Page:A history of Chile.djvu/430

 384 A HISTORY OF CHILE ever a sound of doom to the red man. There was a time when the Chilean government forbade the purchase of their lands, thinking that they might in time become a province of civilized Indians. But this prohibi- tion is now removed and the Indians are left free moral agents to do as they please with their property. The result is that firewater, accompanied by a few dollars, buys their lands and this will in time destroy their autonomy as a nation. Sooner or later, despite all humanitarian laws and sentiment, the weak is sub- verted by the strong, either directly or indirectly. Such is the history of civilization, and civilization is fast pushing its wheat fields into the Araucanian territories, and the old towns which Valdivia founded, but which lay in ruins ever after, are springing into new and en- ergetic life on the Chilean frontiers. Angol is now a busy place of considerable population, Canete is a growing town, Valdivia has over 23,000 inhabitants, Arauco 27,000, while other cities, such as Traiguen, Temuco, and Puerto Montt, have been making rapid advancement and bringing the improvements and pro- gressive ways of the modern world into these ancient territories and among this ancient people. The Indi- ans live now in a state of semi-independence, recog- nizing in the Chilean government a sort of protector- ate. They are congregated principally in the provinces of Malleco, Imperial and Cautin, and in scattered bands throughout the country south of the Biobio river. In the extreme south of Chile are various small no- mad tribes of Patagonian Indians. The Yaghan and Fuegian Indians are savage and miserable beings, wan- dering about the islands at the Straits of Magellan, a few families of them usually together, armed with bows and arrows, clothed in old rags and blankets and sub- sisting on mussels and such food as they are enabled