inhabitants. It is a fact that there was but one language spoken throughout the country; a proof that these tribes were in the habit of intercourse with each other, and were not isolated, or separated by vast desarts, or by immense lakes or forests, which is the case in many other parts of America, but which were at that time in Chili, as they are now, of inconsiderable extent.

It would seem that agriculture must have made no inconsiderable progress among a people who possessed, as did the Chilians, a great variety of the above mentioned alimentary plants, all distinguished by their peculiar names, a circumstance that could not have occurred except in a state of extensive and varied cultivation. They had also in many parts of the country aqueducts for watering their fields, which were constructed with much skill. Among these, the canal which, for the space of many miles, borders the rough skirts of the mountains in the vicinity of the capital, and waters the land to the northward of that city, is particularly remarkable for its extent and solidity. They were likewise acquainted with the use of manures, called by them vunalti, though from the great fertility of the soil but little attention was paid to them.

Being in want of animals of strength to till the ground, they were accustomed to turn it up with a spade made of hard wood, forcing it into the earth with their breasts, but as this process was very slow and fatiguing, it is surprising that they had not discovered some other mode more expeditious and less laborious. They at present make use of a simple

kind of plough, called chetague, made of the limb of a tree curved at one end, in which is inserted. a share formed of the same material, with a handle. to guide it. Whether this rude instrument of agriculture, which appears to be a model of the first plough ever used, is one of their own invention, or was taught them by the Spaniards, is uncertain; from its extreme simplicity I should, however, be strongly induced to doubt the latter. Admiral Spils-. berg observes, that the inhabitants of Mocha, an island in the Araucanian Sea, where the Spaniards have never had a settlement, make use of this plough, drawn by two chilihueques, to cultivate their lands; and Fathers Bry, who refer to this fact, add, that the Chilians, with the assistance of these animals, tilled their grounds before they received cattle from Europe. However this may be, it is certain that this species of camel was employed antecedent to that period as beasts of burden, and the transition from carriage to the draught is not difficult.

Man merely requires to become acquainted with the utility of any object, to induce him to apply it by degrees to other advantageous purposes.

It is a generally received opinion that grain was eaten raw by the first men who employed it as an article of food. But this aliment being of an insipid taste, and difficult of mastication, they began to parch or roast it; the grain thus cooked easily pulverizing in the hands, gave them the first idea of meal, which they gradually learned to prepare in the form of gruel, cakes, and finally of bread. At the period of which we treat, the Chilians eat their grain cooked;

this was done either by boiling it in earthen pots adapted to the purpose, or roasting it in hot sand, an operation which rendered it lighter and less viscous. But not satisfied with preparing it in this mode, which has always been the most usual among nations emerging from the savage state, they proceeded to make of it two distinct kinds of meal, the parched, to which they gave the name of murque, and the raw, which they called rugo. With the first they made gruels, and a kind of beverage which they at present use for breakfast instead of chocolate; from the second they prepared cakes, and a bread called by them couque, which they baked in holes formed like ovens, excavated in the sides of the mountains and in the banks of the rivers, a great number of which are still to be seen. Their invention of a kind of sieve, called chignigue, for separating the bran from the flour, affords matter of surprise; that they employed leaven is, however, still more surprising, as such a discovery can only be made gradually, and is the fruit of reasoning or observation, unless they were led to it by some fortunate accident, which most probably was the case when they first began to make use of bread.

From the above mentioned grains, and the berries of several trees, they obtained nine or ten kinds of spiritous liquor, which they fermented and kept in earthen jars, as was the custom with the Greeks and Romans. This refinement of domestic economy, though not originating from actual necessity, appears to be natural to man, in whatever situation he is found; more especially when he is brought to live in

society with his fellow men. The discovery of fermented liquors soon follows that of aliment; and it is reasonable to believe that the use of such beverages is of high antiquity among the Chilians, more especially as their country abounds in materials for making them.

CHAPTER IV.

Political Establishments, Government and Arts.

AGRICULTURE is the vital principle of socie ty and of the arts. Scarcely does a wandering family, either from inclination or necessity, begin to cultivate a piece of ground, when it establishes itself upon it from a natural attachment, and, no longer relishing a wandering and solitary life, seeks the society of its fellows, whose succours it then begins to find necessary for its welfare. The Chilians, having adopted that settled mode of life indispensable to an agricultural people, collected themselves into families, more or less numerous, in those districts that were best suited to their occupation, where they esestablished themselves in large villages, called cara, a name which they at present give to the Spanish cities, or in small ones, which they denominated lov. But these accidental collections had not the form of the present European settlements; they consisted only of a number of huts, irregularly dispersed within sight of each other, precisely in the manner of the German settlements in the time of Charlemagne. Some of these villages exist even at present in several parts of Spanish Chili, of which the most considerable are Lampa, in the province of Saint Jago, and Lora, in that of Maúle.