64 POLITICAL DIVISIONS AND 



trees supplying them with fruits with which to prepare chicha, a drink they are passionately 

 fond of, as, indeed, they are of all intoxicating beverages. The Araucaria imbricata furnishes 

 them with piiiones, and, in their season, the fields are covered with wild strawberries. 

 Ercilla, the warrior poet 



" Tomando ora la epada, ora la pluma' 1 



with nothing to write on but small scraps of waste paper, and sometimes only leather, strug- 

 gling at the same time against enemies and surrounding circumstances, has left sketches of 

 topography whose fidelity would have done honor to the 19th century. A keen observer of 

 human nature, kind and compassionate to a fault, the pages of the knightly historian contain 

 some few geographical outlines, many that are topographical, more from which we may infer 

 the moral traits of the people ; but most of them are glowing details of combats with a race 

 whose great energy and physical strength enabled them so often to defeat the iron-clad warriors 

 of Spain. After him Molina is the writer whose avocations and opportunities best qualified 

 him to give truthful 'accounts of Chile, and whose volumes have been received as text-books by 

 geographical and ethnographical students. But, unless great degeneration has occurred since 

 the date of his account, the world has been led to entertain most erroneous impressions respect- 

 ing the degree of civilization and culture of these people. Such statements were the more 

 unpardonable from him, because the order to which he belonged had long had opportunities to 

 study the Araucanians through its missionaries, and the Society at Santiago must have been in 

 possession of many reliable reports from them. What he gave the public has scarcely more fact 

 for its foundation than the so-called historical novels of the present day. Most of the recent 

 writers on Chile have adopted his statements, and thus, from many apparently different sources, 

 we have only one story. However, in 1822, a body of troops was sent from Yaldivia to chastise 

 -some of the interior tribes and compel them to give up certain Spanish refugees, who con- 

 tinued to excite them to acts of hostility against the patriots. Dr. Leighton, an Englishman, 

 attended them as surgeon, and a part of his journal during the expedition was afterwards pub- 

 lished by Mr. Miers. He had opportunities to see many of their dwellings, and to examine the 

 condition of agriculture, their moral and physical qualities, and there is a tone of candor in 

 his narrative which carries conviction with it. Twenty-three years later, Professor Domeyko 

 made a journey as far south as Valdivia, following the coast-road referred to, and his subse- 

 quently published* information we are bound to give credence to. Though he writes more of 

 the moral condition of the people, and a mode of ameliorating it, than of their political 

 geography, or the distribution of industrial resources among them, there are many interesting 

 facts stated, from which one may form very approximate estimates of both. What follows is 

 derived from the writings of these two gentlemen. 



The three principal physical divisions remarked from Chacabuco southward also extend 

 through the Indian territory, the only modifications produced being occasioned in the vegetable 

 kingdom by the frequency of rains. A multitude of streams originate in the Coast range, 

 amid dense forests, and flow directly to the sea; some of them, wide rivers at their mouths, 

 though of little depth or current. ' Many others, whose sources are in the same chain, fall 

 along the eastern slope, and spread their waters over the intermediate plain, until they unite 

 with others which originate in the lakes or summits of the more elevated Andes. To the present 

 time, neither their number, their ramifications, nor their names, are known ; and all we have 

 learned with certainty is, that before they penetrate the Western Cordilleras they are united in 

 three great rivers the Biobio, the Cauten or Imperial, and the Tolten all of which would 

 be navigable for some distance but fey the bars across their mouths. The two forest belts 

 traversing the length of this province are very luxuriant. Among their trees, the roble 

 (Fagus obliqua) is the most abundant. This frequently attains a height of 80 feet, through 

 one half of which its stout, straight trunk is without branches. Its constant and, in many 



* Araucania y sus habitantes. Eecuerdos de un viajo hecho en las provincias meridionales de Chile en las meses de Enero y 

 Febrero de 1845. For Ignacio Domeyko. Santiago, 1846. 



