These Araucanians were, indeed, born fighters.  In common with the general run of mankind, it was their lot to be defeated from time to time.  Nevertheless, they repaid the defeats frequently with very tragic interest; in any case, subdued by force of arms they certainly never were.  Much the same may be said of the Indians of the Argentine and Uruguayan plains.  The aggressive tactics here were by no means confined to the Spaniards.  On the first landing of the conquistadores, these found themselves, after having given provocation in the first instance, cooped up within the flimsy walls of their new settlements, surrounded by fierce and vindictive enemies, who charged on them from time to time with bewildering fury, choosing as often as not for the purpose the hour just before dawn, which they would make horrid with their warlike cries and shrill yells.  These, too, remained entirely unsubdued to the last.  They had the ill-fortune to be favoured with fewer natural advantages than the Araucanians.  They had neither woodland valleys nor mountains in which to take shelter in the time of need.  They fought on a plain which was as open as day, and as flat as a table from horizon to horizon.  No crude strategy was possible—­at all events, in the daytime—­and the attack of the charging Indians was necessarily visible from a distance of leagues.

From time to time a certain number of these fierce tribesmen were captured, but their fiery spirits could brook no domestic tasks, and when, at a very much later date, some of them were shipped upon a Spanish man-of-war with the purpose of testing their value as sailors, they rose in mutiny and slew many officers and men, and, indeed, obtained temporary control of the ship, until, seeing the uselessness of further efforts, they flung themselves overboard in a body.

It was the ancestors of such men as these who had in the first instance disputed the soil with the Spaniards.  There is no doubt that, while the metal-bearing lands fell into the opened mouths of the Spaniards as easily as over-ripe plums, the maintaining of a foothold in the southern plains was a precarious and desperate matter.  As has been said, the natural topographical advantages of Southern Chile made the wars here the grimmest and fiercest of all those waged throughout the Continent.  The mere names of Caupolican and Lautaro suffice to recall a galaxy of Homeric feats.  The deeds of the two deserve a passing word of explanation.

It was the Chief Caupolican who organized the first resistance to the invaders on a large scale, and who led his armies with a marvellous intrepidity against the Spaniards.  He initiated a new species of attack, which proved very trying to the white troops.  He would divide his men into a number of companies, and send one after another to engage the Spanish forces.  Thus the first company would charge, and would engage for awhile, fighting desperately.  Then they would retire at their leisure, to be succeeded without pause by the second, and so on.  According to some of the older historians, it was by this method that Valdivia’s forces were overcome on the occasion when the entire Spanish army, including its brave leader, was massacred.