WHOLE VOL. THE WEST INDIES VAZQUEZ DE ESPINOSA 74/ 



at 27° S. ; its fertility has been described in due course. From 

 Copiapo to the Straits of Magellan, at 52°3o' S., it is 480 leagues, 

 more than 300 of them occupied by tribes who are white, warlike, 

 courageous, and persistent, as our Spaniards have learned by ex- 

 perience during this period of 88 years since Gov. Pedro de Valdivia 

 began the exploration by penetrating into the country in the year 

 1540, up to the present year of 1628; in various battles, skirmishes, 

 and defeats more than 15,000 Spaniards and over 60,000 friendly 

 Indians have lost their lives, as I shall tell fully in greater and more 

 explicit detail in the book I am writing on the Chilean wars, if God 

 grant that I finish it. 



1977. It was subdued and colonized from the Copiapo Valley just 

 mentioned, up to the city of Osorno at 40°26' S., and the Chiloe 

 Archipelago with the city of Castro at 43° S., and the rest down to 

 the Straits, which is the Costa de los Cesares ; there are a few savage 

 tribes there with barbarous customs ; the country inland is occupied 

 by the tribe of the Patagones, giants who dress in deerskins, and 

 by other tribes. These have not yet been subdued at all, both because 

 of the wildness of the sierras and Cordillera Nevada and of the little 

 profit to be gained, and also because throughout that country there 

 are many deserts, it is so high and cold. 



1978. The center of this warlike country is coming to be the 

 Province of Guadalauquen, where the city of Valdivia was established 

 and colonized, on the banks of its famous river, 2 leagues inland 

 from the sea, at 40°, which is the same as that of the imperial city 

 of Toledo, which is however to the N. of the Equator, and Valdivia 

 to the S. From this city of Valdivia we can calculate the progress of 

 the sun and its delay in arriving from the meridian of Seville to that 

 of Valdivia, 5 hours and 20 minutes; accordingly when it is 12 noon 

 in Seville, at the meridian of Valdivia it will be 6 130 a.m. Valdivia 

 is distant from Seville to the SW. in a direct air line 1,970 leagues. 



1979. The seasons in that Kingdom are the reverse of those in 

 Spain, for when it is summer in Spain it is winter in Chile, and 

 vice versa. The reason is that that Kingdom lies outside the other 

 Tropic, that of Capricorn, toward the South Pole, while Spain lies 

 outside the Tropic of Cancer toward the North Pole, and the sun 

 moves from the Torrid Zone or the Equator to the Tropics without 

 going beyond them, on its ordinary course. That Kingdom is very 

 wet and humid, especially from the district of La Concepcion at 37° 

 to all the country and provinces which are at war ; their crops all 

 grow in the rainy season ; most of the district of the city and Diocese 

 of Santiago is under irrigation from the rivers flowing down from 



