138 



But these actions, ill-conducted through the 

 cowardly caution of the general, were very far 

 from checking the torrent that inundated the 

 provinces. 



Without reflecting upon the imprudence of 

 occupying so large an extent of country with so 

 small a force, Valdivia had the farther rashness 

 on his return to Santiago to dispatch Francis de 

 Aguirre, with two hundred men, to conquer the 

 provinces of Cujo and Tucuman, situated to the 

 east of the Andes. It is true that ahout this 

 time he received by sea from Peru a considerable 

 body of recruits, and 350 unmounted horses, 

 but this reinforcement was little, compared to 

 the vast number of people necessary to retain iu 

 subjection. 



Nevertheless, indefatigable in the execution of 

 his extensive plans, whicb^ore a flattering ap- 

 pearance of success, the Spanish general returned 

 to Araucania, and in the province of ucol 

 founded the seventh and last city, in a country 

 fertile in viftes, and gave it the name of the City 

 of the Frontiers. This name, from events which 

 could not possibly have been in the calculation 

 of Valdivia, has become strictly applicable to its 

 present state, as its ruins are in reality situated 

 upon the confines of the Spanish settlement in 

 that part of Chili. It was a rich and com- 

 mercial city, and its wines were transported to 

 Buenos Ayres by a road ovet the Cordilleras. 



