39 REMARKS AND OPINIONS. 



portant business; those of the coast irom Arauco to 

 Tolten, in Chih, and those from Toltento Cumcou, 

 in Valdivia. The greatest harmony prevails among 

 them. The Caciques come alone, attended by a few 

 warriors to the provincial assemblies ; but if tlie 

 business concerns the whole country, deputies from 

 the other provinces take a part in the deliberations, 

 after the affair has been discussed in the assembly 

 of each province. All the Indians, except the 

 Pehuenches, cultivate the ground, and sow wheat, 

 maize, barley, beans of different sorts, and flax, of 

 which they eat the seeds, and use the straw for 

 brooms. They all possess horses, oxen, sheep, hogs, 

 and fowls; mules are very rare. They neither 

 plant nor sow vegetables or fruit-trees. Oxen and 

 horses alone spread the seeds of the apple-tree. 

 The Pehuenches have many studs, whicli furnisli 

 them with flesh and milk for food; for though they 

 keep oxen and sheep, they never eat their flesh. 

 They manufacture the wool of their sheep them- 

 selves, and sell tlie oxen to the Spaniards. The 

 women are in general very industrious, assist their 

 husbands in the labours of the field, and live so 

 much in submission to them that the penance 

 which God laid upon the first woman is here fully 

 developed. 



