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Figure

The Road Between Maquina and Mandor Pampa Near Machu Picchu
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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.

CHAPTER XI