which
the Spaniards were obliged to use in passing from Lima to Cuzco, he
could readily attack them. At Machu Picchu he would not have been
so conveniently located for robbing the Spanish caravans nor for
supplying his followers with arable lands.

There is abundant archeological evidence that the citadel of Machu
Picchu was at one time occupied by the Incas and partly built by them
on the ruins of a far older city. Much of the pottery is unquestionably
of the so-called Cuzco style, used by the last Incas. The more recent
buildings resemble those structures on the island of Titicaca said to
have been built by the later Incas. They also resemble the fortress of
Uiticos, at Rosaspata, built by Manco about 1537. Furthermore, they
are by far the largest and finest ruins in the mountains of the old
province of Uilcapampa and represent the place which would naturally
be spoken of by Titu Cusi as the "head of the province." Espiritu
Pampa does not satisfy the demands of a place which was so important
as to give its name to the entire province, to be referred to as
"the largest city."

It seems quite possible that the inaccessible, forgotten citadel of
Machu Picchu was the place chosen by Manco as the safest refuge for
those Virgins of the Sun who had successfully escaped from Cuzco in
the days of Pizarro. For them and their attendants Manco probably
built many of the newer buildings and repaired some of the older
ones. Here they lived out their days, secure in the knowledge that
no Indians would ever breathe to the conquistadores the secret of
their sacred refuge.

------
FIGURE

The Gorges, Opening Wide Apart, Reveal Uilcapampa's Granite Citadel,
the Crown of Inca Land: Machu Picchu
------

When the worship of the sun actually ceased on the heights of Machu
Picchu no one can tell. That the secret of its existence was so well
kept is one of the marvels of Andean history. Unless one accepts the
theories of its identity with "Tampu-tocco" and "Vilcabamba Viejo,"
there is no clear reference to Machu Picchu until 1875, when Charles
Wiener heard about it.

Some day we may be able to find a reference in one of the documents
of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries which will indicate that
the energetic Viceroy Toledo, or a contemporary of his, knew of
this marvelous citadel and visited it. Writers like Cieza de Leon
and Polo de Ondegardo, who were assiduous in collecting information
about all the holy places of the I