water and polished by the ponchos of generations of pleasure-seekers who have used this curious formation as a “toboggan slide.” Our guides assured us that the habit of coasting down this hill on ponchos was started by the Incas. At all events, it is still a favorite Sunday amusement.
In the rolling country north of the Rodadero are numbers of rocks and ledges that have been carved into fantastic seats, nooks, and crannies by a people who seem to have taken a keen delight in stone-carving for its own sake. It is difficult to explain in any other way the maze of niches and shelves, seats and pedestals that are scattered about on every hand. Writers are accustomed to label as “Inca thrones” every stone seat they find in the mountains of Peru. But here the ledges are carved so irregularly as almost to bewilder the imagination.
A mile away to the northeast we discovered the dim outlines of a large amphitheatre where the Incas may have gathered on the grassy slopes to
Image unavailable: AN INCA VASE FROM CUZCOAN INCA VASE FROM CUZCOARTICLES OF DRESS AND A DECORATED MULE HALTER FROM CUZCO
watch games and religious festivals. It offers an attractive field for digging, as it seems to have been entirely overlooked hitherto.
On our way back to the city we were invited to rest at Sr. Lomellini’s country house which is built in the gardens of Manco Capac, the first Inca. The entrance is through a gate in the wall of the ancient outer terrace. Near the house stands a section of the palace wall, thirty feet long and ten feet high, containing a recessed door and window. In the outer terrace the stones are of irregular shapes while in this wall they are practically rectangular. In his house, Sr. Lomellini has collected a number of extremely interesting specimens of the ceramic art of the Incas. The most striking are two very large vases resembling in shape and marking the small one figured here. This is only six inches high; those are nearly three feet. There are quite a number of imperfect specimens in the American Museum of Natural History.
After the gardener had given us a handful of roses, we left the precincts of the ancient Inca and clattered down the hill over the rough cobblestones to the picturesque sights—and distressing smells—of modern Cuzco.
Thereare several ways of going from Cuzco to Lima. The easiest and most frequented now is by rail to Mollendo and then by steamer to Callao, the seaport of Lima. Before the days of railroads the common route was by muleviaAyacucho, Pisco, and the Coast. Since the building of the Oroya railroad and more particularly since the extension of the line south to Huancayo, instead of going west to the coast from Ayacucho the overland traveller continues north to the Jauja valley until he meets the railway. It was this road that we proposed to take.
For centuries the overland trail from Cuzco to Huancayo and the north was the most celebrated highway in Peru. The Incas used it in their conquests and improved it. When Atahualpa fell into the clutches of Pizarro, the largest part of his golden ransom was brought over this road. After the death of the Inca, Pizarro in his march on Cuzco found this road most convenient for his little cavalcade. During the civil wars that followed the conquest this highway was repeatedly the scene of action. For three hundred years it was replete with historic incident. Finally, the road that had seen the beginnings of Spain’s conquest, was destined to see the