The next morning we began at once to take measurements and get what pictures we could. We found that the ruins were clustered in several groups both on terraces and natural shelves, reached by winding paths or stairways. Some buildings were long and narrow and of one story; others of a story and a half with tall gables. The buildings were placed close together, probably in order to economize all the available space. It is likely that every square yard that could be given to agriculture was cultivated.

Magnificent precipices guard the ruins on every side and render Choqquequirau virtually inaccessible to an enemy. Every avenue of ascent, except such as the engineers determined to leave open, was closed, and every strategic spot was elaborately fortified. Wherever it might have been possible for a bold mountaineer to gain a foothold, the Incas had built well-faced walls of stone so as to leave an adventurous assailant no support. The terraces thus made served the double purpose of military defence and of keeping the soil from sliding away from the gardens down the steep hillside.

As may be seen from the map, the ruins consist of three distinct groups of buildings.

All had been more or less completely hidden by trees and vines during the centuries of solitude. Fortunately for us the treasure-seeking company had done excellent work in clearing away from the more important buildings the tangled mass of vegetation that had formerly covered them. Dynamite had also been used in various likely spots where treasure might have been buried. But the workmen had found no gold and only a few objects of interest including, besides those we saw at Abancay, a few clay pots and two or three grinding stones of a pattern still in use in this part of the Andes and as far north as Panama.

At the top of the southern and outer precipice, five thousand eight hundred feet immediately above the river, stands a parapet and the walls of two buildings without windows. The view from here, both up and down the valley of the Apurimac, surpasses the possibilities of language for adequate description. The photograph gives but the faintest idea of its beauty and grandeur. Far down the gigantic caÑon one catches little glimpses of the Apurimac, a white stream shut in between guardian mountains, so narrowed by the distance that it seems like a mere brooklet. Here and there through the valley are marvellous cataracts, one of which, two thousand feet high, has a clear fall of over one thousand feet. The panorama in every direction is wonderful in variety, contrast, beauty, and grandeur.

North of this outer group of buildings is an artificially truncated hill. It is probable that on this flattened hilltop, which commands a magnificent

view up and down the valley, signal fires could be built to telegraph to the heights overlooking Cuzco, intelligence of the approach of an enemy from the Amazonian wilds.

We noticed on this hilltop that small stones had been set into the ground, in straight lines crossing and recrossing at right angles as though to make a pattern. So much of it was covered by grass, however, that we did not have a chance to sketch it in the time at our disposal.

North of the lookout and on the saddle between it and the main ridge is located the main group of ruins: a rude fortification fifteen feet high, running across the little ridge from one precipitous slope to the other; a long one-story building of uncertain use in which curious carved stone rings are set into the walls in such a manner as to serve possibly for the detention of prisoners; a long one-story building that might have been a grand hall or place of meeting, whose walls are surrounded with numerous niches; and a block of story-and-a-half houses whose gabled ends are still standing. The use of gables was almost universal in the central and southern part of the land of the Incas.

These double buildings stand transversely to the general line of the edifices and have a middle or party-wall exactly dividing the gable. It rises to the peak of the structure and once doubtless supported the upper ends of the rafters. These houses bear a striking resemblance to one of the Inca buildings at Ollantaytambo described by Squier[4] in the following words: “It is a story and a half high, built of rough stones laid in clay, and originally stuccoed, with a central wall reaching to the apex of the gables, dividing it into two apartments of equal size.... There seems to have been no access to the upper story from the interior, but there are two entrances to it through one of the gables, where four flat projecting stones seem to have supported a kind of balcony or platform, reached probably by ladders.” This description fits these structures almost exactly. There are other resemblances between Choqquequirau and the Inca fortresses visited and described by Mr. Squier. In fact, one might use many a sentence from his accounts of Pisac and Ollantaytambo that would adequately describe Choqquequirau and its surroundings. Like the buildings of Ollantaytambo, these are nearly perfect, lacking only the roof.

The two-story houses had an exterior measurement of 42 by 38 feet. Similar ones measured by Squier near the temple of Viracocha north of Lake Titicaca, were also divided into two equal apartments and measured 46 by 38 feet. The fronts of each building have two entrances and the interior of every apartment is ornamented with irregular niches within which some of the stucco still remains. The walls are irregular but usually about three feet thick, and are composed of unhewn fragments of lava cemented together with a stiff clay.

In general, all the walls appear to have been built entirely of stone and clay. The construction, compared with that of the Inca palaces in Cuzco, is

extremely rude and rough and no two niches or doors are exactly alike. Occasionally the lintels of the doors were made of timber, the builders not having taken the trouble to provide stones wide enough for the purpose. One such lintel was still standing, the wood being of a remarkably hard texture.

Probably the ruins to-day present a more striking appearance than they did when they were covered with thatched roofs.

Ornamental niches which constitute a characteristic and constant feature in Inca architecture appear on the interior of all the Choqquequirau buildings and on the exterior of a few. Some of those on the outside are of the re-entering variety. Those on the inside are of two kinds. The larger ones about five feet high reach to the floors of the apartments and are mere closets, as it were, without doors, being slightly wider at the bottom, about thirty-four inches, than at the top, about twenty-eight inches, and of varying depth, thirteen to sixteen inches. A second line, smaller and not reaching to the ground, is also found in several of the structures. There is good evidence that some of the walls were faced with stucco and possibly painted in colors. In the case of one wall that had been partly pushed out of the perpendicular by the action of time, several of the niches retained almost entirely their coating of stucco, and so did some of the more protected portions of the wall.

Almost the only ornamentation which the houses contained besides the ever-present niches, were cylindrical blocks of stone about three inches in diameter projecting twelve or fourteen inches from the wall seven feet above the ground between each niche.

In one of the niches I found a small stone whirlbob of a spindle-wheel, in size and shape like those made from wood and used to-day all over the Andes by Indian women. This simple spinning apparatus consists of a stick about as large as the little finger and from ten to twelve inches long. Its lower end is fitted with a whirlbob of wood to give it proper momentum when it is set in motion by a twirl of the forefinger and thumb grasping the upper end of the spindle. It is in universal use by Indian women from the Andes of Colombia to those of Chile, and one rarely sees a woman tending sheep or walking along the high road who is not busily engaged in using this old-fashioned spindle. In the tombs of Pachacamac near Lima have been found spindles still fitted with similar whirlbobs of stone.

The third group of buildings is higher up on the spur, a hundred feet or more above the second group. Near the path from the lower to the upper plaza are the remains of a little azequia or watercourse, now dry, lined with flat stones. The southeast corner of the third group is marked by a huge projecting rock twenty feet high and twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. Beside it, facing the eastern slope, is a giant stairway. It consists of fourteen great steps roughly made and of varying dimensions. They average about fifteen feet wide, with risers four and a half feet high and treads about six and a half feet deep. It is possible to ascend these stairs by means of small stone steps erected on one

end or the other of the giant step. Walls on each side, two feet wide, serve as a balustrade. A peculiarity of the construction is the locating of a huge flat stone in the centre of the riser of each step. The view to the eastward from this stairway is particularly fine. Perhaps the rising sun, chief divinity of the Incas, was worshipped here.

Beyond the stairway are terraces, alley-ways, walls, and story-and-a-half houses, filled with niches and windows. The length of the first terrace is slightly over two hundred feet and its height is twelve feet. The second terrace above it has a height of ten feet and a length of one hundred and twenty-nine feet. Above these are two long alley-ways or halls with niches in their walls and windows looking out over the terraces. These halls are five feet wide. Back of these are buildings resembling in their construction those in the lower group. They also are decorated with irregular niches and cylindrical stone projections. Under these houses, however, there ran a small passage-way or drain twelve inches wide and ten inches deep. These two houses, although roughly built, were as nearly the same size as possible. Between them ran a narrow passage-way leading to a back alley. This was curiously paved with slabs of slate half an inch thick. Back of this is another hall five and a half feet wide with windows in front and niches on the rear, or hill, side.

The gables of the upper group are steeper than those of the lower group and are in fact quite as pointed as those seen in Dutch cities. The two gable buildings of the upper group stand on the slope of the hill in such a manner that there is no gable on the side nearest the declivity. In other words, they are only half the size of the double houses below. Nearly all of these houses have two or three small, rude windows. A narrow stone stairway leads from the back alley to a terrace above. This opens out into the upper plaza on which are several buildings that overlook the western precipices. Two of the houses have no windows and one of them contains three cells. The Peruvians said they were used for the detention of prisoners. They were more likely storehouses. On the north side of the plaza is a curious little structure built with the utmost care and containing many niches and nooks. It may possibly have been for the detention of so-called “virgins of the sun” or have been the place in which criminals, destined to be thrown over the precipice, according to the laws of the Incas, awaited their doom. The plan gives a good idea of its irregular construction.

Above it the hillside rises steeply, and on the crest of the ridge runs a little conduit which we followed until it entered the impenetrable tropical jungle at the foot of a steep hill. The water in this little azequia, now dry, coming straight down the spur, was conducted over a terrace into two well-paved tanks on the north side of the plaza. Thence it ran across the plaza to a little reservoir or bath-house on the south side. This was ten feet long by five feet wide with low walls not over five feet high and had on its north side a small stone basin let down into the floor two feet by three in such a manner as to

catch the water that flowed over the edge of the wall. A small outlet had been provided at the end of this basin so that the water could flow underneath the floor of the bathroom or tank house and then proceed on its way down the ridge to the buildings below.

As the western slope of the Choqquequirau spur is a sheer precipice, little attempt at fortification was made on that side. The eastern slope, however, is not so steep. On this side it was necessary to build enormous terraces hundreds of feet long faced with perpendicular walls twelve feet wide. Two narrow paved stairways lead from one terrace to another.

Near one of the terraces I picked up either a bola or a hammerstone nearly as large as my fist.

In the jungle immediately below the last terrace, under ledges and huge boulders, were dug little caves in which the bones of the dead were placed. I found that the bones were heaped in a little pile as though they had been cleaned before being interred. No earth had been placed on them, but on top of the little pile in one grave I found a small earthen-ware jar about one inch in diameter. It had no handles and was not closed at the top although the opening, a quarter of an inch in diameter, had been fitted with a specially well-made perforated cap. There was nothing in the jar, although it had retained its upright position during all the years of its interment. The natural entrance to the little tomb had been walled up with wedge-shaped stones from the inside in such a way as to make it extremely difficult to enter the cave from the front. I found, however, that by digging away a little on one side of the huge boulder, I could easily remove the stones which had evidently been placed there by the grave-digger after the bones had been deposited in the tomb.

The workmen had excavated under a dozen or more of the projecting ledges and in each case had found bones and occasionally shreds of pottery. In no case, however, had they found anything of value to indicate that the dead were of high degree. Probably they were common soldiers and servants. If any of the officers of the garrison or Inca nobles were ever buried in this vicinity, their tombs have not yet been discovered, or else the graves were rifled years ago. But of this there is no evidence.

All the conspicuously large rocks below the terraces have been found to cover graves. The skulls were not found alone but always near the remainder of the skeleton. The larger bones were in fairly good condition but the smallest ones had completely disintegrated. Nevertheless, ribs were frequently met with. Some of the largest bones could be crumbled with the fingers and easily broken, while others were very hard and seemed to be extremely well preserved. Some skulls likewise were decayed and could be easily crushed with the fingers while others were white and hard; all that we found were those of adults, although one or two of them seemed to be of persons not over twenty years of age. So far as has been observed, no superincumbent soil was placed on the skeleton.

The Quichua Indian carriers and workmen watched our operations with interest, but they became positively frightened when we began the careful measurement and examination of the bones. They had been in doubt as to the object of our expedition up to that point, but all doubts then vanished and they decided we had come there to commune with the spirits of the departed Incas.

As a rule, the evidence of deformation of the skull was slight in a majority of the specimens examined. Nevertheless one had been much flattened behind and another extremely so in front. There was no evidence of any having been trephined or of any decorative patterns having been made on any part of either skulls or bones. Three of the skulls are now in the Peabody Museum in New Haven, with the other articles I found here.

On the steep hillside southeast of the terraces and graves, we found many less important ruins, completely covered by the forest. Were it possible to clear away all the rich tropical growth that has been allowed to accumulate for centuries, one would undoubtedly find that there is not a point which is not somehow commanded or protected by a maze of outworks. No clearing or path having been constructed in order to enable them to be seen, we could not form an adequate idea of their extent. There seemed to be, however, no limit to the ruins of the huts where lived the private soldiers and the servants of the garrison. One hall measured 75 by 25 feet while another was 30 by 10, and it is entirely possible that there are others that have not yet been located, so dense is the jungle.

On the opposite side of the valley are the ruins of Incahuasy, near Tambobamba, which have been described by M. Charles Wiener.[5] So far as I can judge from the drawings he gives of one of the “palaces,” the construction is very similar to that used at Choqquequirau.

I believe that Incahuasy and Choqquequirau were originally frontier fortresses that defended the valley of the Apurimac, one of the natural approaches to Cuzco, from the Amazonian wilds. A glance at the map will show that Pisac and Paucartambo, northeast of Cuzco, with Ollantaytambo to the north and Choqquequirau to the west form a complete line of defence. Each is located in one of the valleys by which the unconquered Indians of the great forest could attack the sacred capital of the Incas. The Incas were never able to extend their empire far into the forests that covered the eastern slopes of the Andes or the valleys of the rivers that flow toward the Amazon. They did, however, push their empire down the valleys until they encountered the savage inhabitants of these wild forests, savage Chunchas or Antis, who with their poisoned arrows and their woodcraft were well able to protect themselves. The Incas were obliged to stop short when they reached the thick forests. The massive and complicated fortresses of Paucartambo, Pisac, and Ollantaytambo marked the extent of their sway. There were undoubtedly several less important outlying

fortresses lower down the rivers, situated in such a way as to be able to prevent the incursions of small parties of wild savages and give notice of any large expeditions that might attempt to march on Cuzco. They were so placed as to be practically impregnable. Choqquequirau was evidently one of these.

I fear that no amount of dynamite will ever disclose at Choqquequirau a “Cradle of Gold” or any articles of great value. It was not a temple or a treasure house, but a fortress where life was strenuous. The officers of its garrison were not likely to bring with them gold ornaments or utensils, and the poor Incas had few such baubles left at the end of their career.

Why then should it have been called the “Cradle of Gold?” One answer is that the ridge or spur on which Choqquequirau lies, when seen from a distance, looks not unlike a hammock. The setting sun often tinges it with gold and the romantic Incas might easily have named Choqquequirau from its resemblance to the only cradles with which they were familiar.

The other answer is that the name, which does not occur in any of the chronicles, so far as I have been able to discover, is a modern invention. In one of the buildings we found several slabs of slate on which visitors have been accustomed to register their names. According to these inscriptions Choqquequirau was visited in 1834 by a French explorer M. EugÈne de Sartiges, and in July, 1834, by two Peruvians, JosÉ Maria de Tejada and Marcelino Leon, who may have come with de Sartiges.

Charles Wiener, in his very unreliable but highly interesting “Perou et Bolivie” (Paris, 1880), says (footnote, p. 294) that Choqquequirau has also been visited by another Frenchman, “M. Angrand whose MS. notes, with plans and drawings, were bequeathed to the BibliothÈque Nationale in Paris.” I find they are merely hastily-drawn sketches. One, a route-map, is dated “30 7bre,” [1847]. Angrand’s name does not appear on any of the slates.

Besides de Sartiges, and the two Peruvians already mentioned, the slate records show that in 1861, on the 10th of November, JosÉ Benigno Samanez (“pro Presidente Castilla”) Juan Manuel Rivas Plata, and Mariano Cisneros reached the ruins. Also that on July 4, 1885, Luis E. Almanza, J. Antonio Almanza, Emiliano Almanza, Pio Mogrovejo and a party of workmen did what they could to find the buried treasure. So much for the existing evidence of former visitors.

M. de Sartiges, writing under the nom de plume E. de Lavandais, published an account of his visit in the Revue des Deux Mondes, in June, 1850. His route, the only one possible at the time, was exceedingly circuitous. From Mollepata, a village near the sugar plantation of La Estrella, he went north across the high pass between Mts. Sargantay and Soray to the river Urubamba, to a village called Yuatquinia (HuadquiÑa [?]). He engaged Indians to cut a trail to Choqquequirau. After three weeks he found that the difficulties of making a trail were so great that it would take at least two months to finish the undertaking, so he and his companions made their way through the jungle and along the precipices as best they could for four days. On the fifth day they arrived at the ruins. In his projects for exploration, he had failed to take into account the fact that tropical vegetation had been at work for centuries covering up the remains of the Inca civilization, and as he was only able to stay at Choqquequirau for two or three days, he failed to see some of the most interesting ruins. The giant stairway and the buildings on the upper plaza seem to have escaped his attention entirely. He was greatly impressed with the fortifications on the south side of the lower plaza and speaks of them as though they formed a triumphal wall (“mur triomphal”). He seems to have spent most of his time hunting for treasure behind this wall. He had expected to spend eight days here, but the difficulties of reaching the place were so great and the food-supply was so limited that he had to hurry back without seeing more than the buildings of the lower plaza, the lower terraces, and a grave or two. It was his opinion that fifteen thousand people lived here once. One wonders what they lived on.

M. de Sartiges’s description made us realize how much we were indebted to the labors of the treasure-seeking company for penetrating the jungle and uncovering buildings whose presence otherwise would never have been suspected.

Raimondi says that in 1862, Don Juan Gastelu, a Peruvian traveller, left Ayacucho in an effort to go up the valley of the Apurimac in a canoe, hoping in this way to reach the ancient fortress. After seven days of perilous navigation, he gave up the attempt long before reaching its vicinity.

The interesting question remains: Was this the ultimate refuge of the last Inca?

It is reasonably certain that Manco Ccapac, the last emperor, fleeing from the wrath of the conquerors, took refuge in a place called “Vilcabamba.” There is a village of that name, two or three days journey over the mountains north of Choqquequirau, on the Vilcabamba River, an affluent of the Urubamba. It has never been explored so far as I know.

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.