18 



CHAPTER IV. 



Political Establishments^ Government and Arts. 



AGRICULTURE is ihc vital principle of socie- 

 ty and of the arts. Scarcely does a wandering fami- 

 ly, either from inclination or necessity, begin to cul- 

 tivate a piece of ground, when it establishes itself 

 upon it from a natural attachment, and, no longer 

 relishing a wandering and solitary life, seeks the so- 

 ciety of its fellows, whose succours it then begins to 

 find necessary for its welfare. The Chilians, having 

 adopted that settled mode of life indispensable to an 

 agricultural people, collected themselves into fami- 

 lies, more or less numerous, in those districts that 

 were best suited to their occupation, where they es- 

 established themselves in large villages, called caray 

 a name which they at present give to the Spanish 

 cities, or in small ones, which they denominated /o'¿;. 

 But tlicsc accidental collections had not the form of 

 the j)rcscnt European settlements ; they consisted 

 only of a number of huts, irregularly dispersed with- 

 in siglit of each other, precisely in the manner of 

 the German settlements in the time of Charlemagne. 

 Some of these villages exist even at present in seve- 

 ral parts of Spanish Chili, of which the most consi- 

 derable are Lampa, in the province of Saint Jago, 

 and Lora, in that of Maule. 



