196 



making baskets and a variety of beantiful articles of 

 wood, feathers or skins, which arc highly prized by 

 their neighbours* They assemble every year oa 

 the Spanish frontier, where they hold a kind of fair 

 that usually continues for fifteen or twenty days. 

 Hither they bring fossil salt, gypsum, pitch, bed- 

 coverings, ponchos, skins, wool, bridle-reins beau- 

 tifully wrought of "plaited leather, baskets, woodeaa 

 vessels, feathers, ostrich eggs, horses, cattle, and a 

 variety of other articles ; and receive in exchange 

 wheat, wine, and the manufactures of Europe. The^ 

 are very skilful in traffic, and can with difficulty be 

 overreached. For fear of being plundered by those 

 who believe that any thing is lawful against infidels, 

 they never all drink at the same time, but sepa- 

 rate themselves into several companies, and while 

 some keep guard the others indulge themselves in 

 the pleasures of wine. They are generally humane, 

 complacent, lovers of justice, and possess all those 

 good qualities that are produced or jperfected by 

 commerce. 



The Chiquillanians, whom some have erroneously 

 supposed to be a part of the Pehuenches, live to the 

 north east of them, on the eastern borders of the 

 Andes. These are the most savage, and, of course, 

 the least numerous of any of the Chilians, for it is 

 an established fact that the ruder the state of savage 

 life, the more uniavourable is it to population. They 

 go almost naked, merely wrapping around them the 

 skin of the guanaco.* It is observable that all the 



* The anonymous account of Chili published at Bologna, in 

 speaking of this nation, observes, that their language is guttural, 

 and a very corrupt jargon of the Chilian. 



