Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of PeruBingham, Hiram
History
Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru
Bingham, Hiram
Incas; Peru -- Antiquities; Peru -- Description and travel
Toward noon, all the Indian carriers but one having arrived, and the
rain having partly subsided, we started for Conservidayoc. We were told
that it would be possible to use the mules for this day's journey. San
Fernando, our first stop, was "seven leagues" away, far down in the
densely wooded Pampaconas Valley. Leaving the village we climbed up the
mountain back of Guzman's hut and followed a faint trail by a dangerous
and precarious route along the crest of the ridge. The rains had not
improved the path. Our saddle mules were of little use. We had to
go nearly all the way on foot. Owing to cold rain and mist we could
see but little of the deep canyon which opened below us, and into
which we now began to descend through the clouds by a very steep,
zigzag path, four thousand feet to a hot tropical valley. Below the
clouds we found ourselves near a small abandoned clearing. Passing
this and fording little streams, we went along a very narrow path,
across steep slopes, on which maize had been planted. Finally we
came to another little clearing and two extremely primitive little
shanties, mere shelters not deserving to be called huts; and this
was San Fernando, the end of the mule trail. There was scarcely room
enough in them for our six carriers. It was with great difficulty we
found and cleared a place for our tent, although its floor was only
seven feet square. There was no really flat land at all.
At 8:30 P.M. August 13, 1911, while lying on the ground in our tent,
I noticed an earthquake. It was felt also by the Indians in the
near-by shelter, who from force of habit rushed out of their frail
structure and made a great disturbance, crying out that there was a
temblor. Even had their little thatched roof fallen upon them, as it
might have done during the stormy night which followed, they were in
no danger; but, being accustomed to the stone walls and red tiled roofs
of mountain villages where earthquakes sometimes do very serious harm,
they were greatly excited. The motion seemed to me to be like a slight
shuffle from west to east, lasting three or four seconds, a gentle
rocking back and forth, with eight or ten vibrations. Several weeks
later, near Huadquiña, we happened to stop at the Colpani telegraph
office. The operator said he had felt two shocks on August 13th--one
at five o'clock, which had shaken the books off his table and knocked
over a box of insulators standing along a wall which ran north and
south. He said the shock which I had felt was the lighter of the two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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