ographs by Hiram Bingham and H. W. Foote.
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Finally the trail to Yurak Rumi was reported finished. It was with
feelings of keen anticipation that I started out with the foreman
to see those ruins which he had just revisited and now declared were
"better than those of Ollantaytambo." It was to be presumed that in the
pride of discovery he might have exaggerated their importance. Still it
never entered my head what I was actually to find. After several hours
spent in clearing away the dense forest growth which surrounded the
walls I learned that this Yurak Rumi consisted of the ruins of a single
little rectangular Inca storehouse. No effort had been made at beauty
of construction. The walls were of rough, unfashioned stones laid in
clay. The building was without a doorway, although it had several small
windows and a series of ventilating shafts under the house. The lintels
of the windows and of the small apertures leading into the subterranean
shafts were of stone. There were no windows on the sunny north side
or on the ends, but there were four on the south side through which
it would have been possible to secure access to the stores of maize,
potatoes, or other provisions placed here for safe-keeping. It
will be recalled that the Incas maintained an extensive system of
public storehouses, not only in the centers of population, but also
at strategic points on the principal trails. Yurak Rumi is on top of
the ridge between the Salcantay and Huadquina valleys, probably on an
ancient road which crossed the province of Uilcapampa. As such it was
interesting; but to compare it with Ollantaytambo, as the foreman had
done, was to liken a cottage to a palace or a mouse to an elephant. It
seems incredible that anybody having actually seen both places could
have thought for a moment that one was "as good as the other." To be
sure, the foreman was not a trained observer and his interest in Inca
buildings was probably of the slightest. Yet the ruins of Ollantaytambo
are so well known and so impressive that even the most casual traveler
is struck by them and the natives themselves are enormously proud
of them. The real cause of the foreman's inaccuracy was probably his
desire to please. To give an answer which will satisfy the questioner
is a common trait in Peru as well as in many other parts of the
world. Anyhow, the lessons of the past few days were not lost on
us. We now understood the skepticism which had prevailed regar