Don Garcia, however, continued almost the 

 whole winter in the island, waiting for the ca- 

 valry from Perti, and the reinforcements he had 

 required from the cities of his jurisdiction. At 

 length, on the night of the 6th of August, he 

 privately landed one hundred and thirty men 

 with several engineers upon the plain of Con- 

 ception, and immediately took possession of 

 Mount Pinto, which commands the harbour, 

 where he constructed a fort, furnished with a 

 Jarge number of cannon and a deep ditch. 



The Araucanian spies failed not to give im- 

 mediate information to Caupolican of what had 

 taken place. That general, hastily collecting 

 his troops, passed the Bio-bio on the 9th of the 

 same month, and on the next morning at day- 

 break, a period remarkable in Europe for the 

 defeat of the French at St. Quintin, he attacked 

 the fortress upon three sides, having sent for- 

 ward a body of pioneers to fill up the ditch with 

 fascines and trunks of trees. The attack was 

 continued with all the fury and obstinacy so 

 natural to that people. Numbers mounted on 

 the parapet, and some even leapt within the 

 walls, destroying all that they met with* But the 

 caimon and the musketry, directed by skillful 

 hands, made so dreadful a slaughter, that the 

 ditch was filled with dead bodies, which served 

 for bridges to the new combatants who fear* 

 lessly replaced their slain compamons. Tucapel^ 



