Each village or encampment is governed by an _Ulmen_. In their language and religion they differ not from the Araucanians. They are fond of hunting, and often, in pursuit of game, traverse the vast plains lying between the river _Plate_ and the Straits of _Magellan_. In these excursions, which sometimes extend as far as to _Buenos Ayres_, they plunder the country in that vicinity, and frequently attack the caravans of merchandise going thence to _Chili_, with such success that commerce is said to have suffered severely thereby. Their favourite weapon is the _laque_ or _lasso_, which they carry fastened to their girdles. Although of a wandering and restless disposition, the _Pehuenches_ are the most industrious and commercial of any savages. The women work cloths of various colours; the men occupy themselves in making baskets and a variety of beautiful articles of wood, feathers, or skins, which are highly prized by their neighbours. Assembling every year on the Spanish frontier, they hold a kind of fair, that usually continues for fifteen or twenty days, when, in exchange for fossil salt, gypsum, pitch, bed-coverings, _ponchos_, skins, wool, bridle-reins beautifully wrought of plaited leather, baskets, wooden vessels, feathers, ostrich eggs, horses and cattle, &c., they receive wheat, wine, and the manufactures of Europe. Being very skilful in traffic, they can with difficulty be overreached; and when indulging in the pleasures of wine, a portion of them is set apart to guard their property from plunder. They are generally humane, complacent, lovers of justice, and possess all those good qualities that are produced or perfected by commerce. The _Chiquillanians_, whom some have erroneously supposed to be a part of the _Pehuenches_, live to the north-east of them, on the eastern border of the _Andes_, and are the most savage and least numerous of any of the Chilians. They go almost naked, merely wrapping around them the skin of the _guanaco_. It is observable that all the Chilians who inhabit the eastern valleys of the _Andes_, namely, the _Pehuenches_, the _Puelches_, the _Huilliches_, and the _Chiquillanians_, are much redder than their countrymen dwelling westward of those mountains. All the mountaineers dress themselves in skins and paint their faces; and, living in general by hunting, lead a wandering and unsettled life. They are, generally speaking, of a lofty stature and of great strength. CHAPTER XI. _BRAZIL: DISCOVERY OF THE MINES; ATTEMPT OF THE FRENCH ON RIO DE JANEIRO._ 1702-1720.