Lost City of the Incas (Phoenix Press) Read Free Page A

themselves in.
    A recent memoir,
Portrait of an Explorer
, by one of Bingham’s seven sons, Alfred, includes some revealing journal entries that Bingham made at the time. According to these, 24 July began quietly, with Bingham trying to arrange sufficient mules for the next stage of the journey – a constant headache on such expeditions. Of his six companions, four were elsewhere in the valley; the two with Bingham, Harry Foote and William Erving, showed no interest in accompanying him up the nearby hill to see some ruins that a local farmer, Melchor Arteaga, had told them about the night before. A drizzle of dawn rain had doubtless dampened their enthusiasm.
    Bingham also seems to have been less than ardent in his mission. He left camp only after ten o’clock, so committing himself to a midday climb of several thousand feet as the sun burnt off the cloud. Nor did he bother to take any lunch, a decision he later regretted. In
Lost City of the Incas
, he vividly relates that he made the ascent without having the least expectation that he would find anything at the top.
    But in his re-telling of the story, Bingham is being disingenuous when he claims that he had heard of the ruins there for the first time only the previous night, from Melchor Arteaga.Journal entries make clear that ten days before, on 14 July, when dining upriver, he had been told by a ‘drunk’ sub-prefect that some leagues down the Urubamba was the mountain of ‘Huainapichu’, where there were ‘better ruins to be found than at Choquequirao’.
    Even more precise information had been given to him by Albert Giesecke, the rector of Cuzco University, who had told him of a journey he had just made down the Urubamba in the wet season, when he had likewise met Melchor Arteaga, who had offered to take Giesecke up to see the same ruins in the dry season if he ever returned, as the climb was too difficult in the wet.
    The French traveller Charles Wiener had even published a reference to ruins he had heard of at ‘Huaina Picchu and Matcho Picchu’ in his book of 1875, although he had not visited them because they lay off his route. In
Lost City of the Incas
, Bingham says he only learned of this after finding the ruins, although it is uncharacteristic of him to have ignored such a useful source of local information, given his thorough preparation for the expedition. The scholars he consulted, such as Carlos Romero, would certainly have known of the reference.
    The fact that Bingham had heard more rumours of potential ruins at Machu Picchu than he cares to reveal in the book does not detract from his achievement in actually finding them. All explorers operate in a continual mist of rumour and half-truth, and cutting through to the reality takes commitment. Perseverance in the face of uncertainty was one of Bingham’s most successful traits.
    He deserved to find what awaited him at the top. Yet in reading Bingham’s description of his sense of wonder at what he found at Machu Picchu, it is important to remember that
Lost City of the Incas
is a work of hindsight, written almost forty years after the events it describes, when Bingham was an old man.
    His journal entries of the time reveal a much more gradual appreciation of his achievement. He spent the afternoon at the ruins jotting down the details and dimensions of some of thebuildings. Then he descended and rejoined his companions, to whom he seems to have said little about his discovery. His colleague Harry Foote did not even mention it in his journal: he just noted ‘an interesting time’ collecting butterflies near the river. The very next day they all continued down the valley as if nothing had happened – an extraordinary thing to do, when you have just discovered an unknown Inca city. But at this stage, Bingham did not realize the extent of the site, nor had he realized what use he could make of the discovery. The fact that he had not expected to find anything had left him unprepared.
    Bingham was