ccurred to any one to look for Manco's capital. When Raimondi,
the first scientist to penetrate Vilcabamba, reached Pucyura, no one
thought to tell him that on the hilltop opposite the village once
lived the last of the Incas and that the ruins of their palaces were
still there, hidden underneath a thick growth of trees and vines.

A Spanish document of 1598 says the first town of "San Francisco
de la Victoria de Vilcabamba" was in the "valley of Viticos." The
town's long name became shortened to Vilcabamba. Then the river which
flowed past was called the Vilcabamba, and is so marked on Raimondi's
map. Uiticos had long since passed from the memory of man.

Furthermore, the fact that we saw no llamas or alpacas in the upland
pastures, but only domestic animals of European origin, would also
seem to indicate that for some reason or other this region had been
abandoned by the Indians themselves. It is difficult to believe that
if the Indians had inhabited these valleys continuously from Inca
times to the present we should not have found at least a few of the
indigenous American camels here. By itself, such an occurrence would
hardly seem worth a remark, but taken in connection with the loss of
traditions regarding Uiticos, it would seem to indicate that there
must have been quite a long period of time in which no persons of
consequence lived in this vicinity.

We are told by the historians of the colonial period that the mining
operations of the first Spanish settlers were fatal to at least
a million Indians. It is quite probable that the introduction of
ordinary European contagious diseases, such as measles, chicken pox,
and smallpox, may have had a great deal to do with the destruction
of a large proportion of those unfortunates whose untimely deaths
were attributed by historians to the very cruel practices of the
early Spanish miners and treasure seekers. Both causes undoubtedly
contributed to the result. There seems to be no question that the
population diminished enormously in early colonial days. If this is
true, the remaining population would naturally have sought regions
where the conditions of existence and human intercourse were less
severe and rigorous than in the valleys of Uiticos and Uilcapampa.

The students and travelers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, including such a careful observer as Bandelier, are of
the opinion that the present-day population in the Andes of Peru
and Bolivia