"' - ■ ' . ■' ._ Photo by Hiram Bingham 



EXPI^ORING ONI,Y 13 DEGRE;SS I^ROM THIJ EQUATOR 



The caravan crossing a pass near Panta Mountain. The elevation here is about 15,000 feet; 



the latitude is 13 degrees S. 



er's route and return quickly down the 

 Urubamba to our starting point, we 

 should have missed seeing a most inter- 

 esting rock which lay alongside of the 

 little path we followed on this day's jour- 

 ney. 



Neither the guide nor the muleteer 

 had their eyes open for petroglyphic or 

 pictographic markings, and so did not 

 notice that they had passed close to the 

 only rock so far discovered in the de- 

 partment of Cuzco that contains petro- 

 glyphs. Others have been reported by 

 vague rumor, but none so far have been 

 located except this one, whose existence 

 was known to one or two cowboys on 

 a neighboring ranch. The photograph 

 gives a better idea of the markings than 

 can be expressed in words (see page 566). 



The character of the petroglyphs is es- 

 sentially savage. They remind one of 

 some of the gh^phs used by our own 

 western Indians. It seems to me possi- 

 ble that these marks were left on this 

 rock by an Amazon Indian tribe who 

 came thus far on the road to Cuzco. In 

 the vicinity there were a few groups of 

 stones which might indicate the former 

 presence of rude huts, but imtil a com- 

 parative study can be made of all the 



pictographs and petroglyphs in Peru and 

 in the Amazon basin it will be difficult tc 

 speak very definitely about this new dis-^ 

 covery. 



That night I was most hospitably en 

 tertained at a small ranch house and the 

 next day made a forced march to Cuzco, 

 reaching there shortly before midnight, 

 This journe}^, which began so inaus- 

 piciously and might have ended in dis- 

 astrous failure, actually produced more 

 results in the discover}^ of hitherto un- 

 described ruins than any other part of 

 the work. 



VII 



CHOOQUEOUIRAU. 



In 1909, owing to the courtesy of the 

 Peruvian government and at their ur4 

 gent invitation, I had visited the ruins; 

 of Choqquequirau. An account of thi 

 visit was published in the Americm 

 Anthropologist for October-December,! 

 1910 (pages 505-525), and also in my' 

 Across South America, pages 291-323.' 



A French expedition had visited the 

 ruins about 60 years before and had 

 reached them from the north, over a 

 path that has turned back several expedi- 



546 



