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318 same thing happened when the celebrated mines of Lipes were inundated, more particularly the one named, byantonomatia, the table of silver. The miners, abandoning the mountainous territory, came down to the valley, where they, sought, in agricultural pursuits, a poorer, but more natural, and less precarious subsistence.

Among the distinguished personages who settled at Tarija, and honoured it with their residence, was Don Joseph Moreno de Peralta, the brother of our celebrated Peralta;—of that indefatigable writer, who, glowing with an ardent patriotism, undertook to emulate the eloquence of Xenophon, and the sweetness of Virgil, in describing the heroical deeds of his fellow-citizens, and in singing the foundation of his glorious country.

In the above-mentioned state of abundance and felicity, the province remained during the life of Luis de Fuentes, and beneath his fostering protection. Juan Porcel de Padilla, who inherited his titles, but not his virtues, proposed to the royal audience of la Plata, the conquest of the valley named de las Salinas, the last on the confines of the province, to which the Chirihuanos Indians had retired. He obtained the permission to form a settlement; and in the expedition which ensued, contrived, by the dint of much cruelty and violence, to give a certain degree of extension to the limits in that part. This was not, however, attended by any eventual benefit, either to the nation or to himself, and only served to render the Spanish name odious, and his own detestable. The Chirihuanos transmitted to their posterity the remembrance of the tyrannies exercised by Padilla, and the desire to avenge them. In the year 1727, they broke out into open hostilities, and made