i-'lioto by Hiram Bingham 



A CORNER OF the; RUINS OF LLACTA IN PALCAY 



Showing a niche and a projecting cylindrical 

 stone, and the chief Indian guide, who deserted with 

 his fellows two days' later and left us in the lurch. 



confirmed it. Then I pointed them out 

 to the men. They too saw them, and 

 after that there was no trouble. They 

 were as anxious to get there as I was, 

 for we were all suffering from thirst, and 

 I had told them there was a spring there. 

 "Two hours of hard work placed us on 

 the spur, though still high above the ruins. 

 From there we could see several stone 

 houses and two thatched huts, which had 

 been left by the treasure-hunters who 

 had come from Abancay two years pre- 

 viously. Just at dark we reached these 

 huts. They showed signs of the old oc- 

 cupancy. There were two or three skulls 

 lying around. A table-stone or two were 

 in evidence and in one corner was an 

 old Inca pot. 



". . . While four of us were 

 fixing camp I sent the other two 

 out to look for water. In an hour 

 they came back with the news that 

 there was none to be found. By 

 this time we were all very thirsty, 

 but there was nothing to do but 

 grin and bear it. 



WATUR HARD TO FIND 



"About midnight I was wakened 

 by a man crying and pleading. It 

 was Tomas, who was having a 

 nightmare. This in itself would 

 not have been serious, but it ex- 

 cited the superstitions of the peons. 

 They said the Incas were angry be- 

 cause we were there, and they 

 wanted to be gone at daylight. I 

 thought it best to spend some time 

 making a search for the spring ; so, 

 as soon as it was light, we started 

 and for an hour hunted in the 

 jungle, but without result. The 

 best we could do was to get water 

 from air plants and chew certain 

 bulbs which contained much mois- 

 ture. This was not such a small 

 help as it might seem, for many of 

 the air plants had a good swallow 

 of water in them, though of course 

 we got it drop by drop at a time. 



"Giving up hopes of finding a 

 spring near the city, we took the 

 back trail. We were all pretty 

 weak, but we made very fair time. 

 Reaching the ridge, we climbed 

 down by a new way, marking our 

 trail with piles of stones, and also 

 followed a new trail back to the draw 

 in which the spring was, striking the 

 draw a good deal higher up. This turned 

 out to be a better road ; also it led us to 

 the discovery of a series of stone-faced 

 terraces, and at one point in them the 

 spring broke through, so that with a little 

 fixing we could get all the water we 

 wanted, and that was a good deal." 



They later found water within an 

 hour's walk of Choqquequirau, and had 

 a plentiful supply for the work of ex- 

 cavating as long as their provisions lasted. 

 They had hoped to accomplish a good 

 deal of map- work, but, owing to the great 

 amount of rain and the almost continuous 

 prevalence of fog and mist, little could 

 be done besides making a route map. 



558 



I 



