The soldiers of the conquest pillaged these treasures, sacked temples and palaces, and quarrelled over their wealth in a series of tragic struggles. Around the mines cities sprang up and parties were formed; at Potosi Vicuñas and Biscayans, excited by the sight of the metal which delighted their cupidity, prolonged the savagery of the first conflict. Where minerals existed the colonial life was unstable, harsh, and brutal; in poor countries, such as Chili and the Argentine, societies were slowly formed which cultivated the soil: tenacious oligarchies bound to the new country by solid interests. The vanquished races and the victors differed greatly from one another; hence amidst the political and moral unity of the new societies arose different characteristics and incipient antagonisms. Spaniards and Portuguese took Indian wives or women; the leaders married princesses of Mexico and Peru; the soldiers founded provisional homes in the colonies. {49} The Andalusians settled in the tropics; the Basques in the temperate regions; and the Castilians swarmed in the towns. A curious affinity of race, as between the Basques and the Araucanians, and analogies of climate and landscape, and, apart from these factors, the erratic wanderings of the conquerors, explain this original diversity of the American provinces. Why should they be similar: the offspring of the gentle Indian Quechuas and the fiery Andalusians; the children of the virile Araucanians and the calm, reasonable Basques? Wherever the native population was more abundant, and the political organisation more complicated, as in Mexico and Peru, its influence on miscegenation was more potent than in colonies from which the Indian was disappearing (as the Charruas of Uruguay or the nomadic tribes of Brazil) before the onset of civilisation. The climate, severe on the plateaux, and favourable to an energetic existence, warm and enervating on the coast, contributed to the variety of human types. The first families sprung of the sensuality of the conquerors already revealed the elements of future developments.