Finally, Calancha says that Friar Ortiz, after he had secured permission from Titu Cusi to establish the second missionary station in Uilcapampa, selected "the town of Huarancalla, which was populous and well located in the midst of a number of other little towns and villages. There was a distance of two or three days' journey from one convent to the other. Leaving Friar Marcos in Puquiura, Friar Diego went to his new establishment, and in a short time built a church." There is no "Huarancalla" to-day, nor any tradition of any, but in Mapillo, a pleasant valley at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, in the temperate zone where the crops with which the Incas were familiar might have been raised, near pastures where llamas and alpacas could have flourished, is a place called Huarancalque. The valley is populous and contains a number of little towns and villages. Furthermore, Huarancalque is two or three days' journey from Pucyura and is on the road which the Indians of this region now use in going to Ayacucho. This was undoubtedly the route used by Manco in his raids on Spanish caravans. The Mapillo flows into the Apurimac near the mouth of the river Pampas. Not far up the Pampas is the important bridge between Bom-bon and Ocros, which Mr. Hay and I crossed in 1909 on our way from Cuzco to Lima. The city of Ayacucho was founded by Pizarro, a day's journey from this bridge. The necessity for the Spanish caravans to cross the river Pampas at this point made it easy for Manco's foraging expeditions to reach them by sudden marches from Uiticos down the Mapillo River by way of Huarancalque, which is probably the "Huarancalla" of Calancha's "Chronicles." He must have had rafts or canoes on which to cross the Apurimac, which is here very wide and deep. In the valleys between Huarancalque and Lucma, Manco was cut off from central Peru by the Apurimac and its magnificent canyon, which in many places has a depth of over two miles. He was cut off from Cuzco by the inhospitable snow fields and glaciers of Salcantay, Soray, and the adjacent ridges, even though they are only fifty miles from Cuzco. Frequently all the passes are completely snow-blocked. Fatalities have been known even in recent years. In this mountainous province Manco could be sure of finding not only security from his Spanish enemies, but any climate that he desired and an abundance of food for his followers. There seems to be no reason to doubt that the retired region around the modern town of Pucyura in the upper Vilcabamba Valley was once called Uiticos. CHAPTER XIII Vilcabamba