Photograph by Hiram Bingham 



native customs: mesccay, near oquente 



The mother carries her baby suspended in her shawl from her shoulders. When she 

 wants to get rid of her burden she lines a little pen with the shawl and places the youngster 

 in it. It stays there contentedly for hours. 



voce, which Professor Foote and I had 

 visited in 191 1. At that time we could 

 not quite understand its significance, but 

 now it undoubtedly appears to have been 

 a station on the old Inca road between 

 Machu Picchu and the Vilcabamba 

 Valley. 



machu picchu was the center op a 

 densely populated region 



It thus appears that the builders of 

 Machu Picchu had an elaborate system of 

 highways throughout this little - known 

 and almost unexplored country which lies 

 between the Urubamba Valley and the 

 Apurimac. This region was once densely 

 populated, and Machu Picchu was its 

 capital. There are no other ruins in the 

 region that approach the Hidden City in 

 magnificence, although there are a great 

 many whose architecture bears a striking 



resemblance to the less important build- 

 ings in Machu Picchu itself. 



Further study of the remains found at 

 Machu Picchu has convinced us that we 

 have here an essentially Inca city, using 

 the term Inca in its most reasonable 

 sense — that is, to designate the tribes and 

 nations that occupied the major part of 

 the central Andes from earliest times 

 down to the Spanish Conquest. 



The sequence of the various Andean 

 races is extremely difficult to determine. 

 There are no large sandy areas which, by 

 gradually engulfing the life of a village, 

 are later so convenient when the exca- 

 vator comes to work out its stratification, 

 as in Asia Minor and Babylonia. Land- 

 slides may sweep away in a few hours 

 the accumulation of centuries, and over- 

 turn everything in such fashion as some- 

 times to place what is older actually 



453 



