TOPOGRAPHY. 



311 



neither are they acquainted with any of those extravagances, 

 which, through a want of true rehgion, are admitted under 

 the name of worship. This independence of their spirit, or, 

 rather, this indocihty with regard to a Superior Being, has so 

 powerful an influence on their temporal government, that it 

 is merely a species of military democracy, in which the elders 

 and captains, who among them are regarded as the sages and 

 fathers of the country, discuss and decide the questions of 

 peace and war, in a house appropriated, in each of the towns, 

 to that particular purpose. They are so vain of their ancient 

 origin, that they despise the Spaniards as a nation of needy 

 upstarts. Valiant, frugal, and without aspiring to any other 

 conveniences, or knowing any other necessities, beside those 

 of pure Nature, they sometimes wage war, with the sole inten- 

 tion of enabling the Indian youths to profit, at the side of the 

 elders, by their experience, and to learn the mode of carrying 

 on the warfare successfully. This is accomplished, according 

 to them, whenever they contrive to steal the cattle, and to in- 

 timidate the Spaniards ; which latter aim they have recently 

 efFecled, to the shameful extreme of proceeding to the heights 

 adjacent to the principal settlements, to bid defiance to the. 

 inhabitants. ' 



The mischiefs which these barbarians occasioned to tho 

 commerce of Peru, and the progress they made in disturbing 

 the internal tranquillity of the country, claimed the attention 

 of Don Francisco de Toledo, the then viceroy of these realms.. 

 To apply an efficacious remedy, such as should guard against 

 every future disaster, he determined to form settlements in 

 the vallies they inhabited, and which are now named Chichas 

 y Tarija. For the execution of this task, he appointed Luis 



de 



