informed residents were brought to the conferences at
the great plantation house. They told all they knew of the towns and
valleys where the last four Incas had found a refuge, but that was
not much. They all agreed that "if only Senor Lopez Torres were alive
he could have been of great service" to us, as "he had prospected
for mines and rubber in those parts more than any one else, and had
once seen some Inca ruins in the forest!" Of Uiticos and Chuquipalpa
and most of the places mentioned in the chronicles, none of Don
Pedro's friends had ever heard. It was all rather discouraging,
until one day, by the greatest good fortune, there arrived at Santa
Ana another friend of Don Pedro's, the teniente gobernador of the
village of Lucma in the valley of Vilcabamba--a crusty old fellow
named Evaristo Mogrovejo. His brother, Pio Mogrovejo, had been a
member of the party of energetic Peruvians who, in 1884, had searched
for buried treasure at Choqquequirau and had left their names on
its walls. Evaristo Mogrovejo could understand searching for buried
treasure, but he was totally unable otherwise to comprehend our desire
to find the ruins of the places mentioned by Father Calancha and the
contemporaries of Captain Garcia. Had we first met Mogrovejo in Lucma
he would undoubtedly have received us with suspicion and done nothing
to further our quest. Fortunately for us, his official superior was
the sub-prefect of the province of Convencion, lived at Quillabamba
near Santa Ana, and was a friend of Don Pedro's. The sub-prefect had
received orders from his own official superior, the prefect of Cuzco,
to take a personal interest in our undertaking, and accordingly gave
particular orders to Mogrovejo to see to it that we were given every
facility for finding the ancient ruins and identifying the places
of historic interest. Although Mogrovejo declined to risk his skin
in the savage wilderness of Conservidayoc, he carried out his orders
faithfully and was ultimately of great assistance to us.

Extremely gratified with the result of our conferences in Santa
Ana, yet reluctant to leave the delightful hospitality and charming
conversation of our gracious host, we decided to go at once to Lucma,
taking the road on the southwest side of the Urubamba and using
the route followed by the pack animals which carry the precious
cargoes of coca and aguardiente from Santa Ana to Ollantaytambo and
Cuzco. Thanks to Don Pedro's energy, we made an excel