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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.
Evaristo Mogrovejo could understand searching for buried treasure, but he was totally unable otherwise to comprehend our desire to find the ruins of the places mentioned by Father Calancha and the contemporaries of Captain Garcia. Had we first met Mogrovejo in Lucma he would undoubtedly have received us with suspicion and done nothing to further our quest.
The next day we were guided up a ravine to the top of the ridge back of Lucma. This ridge divides the upper from the lower Vilcabamba. On all sides the hills rose several thousand feet above us. In places they were covered with forest growth, chiefly above the cloud line, where daily moisture encourages vegetation.
No one at Vilcabamba had seen the ruins, but they said that at the village of Pampaconas, "about five leagues from here," there were Indians who had actually been to Conservidayoc. Our supplies were getting low. There were no shops nearer than Lucma; no food was obtainable from the natives.
It is probable that after the gold mines ceased to pay, and before the demand for rubber caused the San Miguel Valley to be appropriated by the white man, there was a period of nearly three hundred years when no one of education or of intelligence superior to the ordinary Indian shepherd lived anywhere near Pucyura or Lucma. The adobe houses of these modern villages look fairly modern.
Extremely gratified with the result of our conferences in Santa Ana, yet reluctant to leave the delightful hospitality and charming conversation of our gracious host, we decided to go at once to Lucma, taking the road on the southwest side of the Urubamba and using the route followed by the pack animals which carry the precious cargoes of coca and aguardiente from Santa Ana to Ollantaytambo and Cuzco.
Consequently it seems reasonable to adopt the following conclusions: First, ñusta Isppana is the Yurak Rumi of Father Calancha. The Chuquipalta of to-day is the place to which he refers as Chuquipalpa. Second, Uiticos, "close to" this shrine, was once the name of the present valley of Vilcabamba between Tincochaca and Lucma.
It was all rather discouraging, until one day, by the greatest good fortune, there arrived at Santa Ana another friend of Don Pedro's, the teniente gobernador of the village of Lucma in the valley of Vilcabamba a crusty old fellow named Evaristo Mogrovejo.
"Hoyara" was abandoned after the discovery of gold mines several leagues farther up the valley, and the Spanish "city" was moved to the village now called Vilcabamba. Our next stop was at Lucma, the home of Teniente Gobernador Mogrovejo. The village of Lucma is an irregular cluster of about thirty thatched-roofed huts.
A force of two hundred Indian soldiers could have slept in these houses without unusual crowding. We left Lucma the next day, forded the Vilcabamba River and soon had an uninterrupted view up the valley to a high, truncated hill, its top partly covered with a scrubby growth of trees and bushes, its sides steep and rocky.
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