THE ARAUCANIANS. 241 



although occasionally driven to their mountain fastnesses, they have always reap- 

 peared as formidable and unconquerable as ever. Their vigilance soon detected 

 the value of the military discipline of the Spaniards, and especially the great 

 importance of cavalry in an army; and they lost no time in adopting both these 

 resources, to the dismay and discomfiture of their enemies. Thus in seventeen 

 years after their first encounter w^ith Europeans, they possessed several strong 

 squadrons of horse, conducted their operations in military order, and, unlike the 

 Americans generally, met their enemies in the open field. Nothing, indeed, could 

 surpass their valor; and their wars with the Spaniards are replete with those 

 chivalric exploits which constitute the charm and romance of history. 



The Araucanians are highly susceptible of mental culture, but they despise 

 the restraints of civilisation ; and those of them who have been educated in the 

 Spanish colonies, have embraced the first opportunity to resume the haunts and 

 habits of their nation. They possessed some of the useful arts before their inter- 

 course with Europeans : thus they extracted and purified the ores of gold, silver, 

 copper and lead; they formed utensils of clay, had a process for varnishing them, 

 and they even constructed vessels of marble. They had invented numbers to 

 express any requisite quantity, and preserved the memory of important events by 

 means of knotted cords, in the manner of the Peruvians ; and it is probable that 

 they derived most of these advantages from the latter people. There was, however, 

 but little intercourse between the two nations, as is proved by the fact that there 

 are but fifteen or twenty words common to their languages.* 



The preceding facts are derived from Molina's History of Chili, Vol. II, passim. 



61 



