When the Spaniards first set foot in Chili they found a large portion of the country under the sway of the Incas, for although that dynasty is generally associated with Peru, at the height of its power it exercised domination over Ecuador and Chili in addition. Almagro, the gallant General who fell a victim to the insatiable ambition of his former comrade Pizarro, was the first of the conquerors to enter the country, but his stay was not prolonged, for the climate was inhospitable, and there was no gold to be had for the seeking. It remained for Valdivia, a lieutenant of Pizarro’s, to carry on the work which Almagro had attempted in a half-hearted fashion. He found the task a particularly perilous one, and before he could complete it he was captured by the Araucanians and slain by the war club of an old chief. Spain, however, persisted in her project, and her eventual conquest of Chili certainly makes one of the proudest records in the variegated page of her exploits in the New World. In the early years of the nineteenth century Chili went through an experience which was common to every other South American country--it battled for its independence. The struggle was long and desperate. The resemblance of the Chilians to the English has already been noted, and it was therefore appropriate that two men of British descent should have lent incalculable aid to Chili in securing her enfranchisement. The names of Bernardo O’Higgins and Lord Thomas Cochrane are deservedly honoured in the country to-day. O’Higgins was the natural son of an Irish Captain-General, who under the old Spanish regime had played a part in the making of modern Chili, thus illustrating yet once more the statement that there has never been a conflict in modern times but an Irishman has taken part in it. A gallant fighter, a consummate strategist, his exploits on Chilian soil have quite eclipsed those of his father. He outwitted the Spanish generals, harried their forces, and did more than anyone else, with the exception of San Martin, to break the power of Spain in that corner of the globe. He subsequently became dictator of the new republic, but his record as a statesman is by no means so clean or so brilliant as his career as a soldier. His own rapacity and his ministers’ corruption led to his downfall in 1823. Lord Thomas Cochrane was one of those sailors of fortune in which the British Navy has been so prolific. He was almost as great a terror to the Spanish captains as Drake had been some hundreds of years before. His daring bombardment of Valdivia, and subsequent rushing of the forts, demoralised the Spaniards and led to the surrender of the city, and deprived Spain of her last base of operations on the Chilian mainland. Chili has been called “the school of arms” for South America, and, judging from the number of conflicts which have taken place on her soil, the name is more than justified.