There is a national Supreme Court of seven members that sits at Santiago, which is the final judicial authority. Courts of appeal consisting of from five to twelve members also sit at Santiago, Valparaiso, Tacna, Serena, Talca, Valdivia and Concepción. There are also a number of minor courts which are located in the various provinces and departments. Each province is governed by an _intendente_, who is appointed by the President of the republic. The departments are governed by governors, who are subordinate to the _intendentes_, and the districts by inspectors, who are also appointed. The only popular element is the municipal district, or commune, which is governed by a board composed of nine men, who are elected by direct vote in each municipality. When the Spaniards reached Chile they found native races occupying it. In the northern portions the tribes were under at least the nominal sway of the Incas, although separated from them either by the inhospitable Andes or dreary desert wastes. In the great central valley, however, the land appeared a pleasant garden, and so rich that nowhere had the Spaniards seen anything similar either for its fertility or the wealth of its fruits and herds. “It is all an inhabited place and a sown land or a gold-mine, rich in herds as that of Peru, with a fibre drawn from the soil rich in food supplies sown by the Indians for their subsistence”—so wrote the chroniclers. They lived in comfort and had a certain civilization. Each _cacique_ had his own ranch house, the number of doors indicating the number of his wives, of which some had as many as fifteen. These people were the Araucanians, who proved to be a brave and courageous race. The Spaniards immediately began their usual cruelties and efforts to enslave these people, but succeeded only temporarily. The natives soon rose in rebellion. Three hundred years of warfare decimated their ranks, but did not subdue them, and when the Spanish rule ended these people were as unconquered as when it began. Their history has been written in blood, but it is the struggle of a heroic race, and it is not dimmed by the excesses and cruelties that attached to the Spaniards in their efforts to subjugate and enslave these valiant people.