The other famous chief, Lautaro, received his baptism of spears and of fire under the leadership of Caupolican.  Lautaro was probably the greatest scourge from which the Spaniards in Chile ever suffered.  Twice he demolished the town of Concepcion, and once he pursued their retreating forces as far as Santiago itself.  In an engagement on the outskirts of this city the victorious chief was killed, and after his death a certain amount of the triumphant spirit of the Indians deserted them.  But only for a while.  The indomitable spirit of the race awoke afresh, and asserted itself with renewed ardour in the course of the next series of the interminable struggles.

Compared with all this, the sun-bathed peaks of the centre and of the north breathed dreams and soft romance.  Naturally the temperament of the inhabitants had tuned themselves to fit in with this.  The few savage customs which had intruded themselves among the quaint rites and mysticism of these peoples had failed to inculcate a genuine warlike ardour or lust for blood.  Their dreamily brooding natures revolted against the strain of prolonged strife.  What measure of violent resistance was to be expected from the dwellers on the shores of Lake Guatavita?

The Lake of Guatavita had been a sacred water of the Indians of Colombia before the advent of the Spaniards.  It was on this peaceful sheet that the cacique and his chiefs were rowed out in canoes while the people clustered in their thousands about the mountainous sides of the lake.

When the canoes had arrived at the centre of the lake the chiefs were accustomed to anoint the cacique, and to powder him with a great profusion of gold-dust.  Then came the moment for the supreme ceremony.  The multitude turned their backs on the lake, and the cacique dived from the canoe and plunged into its waters; at the same time the people threw over their shoulders their offerings of gold and precious stones, which fell with a splash into the waters.

The lake was further enriched after the arrival of the conquistadores, when the natives, tortured and ill-treated in order that gold should be wrung from them, conceived such a hatred of the metal that they threw all they had wholesale into the sacred waters.  It is said that some Indians, goaded beyond endurance, taunted their conquerors and told them to search at the bottom of the lake, where they would find gold.  They had no idea that the Spaniards would actually attempt this, but this the conquistadores did, and were digging in order, apparently, to drain the water off when the sides fell in and put an end to the attempt.  It is said that even then they procured a large amount of gold and some magnificent emeralds.

[Illustration:  DEATH OF ATAHUALPA.

The final tragedy as shown in a seventeenth-century engraving.]