LAND OF THE INCAS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2250, 11 October 1889, Page 2

LAND OF THE INCAS

BXPLOR TIOn OP AftOlffßD CITY OF PYQMIBS. The following are extrao'.e from »n •ocount pab isbad in the Saa FraDclsoo 'Bulletin" of somu if the wonderful thing* seen by a young American tr •Teller, Mr S. K. White, or Blinoo— for b? that euphonious tr»nala i >q rf his name did the traveller beocrae widely kaowo— among I the ruini of laoa ov, Isttlon In South Amercia, One of theee aonslatß In the revelatt< na of k ROIKED CITY OK A FTOMT UACt bnilt high oti iiauospono'e summit, tome 16,000 feet altitude, In ihafirib range of the Acdea back of Lima. JSirange stories of a olty op above the clouds reached the traveler before he bad been long In Lima. Indiana told ot It, bat spoke aaperstlt ouely regarding the danger of exp'orlng the locality To reaoh It the traveller ma t pass through the poisoned Vetragai Valley, which yearly olaimi hundreds of vlollnu of Verrugai fever. The evil spirits of the ancient people of the Andes gaard tuo pUo.', and rash eiplorera of lto saored rnlas are, oocordlng to the old tales, visited with blood poleoaing, from whloS they may never r oover. There wa» diffioalty lu getting a guide to go to so mysterious a spot, bat B'.nnoo and a friend, a yoaug Englishman; at last seoaced one, end by moonlight la the early morning of April 26, 1885, they set out. Huaoapuno, tbo name given the mountain »nd the olty on Ita summit, means " dead point," of Itself no ohearfai augury, /if tar daylight tha party stopped at iho home cf a m untalneer, and seoared mlllr and a good breakfast* Here st about ten thousand feet altitude, they passed the last spring where they could obtain water.

WITHIN THE WALI4. Tt was nearly n »on when the summit of Huitoipuno Was reached, Far below a high wall of stone had been seen, and above it a citadel rising some five hundred feet. The ascent to tbe place was nearly perpendicular, Xfcnco's barometer showed tiiat the fir*t atone arohway they passed was about sixteen thousand feet attitudo, Ihe party entered the enclosure and ollmbei to the top of the emraeno* at one end, evidently the stronghold of the anoient city. Tiers of steps led to th« top. Below them, covering several aoret, was the fortified city, laid ouc. in regular block] Everjt-iiDg was made of stone, once held together by moztar, but now loose and crumbling, and overgrown with vegetation. The outer w»H was pond ten feat la height. The streets were narrow, oroaeing eaoh other at right angles. Eaoh blook wss about forty feet long and twenty feet wide, enclosing In each a oourt. Some blooks were peoullat In having no entranoes from without. There were over seventy of these blooks, A. dozjn or more towers rose from ss many blocks, about six feet above the house walls, which averaged five feet In height. Into these towers only were there eu« trances from without. The blooks wen divided Into small compartments, all opening only upon the Interior oontt. Evidently the oourt yards had been covered with thatched roofs, Charcoal la small quantities was found in nearly all these courts. A& cone of the rooms had obimneys the theory is that the oomfce formed a common cooking giound.

EVIDENCES OF A FYOHf BAOBi The travellers did not note all these things from their first point of observation on the citidel. After their first survey, during which they saw, besides tha interesting ruins near, the blue Paoifio some twenty miles to the westward, and down 14,000 feet below them a moving speck that looked little like a railway train, they olambered down and went to work. Up to this time they had had no idta of finding a oity of pygmies, and evidences of advanced civilisation. Th« low- arches and walls were the first suggestion of this nature, and the/ soon became interested and excited. Then Blanco remembered reading some tima before, in Lorenta's bpanieh book of antiquities, of reports of a race of pygmies on the Peruvian Coast that flourished long before the time of tbe lnoa Empire. These people, tbe Spanish historian said, bad been driven to the top of a high mountain and there lived and died, theit existence ecding shortly after the beginning of the Christian era. The thought that this was this famed olty that might oonoeftl legends more famous than the wildest romance concerning Gulliver and bis Lilliputians, aroused the travellers to earnest •ot'vity, and all day they delved and marked and measured about the old pygmy metropolis.

THE WONDERFUL CITY. The city's site was a long oval, 01 more like the outlines of a mooanaln footprint. All about the inside of tho outer wall were piled heaps of itooes, plaoe,d there evidently for purposes of defence, 10 hurl down upon possible invaders. Measurement thawed that none of the rooms in the houses were larger than 3$ font long, 2 feet blgh, and 2 feet wide. The largest doorways were 12 x 14 Inches, The oftadel was evident If a nataral rooky cone like point. Its summit was not more than 16 feet across. It was terracad all the way np, and the front was faoed with small housos out Into the roek. Some were elaborately carved. The theory was that these were the rooms of the prlnoes or nobles of the pygmy raoe. Blanco oamo across a pile of haraan bones whloh he pat together Into several complete skeletons. The longest of these measured tblrty-soven Inches from skull to heel. His ftlend set to work digging In the oourt-yard, foi they knew that the custom of the preJnoa people was to bury the dead beneath their houses. Scon a mummy was turned out, it wbb in a sitting posture. The hatr and beard were datk btown. The bonet began to orumble on exposure to the air. Blanoo promptly set up his oamera and scoured a ploture of this rolio of a forgotten people. This dwarf was evidently 2 f aot 3 Inohes in height. The mummy was paoked carefully and taken ■ back 'with the travellers. Others were also found. None were of much greater height. All had wonderfully large skuUg averaging 16 inches in oiroumferenoe, while many were larger. A curious feature of the oity was that all the roomq were plastered wi h a adrt of il stuqooi eorce red, somo white. Several of 'the house towera were prostrate, haying bee'o «hak«n, d übtleßs by oartharfces. Tha rnouqcaiiocr guide wag much alarmed at \\\<i dosecratlon o? ihe graves, Photam&phß of the citadol, th6 wal'e aui th« toward ulo a Kough map cf tha Q [ y oom,