213 



selves, in order to induce their enemies to quit the 

 wood and attack them in the open field. The x\rau- 

 canians, not aware of the trick, ran into the snare, 

 and being surrounded upon every side, were almost 

 all cut to pieces, together with their commander, af- 

 ter having sold their lives very dearly. The re- 

 mainder took refuge in the marshes, where they se- 

 cured themselves from the fury of the victors. 



These repeated victories, the cause of such exulta- 

 tion to the Spaniards, were but the prehides of the 

 severest disasters that they had ever experienced in 

 Chili. It will, nevertheless, scarcely admit of a doubt 

 that they must have cost much blood, since the go- 

 vernor, contrary to his custom, withdrew to Santiago 

 after the last action, with the intention of awaiting 

 there the reinforcements which he expected from 

 Peru, and to raise as many recruits as possible in 

 the northern provinces of the country. The rein- 

 forcements were not long in arriving, but as they ap- 

 peared to him insufficient to continue t;he war with 

 advantage, he determined to go to Peru in person to 

 solicit more considerable succours, committing in 

 the mean time the command of the army to the quar- 

 ter-master, and the civil government to the licentiate 

 Pedro Viscarra. On his arrival at Lima he met with 

 his successor in the government, who had been ap- 

 pointed by the court of Spain. This was Don Martin 

 Loyola, nephew of St. Ignatius,* an officer of merit, 

 who had acquired the favour of the viceroy Toledo, 

 by taking Tupac Amaru, the last Inca of Peru, in 



* The celebrated founder of the order of the JesuitB. 



