Searching for the Last Inca Capital
The events described in the preceding chapter happened, for the most
part, in Uiticos [6] and Uilcapampa, northwest of Ollantaytambo, about
one hundred miles away from the Cuzco palace of the Spanish viceroy,
in what Prescott calls "the remote fastnesses of the Andes." One looks
in vain for Uiticos on modern maps of Peru, although several of the
older maps give it. In 1625 "Viticos" is marked on de Laet's map of
Peru as a mountainous province northeast of Lima and three hundred
and fifty miles northwest of Vilcabamba! This error was copied by
some later cartographers, including Mercator, until about 1740,
when "Viticos" disappeared from all maps of Peru. The map makers
had learned that there was no such place in that vicinity. Its real
location was lost about three hundred years ago. A map published at
Nuremberg in 1599 gives "Pincos" in the "Andes" mountains, a small
range west of "Cusco." This does not seem to have been adopted by
other cartographers; although a Palls map of 1739 gives "Picos" in
about the same place. Nearly all the cartographers of the eighteenth
century who give "Viticos" supposed it to be the name of a tribe, e.g.,
"Los Viticos" or "Les Viticos."
------
FIGURE
Part of the Nuremberg Map of 1599, Showing Pincos and the Andes
Mountains
------
The largest official map of Peru, the work of that remarkable explorer,
Raimondi, who spent his life crossing and recrossing Peru, does not
contain the word Uiticos nor any of its numerous spellings, Viticos,
Vitcos, Pitcos, or Biticos. Incidentally, it may seem strange that
Uiticos could ever be written "Biticos." The Quichua language has
no sound of V. The early Spanish writers, however, wrote the capital
letter U exactly like a capital V. In official documents and letters
Uiticos became Viticos. The official readers, who had never heard
the word pronounced, naturally used the V sound instead of the U
sound. Both V and P easily become B. So Uiticos became Biticos and
Uilcapampa became Vilcabamba.
Raimondi's marvelous energy led him to penetrate to more out-of-the-way
Peruvian villages than any one had ever done before or is likely to do
again. He stopped at nothing in the way of natural obstacles. In 1865
he went deep into the heart of Uilcapampa; yet found no Uiticos. He
believed that the ruins of Choqquequirau represented the residence of
the last Incas. This view had been held by the French explorer, Count
de Sartiges, in 1834, who believed that Choqquequirau was abandoned
when Sayri Tupac, Manco's oldest son, went to live in Yucay. Raimondi's
view was also held by the leading Peruvian geographers, including
Paz Soldan in 1877, and by Prefect Nuñez and his friends in 1909, at
the time of my visit to Choqquequirau. [7] The only dissenter was the
learned Peruvian historian, Don Carlos Romero, who insisted that the
last Inca capital must be found elsewhere. He urged the importance
of searching for Uiticos in the valleys of the rivers now called
Vilcabamba and Urubamba. It was to be the work of the Yale Peruvian
Expedition of 1911 to collect the geographical evidence which would
meet the requirements of the chronicles and establish the whereabouts
of the long-lost Inca capital.
That there were undescribed and unidentified ruins to be found in the
Urubamba Valley was known to a few people in Cuzco, mostly wealthy
planters who had large estates in the province of Convencion. One
told us that he went to Santa Ana every year and was acquainted with
a muleteer who had told him of some interesting ruins near the San
Miguel bridge. Knowing the propensity of his countrymen to exaggerate,
however, he placed little confidence in the story and, shrugging his
shoulders, had crossed the bridge a score of times without taking
the trouble to look into the matter. Another, Señor Pancorbo, whose
plantation was in the Vilcabamba Valley, said that he had heard vague
rumors of ruins in the valley above his plantation, particularly
near Pucyura. If his story should prove to be correct, then it was
likely that this might be the very Puquiura where Friar Marcos had
established the first church in the "province of Uilcapampa." But
that was "near" Uiticos and near a village called Chuquipalpa, where
should be found the ruins of a Temple of the Sun, and in these ruins
a "white rock over a spring of water." Yet neither these friendly
planters nor the friends among whom they inquired had ever heard of
Uiticos or a place called Chuquipalpa, or of such an interesting rock;
nor had they themselves seen the ruins of which they had heard.
One of Señor Lomellini's friends, a talkative old fellow who
had spent a large part of his life in prospecting for mines in
the department of Cuzco, said that he had seen ruins "finer than
Choqquequirau" at a place called Huayna Picchu; but he had never been
to Choqquequirau. Those who knew him best shrugged their shoulders
and did not seem to place much confidence in his word. Too often he
had been over-enthusiastic about mines which did not "pan out." Yet
his report resembled that of Charles Wiener, a French explorer,
who, about 1875, in the course of his wanderings in the Andes,
visited Ollantaytambo. While there he was told that there were fine
ruins down the Urubamba Valley at a place called "Huaina-Picchu or
Matcho-Picchu." He decided to go down the valley and look for these
ruins. According to his text he crossed the Pass of Panticalla,
descended the Lucumayo River to the bridge of Choqquechacca, and
visited the lower Urubamba, returning by the same route. He published
a detailed map of the valley. To one of its peaks he gives the name
"Huaynapicchu, ele. 1815 m." and to another "Matchopicchu, ele. 1720
m." His interest in Inca ruins was very keen. He devotes pages to
Ollantaytambo. He failed to reach Machu Picchu or to find any ruins
of importance in the Urubamba or Vilcabamba valleys. Could we hope
to be any more successful? Would the rumors that had reached us "pan
out" as badly as those to which Wiener had listened so eagerly? Since
his day, to be sure, the Peruvian Government had actually finished
a road which led past Machu Picchu. On the other hand, a Harvard
Anthropological Expedition, under the leadership of Dr. William
C. Farrabee, had recently been over this road without reporting
any ruins of importance. They were looking for savages and not
ruins. Nevertheless, if Machu Picchu was "finer than Choqquequirau"
why had no one pointed it out to them?
------
FIGURE
Peruvian Expedition of 1915
------
To most of our friends in Cuzco the idea that there could be anything
finer than Choqquequirau seemed, absurd. They regarded that "cradle
of gold" as "the most remarkable archeological discovery of recent
times." They assured us there was nothing half so good. They even
assumed that we were secretly planning to return thither to dig
for buried treasure! Denials were of no avail. To a people whose
ancestors made fortunes out of lucky "strikes," and who themselves
have been brought up on stories of enormous wealth still remaining
to be discovered by some fortunate excavator, the question of
tesoro--treasure, wealth, riches--is an ever-present source of
conversation. Even the prefect of Cuzco was quite unable to conceive
of my doing anything for the love of discovery. He was convinced
that I should find great riches at Choqquequirau--and that I was
in receipt of a very large salary! He refused to believe that the
members of the Expedition received no more than their expenses. He
told me confidentially that Professor Foote would sell his collection
of insects for at least $10,000! Peruvians have not been accustomed to
see any one do scientific work except as he was paid by the government
or employed by a railroad or mining company. We have frequently found
our work misunderstood and regarded with suspicion, even by the Cuzco
Historical Society.
The valley of the Urubamba, or Uilcamayu, as it used to be called, may
be reached from Cuzco in several ways. The usual route for those going
to Yucay is northwest from the city, over the great Andean highway,
past the slopes of Mt. Sencca. At Ttica-Ttica (12,000 ft.) the road
crosses the lowest pass at the western end of the Cuzco Basin. At the
last point from which one can see the city of Cuzco, all true Indians,
whether on their way out of the valley or into it, pause, turn toward
the east, facing the city, remove their hats and mutter a prayer. I
believe that the words they use now are those of the "Ave Maria,"
or some other familiar orison of the Catholic Church. Nevertheless,
the custom undoubtedly goes far back of the advent of the first
Spanish missionaries. It is probably a relic of the ancient habit
of worshiping the rising sun. During the centuries immediately
preceding the conquest, the city of Cuzco was the residence of the Inca
himself, that divine individual who was at once the head of Church and
State. Nothing would have been more natural than for persons coming in
sight of his residence to perform an act of veneration. This in turn
might have led those leaving the city to fall into the same habit at
the same point in the road. I have watched hundreds of travelers pass
this point. None of those whose European costume proclaimed a white or
mixed ancestry stopped to pray or make obeisance. On the other hand,
all those, without exception, who were clothed in a native costume,
which betokened that they considered themselves to be Indians rather
than whites, paused for a moment, gazing at the ancient city, removed
their hats, and said a short prayer.
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, much 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
fields. 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 supply 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.
------
FIGURE
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; "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 and 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 occupying 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.
------
FIGURE
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 Inca 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 valley, 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 coenolestes. 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. [8]
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.
On 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 hill 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.
------
FIGURE
The Road Between Maquina and Mandor Pampa Near Machu Picchu
------
We passed an ill-kept, grass-thatched hut, turned off the road through
a tiny clearing, and made our camp at the edge of the river Urubamba
on a sandy beach. Opposite us, beyond the huge granite boulders
which interfered with the progress of the surging stream, was a steep
mountain clothed with thick jungle. It was an ideal spot for a camp,
near the road and yet secluded. Our actions, however, aroused the
suspicions of the owner of the hut, Melchor Arteaga, who leases the
lands of Mandor Pampa. He was anxious to know why we did not stay at
his hut like respectable travelers. Our gendarme, Sergeant Carrasco,
reassured him. They had quite a long conversation. When Arteaga learned
that we were interested in the architectural remains of the Incas, he
said there were some very good ruins in this vicinity--in fact, some
excellent ones on top of the opposite mountain, called Huayna Picchu,
and also on a ridge called Machu Picchu. These were the very places
Charles Wiener heard of at Ollantaytambo in 1875 and had been unable to
reach. The story of my experiences on the following day will be found
in a later chapter. Suffice it to say at this point that the ruins
of Huayna Picchu turned out to be of very little importance, while
those of Machu Picchu, familiar to readers of the "National Geographic
Magazine," are as interesting as any ever found in the Andes.
When I first saw the remarkable citadel of Machu Picchu perched on
a narrow ridge two thousand feet above the river, I wondered if it
could be the place to which that old soldier, Baltasar de Ocampo,
a member of Captain Garcia's expedition, was referring when he said:
"The Inca Tupac Amaru was there in the fortress of Pitcos [Uiticos],
which is on a very high mountain, whence the view commanded a great
part of the province of Uilcapampa. Here there was an extensive level
space, with very sumptuous and majestic buildings, erected with great
skill and art, all the lintels of the doors, the principal as well
as the ordinary ones, being of marble, elaborately carved." Could
it be that "Picchu" was the modern variant of "Pitcos"? To be sure,
the white granite of which the temples and palaces of Machu Picchu
are constructed might easily pass for marble. The difficulty about
fitting Ocampo's description to Machu Picchu, however, was that there
was no difference between the lintels of the doors and the walls
themselves. Furthermore, there is no "white rock over a spring of
water" which Calancha says was "near Uiticos." There is no Pucyura
in this neighborhood. In fact, the canyon of the Urubamba does not
satisfy the geographical requirements of Uiticos. Although containing
ruins of surpassing interest, Machu Picchu did not represent that
last Inca capital for which we were searching. We had not yet found
Manco's palace.