volume I hope to tell more of the antiquities of this region. At
present it must suffice to remark that our explorations near Patallacta
disclosed no "white rock over a spring of water." None of the place
names in this vicinity fit in with the accounts of Uiticos. Their
identity remains a puzzle, although the symmetry of the buildings,
their architectural idiosyncrasies such as niches, stone roof-pegs,
bar-holds, and eye-bonders, indicate an Inca origin. At what date these
towns and villages flourished, who built them, why they were deserted,
we do not yet know; and the Indians who live hereabouts are ignorant,
or silent, as to their history.

At Torontoy, the end of the cultivated temperate valley, we found
another group of interesting ruins, possibly once the residence of
an Inca chief. In a cave near by we secured some mummies. The ancient
wrappings had been consumed by the natives in an effort to smoke out
the vampire bats that lived in the cave. On the opposite side of the
river are extensive terraces and above them, on a hilltop, other
ruins first visited by Messrs. Tucker and Hendriksen in 1911. One
of their Indian bearers, attempting to ford the rapids here with a
large surveying instrument, was carried off his feet, swept away by
the strong current, and drowned before help could reach him.

Near Torontoy is a densely wooded valley called the Pampa Ccahua. In
1915 rumors of Andean or "spectacled" bears having been seen here and
of damage having been done by them to some of the higher crops, led
us to go and investigate. We found no bears, but at an elevation of
12,000 feet were some very old trees, heavily covered with flowering
moss not hitherto known to science. Above them I was so fortunate as
to find a wild potato plant, the source from which the early Peruvians
first developed many varieties of what we incorrectly call the Irish
potato. The tubers were as large as peas.

Mr. Heller found here a strange little cousin of the kangaroo, a near
relative of the coenolestes. It turned out to be new to science. To
find a new genus of mammalian quadrupeds was an event which delighted
Mr. Heller far more than shooting a dozen bears. [8]

Torontoy is at the beginning of the Grand Canyon of the Urubamba,
and such a canyon! The river "road" runs recklessly up and down
rock stairways, blasts its way beneath overhanging precipices, spans
chasms on frail bridges propped on rustic brackets against granite
cliffs. Unde