So it probably never occurred to the Spaniards that the Peruvians, who knew nothing of explosive powder or the use of artillery, did not construct Sacsahuaman in order to withstand such a siege as the fortresses of Europe were only too familiar with.  So natural did it seem to the first Europeans who saw it to regard it as a fortress that it has seldom been thought of in any other way.  The fact that the sacred city of Cuzco was more likely to be attacked by invaders coming up the valley, or even over the gentle slopes from the west, or through the pass from the north which for centuries has been used as part of the main highway of the central Andes, never seems to have troubled writers who regarded Sacsahuaman essentially as a fortress.  It may be that Sacsahuaman was once used as a place where the votaries of the sun gathered at the end of the rainy season to celebrate the vernal equinox, and at the summer solstice to pray for the sun’s return from his “farthest north.”  In any case I believe that the enormous cost of its construction shows that it was probably intended for religious rather than military purposes.  It is more likely to have been an ancient shrine than a mighty fortress.

It now becomes necessary, in order to explain my explorations north of Cuzco, to ask the reader’s attention to a brief account of the last four Incas who ruled over any part of Peru.

CHAPTER IX

The Last Four Incas

Readers of Prescott’s charming classic, “The Conquest of Peru,” will remember that Pizarro, after killing Atahualpa, the Inca who had tried in vain to avoid his fate by filling a room with vessels of gold, decided to establish a native prince on the throne of the Incas to rule in accordance with the dictates of Spain.  The young prince, Manco, a son of the great Inca Huayna Capac, named for the first Inca, Manco Ccapac, the founder of the dynasty, was selected as the most acceptable figurehead.  He was a young man of ability and spirit.  His induction into office in 1534 with appropriate ceremonies, the barbaric splendor of which only made the farce the more pitiful, did little to gratify his natural ambition.  As might have been foreseen, he chafed under restraint, escaped as soon as possible from his attentive guardians, and raised an army of faithful Quichuas.  There followed the siege of Cuzco, briefly characterized by Don Alonzo Enriques de Guzman, who took part in it, as “the most fearful and cruel war in the world.”  When in 1536 Cuzco was relieved by Pizarro’s comrade, Almagro, and Manco’s last chance of regaining the ancient capital of his ancestors failed, the Inca retreated to Ollantaytambo.  Here, on the banks of the river Urubamba, Manco made a determined stand, but Ollantaytambo was too easily reached by Pizarro’s mounted cavaliers.  The Inca’s followers, although aroused to their utmost endeavors by the presence of the magnificent stone edifices, fortresses, granaries, palaces, and hanging gardens of their ancestors, found it necessary to retreat.  They fled in a northerly direction and made good their escape over snowy passes to Uiticos in the fastnesses of Uilcapampa, a veritable American Switzerland.