n 



CHAP. III. 



State of Chili before the arrival of the Spaniards. 

 Its agriculture and aliment. 



Man, in his progress to the perfection of civil 

 life, passes in succession through four important 

 states or periods. From a hunter he becomes a 

 shepherd, next a husbandman, and at length a 

 merchant, the period which forms the highest 

 degree of social civilization. The Chilians, 

 when they were first known to the Spaniards, had 

 attained the third state ; they were no longer 

 hunters but agriculturists. Reasoning from ge- 

 neral principles. Dr. Robertson has therefore 

 been led into an error in placing them in the 

 class of hunters, an occupation which they pro- 

 bably never pursued, except on their first esta- 

 blishment. Becoming soon weary of the fa- 

 tiguing exercise of the chace, in a country 

 where game is not very abundant, and having 

 but few domestic animals, they began at an early 

 period to attend to the cultivation of such nu- 

 tritious plants, as necessity or accident had made 

 Jtnown to them. Thui were they induced from 

 the circumstances of their situation, ^nd not 



