Exalted ideas, or striking images, or mere commonplace thoughts may be presented in prose, and verse possesses the same capacity; the main difference between them would, therefore, seem to be that in verse alone the words are selected so as to conform in their utterance to a prescribed measure. Inevitably in different verses there is a more or a less complete compliance with this rule; and this is characteristic of the verses in question, as well as of many other verses; but when the perfect verses of _La Araucana_ or _Arauco domado_ are pronounced in their sonorous Spanish tones there is no doubt that we have before us examples of poetry. CHAPTER IX WRITERS ON CHILEAN HISTORY 1600-1650. I. _Alonso González de Nájera._ II. _Francisco Núñez de Pineda Bascuñán._ III. _Caro de Torres._ IV. _Melchor Xufré del Águila._ V. _Alonso de Ovalle._ VI. _Miguel de Aguirre._ VII. _Francisco Ponce de León._ VIII. _Diego de Rosales._ IX. _Santiago de Tesillo._ I [Sidenote: Spanish South America organised] [Sidenote: Heads of the governments] At the beginning of the seventeenth century, sixty or seventy years after the occupation of Peru, New Granada and the region of the Río de la Plata and its tributaries, the Spanish colonies of South America had acquired their early form of organization. Peru was under the government of a viceroy, whose jurisdiction was nominally coextensive with Spain’s possessions in South America; but in New Granada, Chile and the south-eastern provinces other centralized governments had been established, subordinated to the viceroy in certain particulars and directly dependent on the king in other respects. The head of each of these subordinate governments was known as governor, captain-general, or president as one or another of his principal functions was considered. [Sidenote: Common ideas of the colonies] As governor he was head of the civil administration, as captain-general he was chief of the army or the militia, and his title of president indicated his relation to the audiencia, a body that performed both administrative and judicial functions and in case of a vacancy in the governor’s office exercised the chief executive power in the dependency. At that time, moreover, a number of towns had acquired sufficient importance to have local governments consisting of a cabildo, or council, composed of regidores and two alcaldes, the alcaldes serving as justices of the peace and local executives. The occupation of the several districts by the Spaniards was at first a military occupation, a large number of the settlers were primarily soldiers, and their settlements were largely garrisoned posts. In this respect the beginning of the Spanish colonies in America presents a strong contrast with the British colonies, in which the colonists were almost all civilians.