CHAPTER II. 



Conquest of the Peruvians in Chili, 



THE history of the Chilians does not precede 

 the middle of the fifteenth century of our era ; 

 before that period, for want of records, it is lost in 

 the obscurity of time. The first accounts of them 

 are contained in the Peruvian annals ; that nation, 

 as they were more civilized, being more careful to 

 preserve the memory of remarkable events. 



About that time the Peruvians had extended 

 their dominion from the equator to the tropic of 

 Capricorn. Chili, bordering upon that tropic, was 

 too important an acquisition not to attract the am- 

 bitious views of those conquerors. This country, 

 which extends for 1260 miles upon the Pacific 

 Ocean, enjoys a delightful and salutary climate. 

 The vast chain of the Cordilleras bordering it 

 upon the east, supplies it with an abundance of ri- 

 vers, which increase its natural fertility. The face 

 of the country, which is mountainous towards the 

 sea, and level near the Andes, is well suited to 

 every kind of vegetable production, and abounds 

 with mines of gold, silver, and other useful metals. 



Favoured by the pleasantness of the country and 

 salubrity of the climate, the population at this pe- 

 riod may be readily imagined to have been very nu- 

 merous. The inhabitants were divided into fifteen 



