4 INTRODUCTION. 



to the southward ; but after crossing the Maule was defeated at 

 Itata, and obliged to go in person to Peru to obtain reinforcements. 

 During his absence, the people of Copiapo, who had not forgotten 

 the treacherous murder of their young chief by Monroy and Miranda, 

 fell upon a detachment of forty Spaniards, and put them to death ; 

 and those of Coquimbo massacred all the inhabitants of the new 

 colony, and levelled its walls to the ground. Francis Aquirre was 

 immediately sent thither, and rebuilt the town in a more convenient 

 situation in 1549 ; and Valdivia having returned with a considerable 

 number of new adventurers, the northern part of Chile was, after 

 nine years of incessant and excessive fatigue on the part of the 

 general, reduced to tranquillity, and the lands parcelled out amongst 

 his oldest followers, according to the feudal customs then prevailing 

 in Europe. 



The next year, 1550, Valdivia proceeded as far south as the 

 Biobio, near whose mouth, in the beautiful bay of Penco, he founded 

 the city of Conception, in one of the richest and most fertile pro- 

 vinces of Chile. But his progress was stopped here by the Cacique 

 or Toqui Aillavilla, the chief of the Araucanians, who crossed the 

 Biobio in order to succour the people of Penco, and to resist to the 

 death these invaders of their territory. 



Araucana is a rich and fertile province, extending from the Biobio 

 to the Callacalla, generally very woody, full of hills, and well 

 watered. The inhabitants are hardy, brave, and passionately fond of 

 liberty : they have never yet been subdued, having equally resisted 

 the armies of the Incas, and those of the Spaniards. It has been 

 their fortune to have a poet in the person of Ercilla, among their 

 enemies, who has done justice to their valour, and preserved the 

 memory of their very singular customs and polity, of which he was 

 an eye-witness, having taken a distinguished part in most of the 

 battles he describes. 



Between the first foundation of Conception, 1550, and its destruc- 

 tion in 1554, the activity of Valdivia had founded Imperial on the 

 river, which forms a port at the very walls of the city, which, during 



