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
might point to its having been deserted when the Spanish village of
San Geronimo was founded. However, I believe students of agriculture
will agree with me that deforestation, increased erosion, and aggrading
gravel banks probably drove the folk out of Saylla.
The southern rim of the Cuzco Basin is broken by no very striking
peaks, although Huanacaurai (13,427 ft.), the highest point, is
connected in Inca tradition with some of the principal festivals
and religious celebrations. The north side of the Huatanay Valley is
much more irregular, ranging from Ttica Ttica pass (12,000 ft.) to
Mt. Pachatucsa (15,915 ft.), whose five little peaks are frequently
snow-clad. There is no permanent snow either here or elsewhere in
the Huatanay Valley.
The people of the Cuzco Basin are very short of fuel. There is no
native coal. What the railroad uses comes from Australia. Firewood is
scarce. The ancient forests disappeared long ago. The only trees in
sight are a few willows or poplars from Europe and one or two groves of
eucalyptus, also from Australia. Cuzco has been thought of and written
of as being above the tree line, but such is not the case. The absence
of trees on the neighboring hills is due entirely to the hand of man,
the long occupation, the necessities of early agriculturists, who
cleared the forests before the days of intensive terrace agriculture,
and the firewood requirements of a large population. The people of
Cuzco do not dream of having enough fuel to make their houses warm
and comfortable. Only with difficulty can they get enough for cooking
purposes. They depend largely on fagots and straw which are brought
into town on the backs of men and animals.
In the fields of stubble left from the wheat and barley harvest we
saw many sheep feeding. They were thin and long-legged and many of
the rams had four horns, apparently due to centuries of inbreeding
and the failure to improve the original stock by the introduction of
new and superior strains.
When one looks at the great amount of arable slopes on most of the
hills of the Cuzco Basin and the unusually extensive flat land near the
Huatanay, one readily understands why the heart of Inca Land witnessed
a concentration of population very unusual in the Andes. Most of the
important ruins are in the northwest quadrant of the basin either in
the immediate vicinity of Cuzco itself or on the "pampas" north of the
city. The reason is that the arable lands where most extensive potato
cultivation could be carried out are nearly all in this quadrant. In
the midst of this potato country, at the foot of the pass that leads
directly to Pisac and Paucartambo, is a picturesque ruin which bears
the native name of Pucará.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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