PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
17 
pens of Juan de Ulloa, La Perouse, and others ; and since its misfortunes, CHAP, 
by a well-known naval author, who has admirably pictured the ruin 
and desolation which the city at that time must have presented. Much October, 
of his description would have correctly applied to the time of our visit ; 
but, generally speaking, there was a decided improvement in every 
department. The panic occasioned by the daring associates of the 
outlaw Benavides, Peneleo and Pinchero, was beginning to subside. 
These chiefs, unable to make head against the people when united, 
had of late confined their depredations to the immediate vicinity 
of their strong holds among the mountains : the peasants had re- 
turned to the cultivation of the soil ; looms were active in various 
paits of the town , and dilapidations were gradually disappearing before 
cumbrous brickwork and masonry. Commerce was consequently be- 
ginning to revive ; there were several merchant-vessels in the port ; and 
t e Quadra, once “ silent as the dead,” now resounded with the voices 
of muleteers conducting the exports and imports of the country. 
The tranquil and improving condition of the state was further 
evinced by the equipment of an expedition against the island ofChiloe, 
which still maintained its allegiance to the mother country. The pre- 
parations appeared to give general satisfaction in Conception, and 
recruits were daily inlisting, and training in the Presidio. I peeped 
t rough the gate one morning, and saw these tyros in arms going 
irough the ordeal of the awkw ard squad. They were half Indians, 
out shoes or stockings, and with heads like mushrooms. Their 
I pearance, however, was immaterial : they were the troops on which 
le peop e placed their dependence, which the result of the expedition 
I not isappoint ; and the effect upon their minds was equally ex- 
II aratiiijy Hitherto obliged to act on the defensive against a few 
piratica ndian chiefs, they now found themselves lending their troops 
to carry on a warfare in a distant province. Such was the prosperous 
state of affiiirs at the time of our arrival ; and the highest expectations 
pervaded all classes of society. 
The town of Conception occupies nearly a square mile of ground 
It IS situated on the north side of the river Bio Bio, and is distant 
from It about a quarter of a mile. Its site was chosen in 1763, about 
welve years after the old city of Penco was destroyed by an earth- 
D 
