The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1913-01-25

bert t. Gr-.cI N. 49,
L ton, bC,h $50 CT he
a. on E. ,.n-Ay h~4 AoMu
and all but two ha' now returne4
Prof. Bingham who looked IS
:. yellow fever immune, said that
the interior CT southsIn leru vas /
ing desc ated by succession @.
plaugues, including smallpox and
typhus fever, and that the govern
ment was taking no steps to check
the ravages of the scourges. DR.
Eaton was i'll with camp fever and
Prof. Gregory was also incapacitatea
from work for several weeks. The
entire party lost weight during the
TT
Prof. Bingham brought back with
him so human skulls of pre-lncaI
period and many skeletons, as well
as 80 cases of curiously wrought
bronze tablets and pieces of pottery,
and DR.. Eaton collected so cases of
bones to be sent on later and the fos
| SLICED skeleton of prehistoric horse
Prof. Bingham nearly lost his life on
one occasion when his mules STAN
peded and the Indians forsook him
He was for two days and night roam
ing about on the slopes of the snow
! clad mountain Palcoi with barely
any food, and the change of being de-
voured by wild animals If he lay
down and went to sleep.
Il went up the mountain" said
Prof Bingham, with guides and six
mules. These animals are all right
on the plains in Peru, but they do
not like mountain climbing, and kept
slipping about in the snow and max
ing desperate attempts to bolt. The
| higher up in the mountains we went
| fractions the mules became, until
| finally they broke the traces and got
! away. The Indian guides didn't like
TO see the mules stampede, and they
didn't want to go any further. They
waited till the fall of night, however
when they stole away and left me
alone.
in the morning | roamed about in
the hope of coming in contact with
| some kind of human being, but not a
man was in sight, nothing but wild
animals and screaming vultures
went along all day making observa.
tions of the life of the mountain, but
apparently going further and further
out of the path of man and away
from the path which had originally
traversed.
Then | saw an Indian boy, but he
ran away, frightened, apparently. by
my speaking TO him. Finally, wnen
| thought it was about over with me
] met an Indian, who led me back to
the camp by taking a path leading
down 2000-foot slope, where | saw
eight magnificent glaciers. / do not
believe any white man ever saw
| them before"
This was Prof Binghams third ex
petition to Peru and it's object, he
said, was to intensity the work that
had been left incomplete. This time
he was able to devote considerable
! time to the examination of the re
mains of the $50 one-story stcne
dwellings, temples and city walls
| of the ancient city of the Peruvian
| tribesmen, known as Machu Picchu
| constructed of carved white and
brown stone and $4,000 were expended
in excavating parts of the ruins OF
| the city which had become covered
with heavy underground.
At Machu Picchu were found the
prehistoric man. skulls and skeletons
worn down TO dust and hardly dstin-
| guishable from the gravel in whici.
they We're found Several bronze tat
let's have now been found there. and
Prof Bingham has brought them back
with him TO see whether the quality
and shape OF them and the characters
on them may lead to more being
learned about the original inhabi-
tants of this continent.
On the previous expeditions to
Peru Prof Bingham received every
assistance from President Leguia,
who was an old friend of his. and
from every official of the Peruvian
government with whom the expedit-
ion had any intercourse. This time
on their arrival at Callao it was
learned that the opposition party had
elected President Billinghurst, a Ii
ma merchant and grandson of an Eng
fish settler. decree issued by the
Peruvian government that the eX-
plorers were not to prolong their
work after December l and were not
to deface any of the ruins of the city
of Machu Picchu was taken eXcep-
ton to by the members of the ex-
petition, as it was published in the
local press and was likely to hinder
the work of research they had come
all that distance to carry out But
the opposition was so continuous and
so severe and uncalled for. Prof.
Bingham said, that it was improbable
that the scientific work they had
begun would be continued
I'VE had great difficulty this time,
the professor said, lin getting our
cases OF specimens out of the coun-
try, and were delayed seven weeks
by the tedious objections of the Peru
Wan government AT first the Off
cials would not allow us to take any
thing at all: then they said that we
could take half of what We had. then
they permitted us to take what they
did not want At last they we're per
suaded to let us take all the bones
and fossils which We had collected.
but the decree of the government
was as insulting as it possibly could
be-"