And here, though it interrupt the course of my narrative, I apprehend some particulars concerning this country may be agreeable to such of my readers as are strangers to it. The fruitful Chili is a long and narrow strip of coast-land, bathed on the West by the Great Ocean, so falsely called the Pacific; divided on the North from Peru by the desert tract of Atacoma; and on the East, from Buenos Ayres, by the chain of the Cordilleras, or Andes, whose snow-covered summits are diversified by the columns of fire continually emitted from numerous volcanoes; on the South it extends as far as the Straits of Magellan, and indeed also claims the wholly useless island of Terra del Fuego, which is rarely, if ever, visited by a Chilian. The Spaniard Valdivia may be considered as the real discoverer of Chili. He established here the first Spanish settlement, the present capital, St. Jago, and subsequently, the town of Conception. For a long time the Spaniards were engaged in bloody and uninterrupted war with the original inhabitants of the country, called Araucanians. This strong and enterprising people withdrew into the mountains, where they were invincible, and from whence they have continued, to the present day, to annoy the descendants of the intruders, who acknowledge and have hitherto respected their independence. They still preserve in their mountains and fastnesses their ancient mode of living, and remain faithful to the religion and manners of their ancestors. Unluckily for the Spaniards, they have become very dangerous neighbours by providing themselves with horses, which, as they are skilful riders, enable them to execute their predatory expeditions with a rapidity that renders them almost always successful. A few of them have settled in the valleys, at the foot of the mountains, and adopted the Christian religion, without however amalgamating with the Spaniards, or losing their freedom. The lower class of the present inhabitants of Chili is a mixed race, sprung from the union of Spaniards with Araucanian women: they are well grown, of a dark brown complexion, and have a lively red in their cheeks. The men are all good riders, and have brought to great perfection the art of catching wild animals with the _lasso_. The upper classes have preserved their Spanish blood pure: they are also very well formed, the females nearly always handsome, and some of them remarkably beautiful. La Pérouse found them decorated with metal rings; they now adorn themselves with much taste in Parisian fashions, which reach them by the way of Peru: their manners, though they do not approach so nearly to the forms of European society as do those of the upper ranks in Rio Janeiro, are nevertheless not deficient in refinement.