Page:A history of Chile.djvu/15



Two periods of Chilean history have already been well presented to the outside world; the period of the revolution and that of the late war between Chile and the Peruvian-Bolivian alliance. Respecting the period between the years 1829 and 1879 there is no connected account in English. Since the war with Peru, Chile has attracted considerable outside attention, and within the past two years there have been several graphic accounts of modern Chile. What is now needed is a volume that will condense the information, which in English is scattered through many books, and give a complete, short history and picture of Chile in a single volume; that I undertake to furnish in this work.

I have devoted considerable space to the late civil war in Chile and have cut somewhat short previous political wars, which, in point of the numbers killed, were quite as bloody as this last. But all grew out of the same political conditions, and the last war, leading to the downfall of President Balmaceda, was in reality the culmination of years of political strife. Were I to go into the details of every skirmish between the forces of contending party leaders, the reader would be wearied with the recital. I have given results rather than