Picchu it is now necessary to tell the story
of a celebrated city, whose name, Tampu-tocco, was not used even at
the time of the Spanish Conquest as the cognomen of any of the Inca
towns then in existence. I must draw the reader's attention far away
from the period when Pizarro and Manco, Toledo and Tupac Amaru were
the protagonists, back to events which occurred nearly seven hundred
years before their day. The last Incas ruled in Uiticos between 1536
and 1572. The last Amautas flourished about 800 A.D.

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FIGURE

Puma Urco, near Paccaritampu
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The Amautas had been ruling the Peruvian highlands for about sixty
generations, when, as has been told in Chapter VI, invaders came
from the south and east. The Amautas had built up a wonderful
civilization. Many of the agricultural and engineering feats which
we ordinarily assign to the Incas were really achievements of the
Amautas. The last of the Amautas was Pachacuti VI, who was killed by
an arrow on the battle-field of La Raya. The historian Montesinos,
whose work on the antiquities of Peru has recently been translated
for the Hakluyt Society by Mr. P. A. Means, of Harvard University,
tells us that the followers of Pachacuti VI fled with his body to
"Tampu-tocco." This, says the historian, was "a healthy place" where
there was a cave in which they hid the Amauta's body. Cuzco, the
finest and most important of all their cities, was sacked. General
anarchy prevailed throughout the ancient empire. The good old days
of peace and plenty disappeared before the invader. The glory of the
old empire was destroyed, not to return for several centuries. In
these dark ages, resembling those of European medieval times which
followed the Germanic migrations and the fall of the Roman Empire,
Peru was split up into a large number of small independent units. Each
district chose its own ruler and carried on depredations against
its neighbors. The effects of this may still be seen in the ruins of
small fortresses found guarding the way into isolated Andean valleys.

Montesinos says that those who were most loyal to the Amautas
were few in number and not strong enough to oppose their enemies
successfully. Some of them, probably the principal priests,
wise men, and chiefs of the ancient regime, built a new city at
"Tampu-tocco." Here they kept alive the memory of the Amautas and
lived in such a relatively civilized manner as to draw to them,
little by little, those who wishe