402 SOUTH AMERICA— THE ANDES REGIONS. 



were compelled to withdraw, when the forests resumed possession of the foreign 

 settlements. 



For three centuries all exploration ceased in the interior of Araucania ; but 

 south of the territory of these valiant natives the maritime districts continued to 

 be gradually annexed to the great colony of Chili. Thus, after the death of 

 Valdivia, clubbed by an Araucanian, Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza penetrated into 

 the island of Chiloe, accompanied by the poet, Alonzo de Ercilla, who inscribed 

 his heroic lines on the bark of trees. 



This occurred in 1558, and in the same year the navigator Ladrilleros again 

 explored Magellan Strait to study the nature of its currents, which were popularly 

 supposed to set like a river always in the same direction from the eastern to 

 the western entrance. He found, on the contrary, that the waters were in a 

 state of perfect equilibrium at both entrances, and proved it by navigating in 

 both directions between the " South Sea " and the " North Sea " (Pacific and 

 Atlantic) . 



But no colonies, properly so-called, were established beyond Chiloe Island, 

 where was founded the settlement of Castro in lô'ôà, and where for over two 

 centuries the Spanish documents reported la Jin de la Cnstianidad, " the end of 

 Christendom." 



A maritime expedition under the pilot Fernando Gallego was shipwrecked 

 on an island in the Fuegian Archipelago towards 49° south latitude. But a 

 better fate awaited Juan Fernandez, who, during a voyage between Callao and 

 Valparaiso, kept far out on the high seas to avoid the coast-winds blowing from 

 the south, and so discovered the islands named from him, which afterwards 

 acquired great importance as ports of call and victualling stations. 



First Explorations of Tierua del Fuego. 



While the discoveries of the Spanish mariners remained almost unknown 

 beyond the Peninsula, the expeditions of the English rovers and privateers 

 acquired a word- wide celebrity. At this epoch the memory of Magellan's famous 

 voyage of circumnavigation was already fading into a dim past, and even some 

 Spaniards, such as Ercilla in his Araucania, asserted that the route had been lost, 

 " either because the entrance was no longer known, or because an island hurled 

 by the stormy sea and the fierce gales had blocked the passage." 



On the part of the Spanish Government the ignorance was intentional ; all 

 captains navigating the southern seas were strictly forbidden to engage any 

 foreign sailor among their crews, as the gate of the great ocean covering half the 

 globe was to remain closed. At this time Drake was preparing his expedition 

 to plunder the Spanish colonies on the shores of the Pacific in the New "World. 

 In 1578 he rediscovered and successfully steered through Magellan Strait ; 

 then being driven southwards he discovered the west side of the Fuegian Archi- 

 pelago, the east side of which had already been sighted by Hoces. After the 



