Page:The History of San Martin (1893).djvu/94



military policy of the United Provinces had three distinct ends: first, to construct a new nation within the geographical limits of the old Viceroyalty of the River Plate; second, to aid in the establishment of other South American nations, who would be their natural allies; and third, to carry their arms beyond their frontiers for the removal of obstacles to their expansion. Hence the expeditions to Paraguay and Monte Video, the aid given to the insurgents in Chile, and the war waged with the Viceroyalty of Peru. The army of the North, as the embodiment of this threefold policy, was styled "The Auxiliary Army of Peru," and its mission was to incorporate the Provinces of Upper Peru as a portion of the old Viceroyalty, to capture Lima, the centre of Spanish power in South America, and to bring Lower Peru into an alliance similar to that already contracted with Chile.

For four years Upper Peru had been the battlefield of the Patriots and Royalists; it was now completely in the power of the latter. The four provinces known as Upper Peru are shut in by mountain ranges, and have no fluvial communication with either ocean. Situate within the tropics, their high tablelands and intervening valleys furnish at once examples of perpetual winter and perpetual spring, and yield all the natural products of the globe.

Upper Peru is divided by two spurs from the Andes into three districts. The western range runs parallel to the Pacific Ocean from the desert of Atacama—which is a