The approach to the temple was a very complicated structure known as “the place where people lose themselves.” The pilgrims, after much fasting on the sacred ground of the island, were allowed to pass barefoot through the first gate above, the “door of the puma,” _pumapuncu_. After more fasting, they might go down through the second gate, the “door of the humming-bird,” _kenti-puncu_, so called from feathers of humming-birds plastered over its inner side. They were especially honored by the Incas, colored like the rainbow emblem. After more ceremonies, the pilgrims were allowed to go through the “door of hope,” _pillco-puncu_, covered with feathers of the bird of hope. Those who had come so far might now worship the holy cliff, but they were not allowed to touch the face of the cliff nor to walk upon it. Sacrifices to it were small children, whose heads the priests cut off with sharp stones. The sacrificial stone of the Island of Titicaca still remains, rubbed smooth by the iron tooth of time, split into three pieces by a thunderbolt. So does the queen’s meadow below the terraces, where the carmine, yellow, and white _cantut_, _flor-del-Inca_, recalls the blazing color of other days, when fruit ripened here twelve thousand feet above the sea, and maize of which Sun-virgins made the bread of sacrifice. Beyond, is the island called Coati, consecrated to the Moon, where her temple used to be. The life-size statue of a woman was found here, gold in the upper half, silver in the lower. The Fountain of the Incas still gushes two streams of clear water. “A stolid Indian sits watching it pour away, never dreaming whence it comes, as no one, indeed, knows.” CHAPTER III MYTHS AND MONUMENTS I The Indian worshipped the Inca, his sovereign, because of his divine origin, being the descendant of Manco Ccapac, founder of his race, who was the son of the Sun. Thus, religion was the substance of the empire. But as the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco was a pantheon of idols, sacred each one in the mind of some visiting chieftain, though always remaining the Sun Temple, so the religion itself was a synthesis of all the beliefs which those idols represented; blended yet dominated by the all-searching light of the Sun. This may explain, for instance, the confusion of Pachacamac, the supreme deity of the ancient coast tribes, with Uiracocha of the mountains, whom Acosta, among others, declares to be one and the same. Clear-cut [Illustration: A SWINGING BRIDGE NEAR JAUJA.] distinctions are impossible. The stories are all vague, even among confident writers of legends.