e still cultivated by the people of Quispicanchi. No one lives at
Tipon now, although little shepherd boys and goatherds frequent the
neighborhood. It is more convenient for the agriculturists to live
at the edge of their largest fields, which are in the valley bottom,
than to climb five hundred feet into the narrow valley and occupy the
old buildings. Motives of security no longer require a residence here
rather than in the open plain.

While I was examining the ruins and digging up a few attractive
potsherds bearing Inca designs, Dr. Giesecke, the President of the
University of Cuzco, who had accompanied me, climbed the mountain above
Tipon with Dr. Aguilar and reported the presence of a fortification
near its summit. My stay at Oropesa was rendered most comfortable
and happy by the generous hospitality of Dr. Aguilar, whose finca
is between Quispicanchi and Oropesa and commands a charming view of
the valley.

From the Oropesa Basin, one enters the Cuzco Basin through an opening
in the sandstone cliffs of Angostura near the modern town of San
Geronimo. On the slopes above the south bank of the Huatanay, just
beyond Angostura, are the ruins of a score or more of gable-roofed
houses of characteristic Inca construction. The ancient buildings
have doors, windows, and niches in walls of small stones laid in clay,
the lintels having been of wood, now decayed. When we asked the name
of these ruins we were told that it was Saylla, although that is
the name of a modern village three miles away, down the Huatanay,
in the Oropesa Basin. Like Piquillacta, old Saylla has no water
supply at present. It is not far from a stream called the Kkaira
and could easily have been supplied with water by an azequia less
than two miles in length brought along the 11,000 feet contour. It
looks very much like the case of a village originally placed on the
hills for the sake of comparative security and isolation and later
abandoned through a desire to enjoy the advantages of living near
the great highway in the bottom of the valley, after the Incas had
established peace over the highlands. There may be another explanation.

It appears from Mr. Cook's studies that the deforestation of the Cuzco
Basin by the hand of man, and modern methods of tillage on unterraced
slopes, have caused an unusual amount of erosion to occur. Landslides
are frequent in the rainy season.

Opposite Saylla is Mt. Picol, whose twin peaks are the most conspicuous
featu