Further investigation led to the discovery that one of our arrieros had that day placed our can of kerosene on top of one of the loads.  The tin became leaky and the kerosene had dripped down into a food box.  A cloth bag of granulated sugar had eagerly absorbed all the oil it could.  There was no remedy but to throw away half of our supply.  As I have said, the longer one works in the Andes the more desirable does sugar become and the more one seems to crave it.  Yet we were unable to procure any here.

After the usual delays, caused in part by the difficulty of catching our mules, which had taken advantage of our historical investigations to stray far up the mountain pastures, we finally set out from the boundaries of known topography, headed for “Conservidayoc,” a vague place surrounded with mystery; a land of hostile savages, albeit said to possess the ruins of an Inca town.

Our first day’s journey was to Pampaconas.  Here and in its vicinity the gobernador told us he could procure guides and the half-dozen carriers whose services we should require for the jungle trail where mules could not be used.  As the Indians hereabouts were averse to penetrating the wilds of Conservidayoc and were also likely to be extremely alarmed at the sight of men in uniform, the two gendarmes who were now accompanying us were instructed to delay their departure for a few hours and not to reach Pampaconas with our pack train until dusk.  The gobernador said that if the Indians of Pampaconas caught sight of any brass buttons coming over the hills they would hide so effectively that it would be impossible to secure any carriers.  Apparently this was due in part to that love of freedom which had led them to abandon the more comfortable towns for a frontier village where landlords could not call on them for forced labor.  Consequently, before the arrival of any such striking manifestations of official authority as our gendarmes, the gobernador and his friend Mogrovejo proposed to put in the day craftily commandeering the services of a half-dozen sturdy Indians.  Their methods will be described presently.

Leaving modern Vilcabamba, we crossed the flat, marshy bottom of an old glaciated valley, in which one of our mules got thoroughly mired while searching for the succulent grasses which cover the treacherous bog.  Fording the Vilcabamba River, which here is only a tiny brook, we climbed out of the valley and turned westward.  On the mountains above us were vestiges of several abandoned mines.  It was their discovery in 1572 or thereabouts which brought Ocampo and the first Spanish settlers to this valley.  Raimondi says that he found here cobalt, nickel, silver-bearing copper ore, and lead sulphide.  He does not mention any gold-bearing quartz.  It may have been exhausted long before his day.  As to the other minerals, the difficulties of transportation are so great that it is not likely that mining will be renewed here for many years to come.