Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) by Hiram Bingham Read Free Book Online Page B

miles away from their capital city of Cuzco, is the Grand Canyon of the Urubamba, one of the most wonderful places in the world. For centuries travellers could not visit it because a sheer granite precipice, rising 2,000 feet from the banks of the river, defied all efforts to pass it. The planters who raised coca and sugar in the lower valley could bring their produce to market only over a snow-covered pass as high as the top of Pike’s Peak (14,109 ft.). Finally they persuaded the Peruvian government to open a river road by blasting it across the face of the great granite precipice. They had been using it for several years without being aware that on top of a steep ridge 2,000 feet above them were the ruins of a great Inca sanctuary. Raimondi, greatest of Peruvian explorers, was ignorant of them. Paz Soldan’s elaborate geographical dictionary of Peru makes no mention of them, although their existence had been rumoured in 1875. Charles Wiener, an energetic French explorer, had looked for them then without success. They had been visited by several energetic
mestizos
(half-castes) and a few Indians. Quite a number of ambitious treasure hunters had tried to find the last Inca capital. The new road made possible the discoveries of the Peruvian Expeditions which are herein described.
    The Peruvian Government now maintains a small but comfortable hotel at Machu Picchu, where my wife and I spent several happy days in October 1948. The magnificent views at sunrise and sunset make it well worth while to stay overnight. The altitude is only 7,650 feet, and the nights are quite cool. 1
    1 This final paragraph was added by Bingham to the second and subsequent editons of the book.

PART ONE:
THE BUILDERS

CHAPTER ONE
THE INCAS AND THEIR CIVILIZATION
    I n the beginning the word Inca, which means king or emperor, was the term applied only to the chief of that remarkable people whose courage and genius for organization had enabled them to conquer most of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia, as well as the northern parts of Chile and Argentina. Then came the Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century and applied the term to the ruling class, members of the Inca’s family and the nobles and priests who governed the Inca Empire. Soon, however, they were all killed off and by the end of the century scarcely one was to be found anywhere. Today we use the term Inca to cover the race who in the course of several thousand years built up a great civilization in the highlands of Peru and Bolivia. The builders of Machu Picchu were the descendants of generations of skilled artisans, but those who directed the workmen were the Incas whose capital for centuries was Cuzco.
    Strictly speaking, the first Inca was a war-like chieftain of the Quichua tribe of Indians who ruled over Cuzco about AD 1200, and was worshipped as a demi-god, the son of the Sun. It was perhaps only a hundred years before the arrival of Pizarro and the conquistadors that the ninth Inca, properly so called, extended the Empire as far north as Ecuador and as far south as Argentina. As a matter of fact the Inca Empire had just about passed its prime when the Spaniards landed. Had they arrived in the days of the great Inca Pachacutec (
c
. 1450) they would havereceived short shrift. As it happened they arrived when the empire was weakened by a long civil war.
    As there are no written records and the interpretation of the
quipus
or knotted cords as well as of the history of the past depended on the memory or the imagination of the persons who were interviewed by the first Spanish chroniclers, we cannot be certain of date or events. It appears likely that the development of such arts and sciences as agriculture, metallurgy, ceramics, weaving and engineering took place chiefly in the centuries which preceded the first Inca. Yet it has become convenient to use the term Inca to apply to the civilization and the people whom the Spaniards found in Peru, just as we use the term Aztec to apply to