The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-10


 I6V&I city of modern Peru. It lies here in me heart of the Andean plateau. about 800 miles by rail from the Pacific ocean at the port of Mollendo, and so far inland that with the changes of trains, it takes almost four days to reach it. The cars cross the Andes at pass that is several hundred feet higher than the top of Pikes peak, and then drops down to a plateau that has the same altitude as the snows which kiss the sky on the summit of Fujiyama, the sacred moun- tain of Japan You travel over this plateau for about 200 miles, and then enter a beautiful valley about 1000 feet lower. The plateau is covered with grass and is spotted with the matched mud huts of countless Indians of the Incas' descendants. 1t has good pastures, and upon it are feeding tens of thousands of sheep and great flocks of alpacas and namas. It has small cultivated patches here and there. but it's general aspect is dreary and bleak.
 The valley. has a different appearance. It seems like a Garden of Eden as you descend from the pampas There are great fields of grain and acres of pota- toes and beans. There are patches of quinua and tracts of green barley, which just now are sprinkled with the yellow blossoms of the mustard that has grown up among it. This land belongs to the haciendados, or the white or half-breed Peruvians It has some large houses, but everywhere scattered through the farms are Indian villages with their mud huts. the homes of the laborers. Some of the fields are surrounded by low fences of stone or mud walls, and many of them are in terraces that rise, step by step. from the valley high up the slopes of the mountains There are some pastures and everywhere are beautiful wild flow CTS. The whole country looks fertile, rich and well kept There are cattle and sheep and alpacss, all eating to- gether as they are watched over by h. dian herdmen, the whole forming a pie ture of prosperity that Is accentuated by the poverty of the highlands from which you have dropped
 1t is at the head of this beautiful val ley that Cuzco is situated. It lies on ths slope of the mountain, and as you stand above it on the site of the old fortifica- tione built by the Incas, this great fer tile tract Is spread out before you.
 It is probable that it was this sight that made the first Inca king, Manco Capac, choose Cuzco as the capital of his na- sion. He saw it hundreds of years be- fore Columbus discovered America, and the empire he founded was already from four to six centries olo when it was con quered and destroyed by the Spaniard Pizarro. According to tradition, it had been founded by a race that was de- seconded from a child of the sun, and placed by him on an island in Lake Titi- caca A prince and princess of this race were given golden rod by the sun god and told to go forth and civilize the saw ages which then inhabited the high pla- tqau of the Andes. They were told to select as the site of their city where that rod should sink into the earth. As the story goes. they tfaveled across the pampas over much the same route that l came by the railroad, and when they reached here the golden rod fell and dis appeared in the ground
 On that spot they outlined the chief plaza and about it grew up ancient Cuz- co. Whether this story be true or not, it is certain that here the Incas built a great Sc1ty and that for generations this vas the capital of their empire, that reached two three thousand miles north and south. The Inca dominions took in what is now the city of Quito. in Ecuador, and extended to far below where now stands Santiago, the capital of Chile.
 Cuzco itself then contained over two thousand inhabitans and the peo- pie ruled from it were numbered by the tens of millions They were by far the most civilized of all South America, and more advanced than the Aztecs. They constructed wonderful buildings with tem- ples and palaces and great Notifications the ruins of which I shall describe later on.
 The Incas knew how to mine gold and silver and were sSillful in the smelting and refining of copper and lead. They had copper tools and they were expert soldsmiths and silversmiths. They took the wild llamas and aipacas of the pam pas and tanned them. They made the llamas their beasts of hurden, and from the wool of the alpaca they wove all sorts of garments and beautiful blan- kets. They made hats and shoes and were skilled in the dyeing of fabrics.
 These Incas. whose ancestors date back almost to the time of Christ's birth, knew Something of astronomy. They observed the equinoxes and the -cffpses of the moon and the sun. They had land system and were skilled in the building of roads. They knew something of arith- metic and made calculations by means of knots of strings of different colors. Theys had musical instruments like some that their descendants play upon today and ft is said that they had songs of love making, and even plays and drama.
 The Incas cultivated first the valley of Cuzco and from there spread their farms )put until they included a vast part of the high Andes They swarmed over the plateaus and today you can see the ter races they made not only here and there, but all through the wide valley that lies between these lofty mountains from Ec- uador far down into Peru. They culti- vsted tens of thousands of square miles since gone to waste. but which are mark ed by the stone walls they built to hold fin the earth It is on the site of the ancient capital of this nation that l am writing this letter.