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southward and one northward, while he himself went in the direction of Cuzco. There he caused a chief to come forth; and having thus established kingship at Cuzco, Viracocha continued tan journey "as far as the coast of Ecuador, where his two companions joined him. There they all began to walk together on the waters of the sea, and disappeared." Some of the tales of the highland peoples focused on how there had come to be a settlement at Cuzco, and how Cuzco had been divinely ordained to become the capital. According to one version what Manco Capac was given (in order to find the site for the city) was a staff or wand made of pure gold; it was called Tupac-yauri, meaning "splenderous scepter." He went in search of the designated place in the company of brothers and sisters. Reaching a certain stone, his companions were struck with a feebleness. When Manco Capac struck the stone with the magical staff, it spoke up and told him of his selection as ruler of a kingdom. A descendent of an Indian chief who had converted to Christianity after the Spaniards had landed claimed in his memoirs that the Indians were showing that sacred rock to this very day. "The Ynca Manco Capac married one of his own sisters, named Mama Ocllo... and they began to enact good laws for the government of their people." This tale, sometimes called the legend of the four Ayar brothers, relates as all other versions of the founding of Cuzco do, that the magical object whereby the monarch and the capital were designated was made of solid gold. It is a clue that we consider vital and central to the unraveling of the enigmas of all American civilizations. When the Spaniards entered Cuzco, the Inca capital, they found a metropolis with some 100,000 dwelling houses, surrounding a royal-religious center of magnificent temples, palaces, gardens, plazas, and marketplaces. Situated between two streams (the Tullumayo and the Rodadero) at an elevation of some 11,500 feet, Cuzco begins at the foot of the promontory of Sacsahuaman. The city was divided into twelve wards—a number that puzzled the Spaniards—arranged in an oval. The first and oldest ward, appropriately called the Kneeling Terrace, was located on the promontory's slope in the northwest. There the first Incas (and presumably also the legendary Manco Capac) had built their palaces. All the wards bore picturesque names (the Speaking Place, Terrace of Flowers, Sacred Gate, and the like) that in reality described their principal feature. One of this century's leading scholars on the subject of Cuzco, Stansbury Hagar (Cuzco, the Celestial City) stressed the