245 



and counterbalance the power of the Spaniards. 

 Quepuantu, who IVora tlie rank of a subaltern had 

 been raised to the chief command, after the battle of 

 Alvarrada, retired to a \-ailcy covered with thick 

 woods, where he erected a house with four opposire 

 doors, in order to escape in case of being attacked. 

 The governor, having discovered the place of his 

 retreat, sent the quarter-mai;ter Sea to surprise him 

 with four hundred light armed troops. I'htse ar- 

 riving unexpectedly, Quepuantu took refuge, as he 

 had planned, in the wood, but ashamed of his flight, 

 he returned with about fifty men, who had come to 

 his assistance, and furiously attacked the assailants. 

 He continued fighting desperately for half an hour, 

 but having lost almost all his men, accepted a chal- 

 lenge from Loncomallu, chief of the auxiliaries, by 

 whom, after a long combat, he was slain. 



A similar fate, in 1634, bcfel his successor and re- 

 lation Loncomilla, in fighting with a small number 

 of troops against a strong division of the Spanish 

 army. Guenucalquin, who succeeded him, after 

 having made some fortunate incursions into the 

 Spanish provinces, lost his life in an engagement 

 with six hundred Spaniards, in the province of Ili- 

 cura. Curanteo, who was created Toqui in the 

 heat of the action, had the srlorv of terminatine; it bv 

 the rout of the enemy, but was shortly after killed in 

 another conflict. Curimilla, more daring than his 

 predecessors, repeatedly ravaged the provinces to 

 the north of the Bio-bio, and undertook the siege of 

 Arauco, and of the other fortifications on the fron- 

 tier, but was finally killed by Sea in Calcoimo. 



