pot was intended to be carried on the back and shoulders by means of a rope passing through the handles and around the nubbin.  Saavedra said that he had found near his house several bottle-shaped cists lined with stones, with a flat stone on top—­evidently ancient graves.  The bones had entirely disappeared.  The cover of one of the graves had been pierced; the hole covered with a thin sheet of beaten silver.  He had also found a few stone implements and two or three small bronze Inca axes.

On the pampa, below his house, Saavedra had constructed with infinite labor another sugar mill.  It seemed strange that he should have taken the trouble to make two mills; but when one remembered that he had no pack animals and was usually obliged to bring the cane to the mill on his own back and the back of his son, one realized that it was easier, while the cane was growing, to construct a new mill near the cane field than to have to carry the heavy bundles of ripe cane up the hill.  He said his hardest task was to get money with which to send his children to school in Cuzco and to pay his taxes.  The only way in which he could get any cash was by making chancaca, crude brown sugar, and carrying it on his back, fifty pounds at a time, three hard days’ journey on foot up the mountain to Pampaconas or Vilcabamba, six or seven thousand feet above his little plantation.  He said he could usually sell such a load for five soles, equivalent to two dollars and a half!  His was certainly a hard lot, but he did not complain, although he smilingly admitted that it was very difficult to keep the trail open, since the jungle grew so fast and the floods in the river continually washed away his little rustic bridges.  His chief regret was that as the result of a recent revolution, with which he had had nothing to do, the government had decreed that all firearms should be turned in, and so he had lost the one thing he needed to enable him to get fresh meat in the forest.

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Figure

Saavedra and his Inca Pottery
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Figure

Inca Gable at Espiritu Pampa
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In the clearing near the house we were interested to see a large turkey-like bird, the pava de la montana, glossy black, its most striking feature a high, coral red comb.  Although completely at liberty, it seemed to be thoroughly domesticated.  It would make an attractive bird for introduction into our Southern States.

Saavedra gave us some very black leaves of native tobacco, which he had cured.  An inveterate smoker who tried it in his pipe said it was without exception the strongest stuff he ever had encountered!