Page:A history of Chile.djvu/49

 Almagro, and there are few revolting pages in the history of his early Chilean conquests, not more in fact, than in the pages of English conquests. Valdivia's great fault was his overweening confidence in his own prowess and military strength. Perhaps he had been led to think, from his former acquaintance with Indian warfare in Peru, that twelve Spanish knights, chivalrous and bold, were able anywhere to cope with the whole Araucanian army. This confidence in Spanish valor, led to his death and the almost total destruction of his seven cities, which he had supposed himself able to defend with a handful of Spanish cavaliers and a small army of uncertain allies. He knew not the enemies with whom he had to cope.

The river Biobio is the Rhine of South America. From the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century, hardy and warlike tribes of Indians have maintained this as their frontier, and have doggedly resisted every encroachment upon their territories and combated every effort at their subjugation. Only since 1882 have the Araucanians become true subjects of the Chilean government; only since 1889 have the Indians of Southern Chile so far submitted to the civil authorities as to permit the withdrawal of military supervision. Fifty thousand of them still remain in a state of half dependence, living under the protectorate of the Chilean government, but still maintaining pertinaciously their primitive habits, and loath to permit their pure blood to mix with that of the Spaniards. They are still proud, independent, well-built, well-dressed, and industrious, though confirmed drunkards. They have been the most heroic, the most persistent, of the American Indians; but, like the cognate races of the western hemisphere,