140 ^Appendix. 



those of the great fortress of Quillip, but smaller, and laid up in 

 mud. A ledge of the cliff, not more than four feet in width, had 

 been used as a foundation for this, the wall being built on the 

 outside of this, and leaving barely room behind for a person to 

 pass between the wall and the cliff. It had been built up in this 

 way some eight or ten feet, to where it reached the level of 

 another ledge which gave room for a superstructure, which was 

 probably of wood or grass. The narrow foundation wall was 

 supported by small pieces of wood, which were built into it, and 

 ran back into the rock behind, where holes had been made for 

 them. These pieces of wood were still sound, though they must 

 have been there for several centuries, or at least from before the 

 Spanish conquest. 



The appearance of loop-holes was made by stones being 

 drawn back from the general .face of the wall, there being in 

 reality no openings through it. The crescent-shaped wall was on 

 a ledge still above ; and seme fifteen or twenty feet over it, and 

 sticking out horizontally from the cliff, was a bar, that has a great 

 celebrity in the country about, as it is supposed to be of gold, 

 and enchanted, etc. As near as I could make it out, it was 

 nothing more than a wooden bar, that had been used to support 

 the building that must have originally stood upon the wall, it 

 having been so well secured in the cliff that when the building 

 fell it had remained as a continual wonder for the simple Indians 

 of the country. 



These ancient ruins along the Utcubamba and at Quillip 

 are east of the Amazon, and are separated from the ruins about 

 Cajamarca and the coast, by the central range of the Andes and 

 by the river itself, which is swift and dangerous, and now only 

 crossed by means of large rafts. Whether they are to be classed 

 as the work of the Quichuas or other coast or Andean peoples, 

 or have been made by nations coming from the East, who changed 

 their mode of life when they reached these high, cool, rocky 

 regions, is a question that is still to be decided. I have seen no 

 account of Quillip being inhabited at the time of the Spanish 

 conquest, and it was probably a ruin then. 



The trip to Cajamarca, from Chachapoyas, led up the 

 Utcubamba, but the valley was most of the time too rough and 



