“Look, patre! We have but to cross yonder stream, and we shall have entered the sacred land where the golden wand of my great father Manco sank into the ground—the patrimony of the Children of the Sun. Let the patre hasten.” “I cannot hasten; I am weary.” And Fray Fernando seated himself, or rather sank, upon a stone by the wayside. The way was a steep, slippery descent, leading from the mountain’s height to the “Wide cane arch high flung o’er gulf profound,” that spanned the rapid torrent of the Apurimac. José stopped, and looked at him with concern. “It is a hard way, patre,” he said; “but you shall soon rest. You see there is a tampu at the other end of the bridge.” “But for your help, José, I could never have come so far. To a stripling like you these mountain-paths are easy; not so to— “To an old man,” he would fain have said; but he knew that his age, if reckoned by years, would give him no claim to the title: it was only in sorrow he was old. “Lend me your hand once more,” he added, rousing himself with an effort, “and I will try to reach the tampu.” José, who was agile as one of the vicuñas of the mountain, managed to keep his own footing in the most slippery spots, while he guided the steps of his companion to the safest places, and never failed to lend him the aid of his steady hand. “Look there, José!” said the monk suddenly, in a tone of dismay. “Before us there is no path—no place for one; nothing but a sheer precipice. How, in Heaven’s name, are we to reach the bridge? Your people must be birds, to travel by such ways.” “Our people trusted the Inca,” said José, with a quiet smile; “and they knew that every way he made for them would bring them safely to the Golden City. There is a hole in the rock, and we are to go through it.” It was true. A tunnel, forty feet in length, cut zigzag through the solid rock, and duly provided with steps, brought them safely and easily to the bridge. Even the weary monk was fain to gaze with admiration on the scene that met their view when they emerged from the darkness of the tunnel. Full three hundred feet below them the Apurimac dashed over its rocky bed between steep precipices; whilst the abyss was spanned by the graceful bridge of sogas, or cords of maguey, so light and apparently so frail that it vibrated in every gust of mountain wind, yet so strong that armies had marched over it without fear and without danger.