The Chiquillanians, whom some persons have supposed a tribe of the Pehueaches, live to the north-east of that nation, on the eastern borders, of the Andes[86].  These are the most savage, and consequently the least numerous of any of the tribes of the Chilese; for it is an established fact, that the ruder the state of savage life the less favourable it is to population.  They go almost naked, merely wrapping the skins of the Guanaco round their bodies, and they speak a corrupted and guttural dialect of the Chili-dugu or Chilese language.  It is observable that all the Chilese tribes which inhabit the elevated valleys of the Andes, both Pehuenches, Puelches, Huilliches, and Chiquillanians, are much redder than those of their countrymen who dwell in the lower country to the west of these mountains.  All these mountaineers dress themselves in skins, paint their laces, subsist in a great measure by hunting, and lead a wandering and unsettled life.  They are in fact the so much celebrated Patagonians, who have been occasionally seen near the Straits of Magellan, and who have sometimes been described as giants, and at other times as not much beyond the ordinary stature of mankind.  Generally speaking however, they are of lofty stature and have great muscular strength.

[Footnote 86:  In the map accompanying the English translation of Molina, the Penuenches and Chiquillanians are placed under the same parallel between lat. 33 deg.  SO’ and 36 deg.  S. The former on the western and the latter on the eastern side of the Andes.—­E.]

On information being sent to Spain of the death of Quiroga, as formerly mentioned, Don Alonzo Sotomayor Marquis of Villa-hermoso was sent out as governor with six hundred regular troops.  He landed at Buenos Ayres in 1583, from whence he proceeded to St Jago.  On taking possession of his government, he appointed his brother Don Luis to the new office of Colonel of the Kingdom, and sent him with a military force to relieve the cities of Villarica and Valdivia, which were both besieged by the Araucanians.  After twice defeating the toqui, Paynenancu, who opposed his march, he raised the sieges and supplied both places with reinforcements.  The indefatigable but unfortunate toqui, after two defeats from Don Luis, turned his arms against Tiburcio Heredia and Antonio Galleguilios, who were ravaging the country with separate strong detachments of cavalry, and was successively defeated by both of these officers, yet the victors paid dear for their successes.

While these events were going on in the south, the governor had to oppose the Pehuenches who had invaded the new settlement of Chilian, and whom he defeated and constrained to retire into their mountains.  He then marched into Araucania at the head of seven hundred Spaniards and a great number of auxiliaries, resolved to pursue the cruel and rigorous system of warfare which had formerly been adopted by Don Garcia, in preference to the humane procedure of his immediate