The authentic history of _Chili_, according to the _Abbé_ Molina, does not go further back than to about the fifteenth century. The earliest accounts of the Chilians are contained in the Peruvian annals. The _Incas_ had extended their empire from the equator to the tropic of Capricorn and thence to the desirable land of _Chili_, which extends for twelve hundred and sixty miles along the Pacific Ocean. The chain of the _Cordilleras_, which bounds it to the east, supplies it with an abundance of streams, moderating its climate and fertilizing its soil. At the time when the devastating presence of the Spaniards first appeared upon the land, the population is supposed to have been numerous. It had not been without severe fighting that the ascendancy of the Peruvians over this region was obtained; and, in like manner, the early Spaniards had to feel the force of the arm of the native tribes. _Chili_, indeed, had become divided into two parts; the one free, the other subject to Peruvian domination. According to the author above quoted, the Chilians at the date of the Spaniards’ arrival were by no means so rude in manners as is usually supposed. They had long since passed from the state of the hunter, which is that of the Patagonian of to-day, to the more advanced state of the shepherd. This second stage in civilization, too, they had surmounted, and were now a race of husbandmen; they had not attained to the more advanced condition of merchants. In a country where game was not abundant, and where domestic animals were likewise rare, the transition to the condition of cultivators of the soil was probably of necessity rapid. It will be remembered that when Hernando Pizarro proceeded to Spain after the capture of the _Inca_ Atahualpa, the territory for two hundred leagues to the south of his brother’s government had been assigned to Almagro, who had undertaken the march across the _Andes_ to _Chili_.