National Geographic : 1942 Aug
The Pith of Peru at the end of the platform was the local counterpart of the soda jerker, milking the family cow directly into a tin cup, at two cents a jerk. I bought the hindquarter of a ewe lamb almost too young to leave its mother about three pounds, baked barbecue style in corn husks, 6 cents. We crawled on again, across meadows en closed with stone fences like those on my Con necticut farm, vainly trying to elude a glisten ing glacier that chilled us to the bone. "Watch out for one of Nature's miracles!" called the missionary, pointing to the stream running downhill close to the tracks toward the ascending train. "We've reached the Continental Divide." For the first time in hours we moved along on level ground. "Look at the river. No flow at all. It is motionless." We went along a little farther and then began to go downhill. The river went with us! "Now! Y'rr same stream! flowin' two ways within a hundred yards! Two ticks ago it was flowin' down one side of the Andes into the Pacific. Now you see it runnin' down the other into the Atlantic!" With our descent a new scene began to unfold. Glacier and barren wilderness dis appeared. Even the drab, dark manta gave place to ponchos with rich stripes of color. We were entering the granary of the Inca. Bright-red shawls flashed like poppies among the golden fields of wheat. There was a primitive threshing floor at nearly every turn. One or two were active, the ripe grain being winnowed by casting it high in the air. Eventually we came upon a full-fledged Andean harvest home! Several communities had assembled for the big doings. A 10-acre lot was spread knee-deep with sheaves heavy with ripe grain. All the cattle, burros, and llamas were herded at one end. A gang of beaters, some of them on horseback, stole up behind them with whips. The crowd made a ring to keep the animals from jumping the fence. A signal was given by the master of ceremonies. A half-dozen Indians began blowing conch horns. The crowd began to shout. The beaters began whipping the beasts. The animals went wild, and were run round and round, trampling the grain from the husks, until they dropped from exhaustion. I was sorry to have our geographical fairy tale come to an end early that evening when we arrived at Cuzco, the terminus of this wonder railroad. Mollendo to Cuzco-506 miles scaling the Andes! Francisco Pizarro and his men invaded Cuzco, then a city of 200,000, after betraying and murdering the Emperor Atahualpa. They found the Temple of the Sun, the palaces and the dwellings of the Inca nobles embellished with gold. They looted them and set upon the ruins their own temples and dwellings. Thus Cuzco, "navel of the universe," became the cornerstone of the Conquest (pages 168, 185). Within a short distance of the Hotel Ferro carril, I found myself walking between Incan foundation walls, like no other walls in the world. They were blocks of stone often weighing tons, chosen for their flawless beauty and smoothness, with corners and edges fitted together without mortar so per fectly that water could not seep through or time get a crumbling toehold. By contrast, the superimposed Spanish stucco structures seemed puny and transitory. I just wandered about. Sooner or later I always found myself back again in the perfect Plaza de Armas of that most consistent Spanish colonial town on the continent. Of all I viewed from under each lovely arch, I rank the portales of Cuzco's vast quadrangle among the most es thetically satisfying in the world (Plate VII). It was the same with the Monastery of Santo Domingo, imposed on the striking walls (page 168). The Christian church looked almost fragile resting on the sturdy shoulders of the pagan Temple of the Sun. Within this monastery are preserved the finest remains of the Inca Empire. A Village of Superlative Charm On a hill overlooking the tiled roofs and Spanish patioed city stands Sacsahuaman. Engineers have come from the ends of the earth to study this fortress set up to protect Cuzco. Three gigantic tiers of symmetrical zigzag walls cornered with granite blocks some 12 feet thick and 20 feet high, form a three layer stronghold more than a half mile in length (page 184 and Plate I). My pet attraction was the result of a Sunday interlude, when I played hooky on Cuzco and visited Pisac, the village that delighted me beyond any other (Plates XV and XVI). Shortly after leaving Cuzco, my Indian driver found the river road, and we struck out between corrugated hills serenely covering the landscape like folds of Venetian velvet. Wild flowers carpeted the sides of the road. Inca ruins crowned every prominent hill. Each Quichua village had its fine-lined co lonial church with a sweet-toned bell summon ing its ornamental congregation. Farmers were plowing, their oxen drawing a wooden tooth through the soil, just as their ancestors did a thousand years ago. Caravans of wood bearing llamas were forever barring the right of way as if they owned it.