Page:A history of Chile.djvu/429

 CHILE OF TO-DAY 383 iards he proved himself a shfewd politician. But he is as much a believer in omens as Romulus. Let the little bird of ill-omen chirp on his left side while he is on a journey and he will turn back. Considerable efforts have been made by the Romish church to convert these Indians, and with some suc- cess. A few churches and monasteries have been at different times established within their territories, with church schools for the instruction of the young Indi- ans. Every year quite a number of boys are turned from their barbarous ways of life, and, after a short training, are induced to hire themselves out as labor- ers and to live among the Chileans, with whom they in time identify themselves. Others of the boys run away and return to their former free life. The Chilean government, like the United States, has had its troublesome Indian question. Led by rene- gades, self-styled French kings, horse thieves and ban- ditti, the Indians have constantly harassed the frontier settlements. So sure as Chile became involved in war, the Araucanians stood ready to attack in the rear, as was the case during the late war with Peru when they attacked villages, burned houses, stole cattle and pil- laged haciendas. But constant wars and constant drunk- enness is at last solving the question, the Indians will become extinct or absorbed into the general population of Chile. They have been able to withstand Spanish arms, but they are not able to withstand the kind of firewater the Germans of southern Chile manufacture for them. Men, women and children drink and roll in beastly drunkenness. Smallpox and other diseases of civilized nations, have at different times well-nigh swept them from the face of the earth, and year by year lessd'n their numbers. Railroads are being pushed into their territorv and the shriek of the iron horse is