In Chile Ercilla found himself under conditions sharply in contrast with those of his life in Spain. A site had been selected for the town of Santiago, and plots had been assigned to soldier-colonists; but fourteen years after the arrival of Valdivia the Spanish occupation was represented only by a number of garrisoned posts confronting a region in possession of vigorous and hostile Indians. Ercilla had exchanged the circumstances of the artificial life of the Spanish court for warfare with a barbarous people in the presence of primitive nature. To a Spaniard of the sixteenth century an excursion beyond the limits of civilization, into the realm of savage life, was a stranger event than a similar experience would appear to a representative of these later generations. In the unfamiliar presence of primitive man and the primeval forest Ercilla was moved to set down his impressions of the life in which he had part, and of the nature that constituted his strange environment. [Sidenote: Ercilla condemned] Ercilla’s relation to the commander of the expedition had its unpleasant episodes. On the occasion of a dispute between him and Juan de Pineda, the supporters of each of the two parties drew their swords, when García de Mendoza interpreted the movement as the beginning of a mutiny, and condemned the two opponents to be beheaded. The activity of their friends, however, caused these ill-advised sentences to be commuted to imprisonment.[57] After his liberation from prison Ercilla continued his exploring expeditions and his participation in campaigns against the Araucanians, but he finally returned to Spain in 1562. Shortly after his arrival, having made a report to the king concerning his service in Chile, he went to Austria, where his mother held the position of a maid of honour at the imperial court. Returning from this journey in 1564, he remained a number of years in Madrid and published there the first part of _La Araucana_ in 1569. The next year he married Doña María de Bazán, and in 1571 the king bestowed upon him the order of Santiago. [Illustration: Page from the First Edition of “La Araucana”] [Sidenote: Ercilla in Italy] Determined to seek further service, he went to Italy in 1574, to join the fleet, commanded by Don John of Austria, designed to proceed to the relief of Tunis, but before he arrived in Naples, Tunis had fallen into the hands of the Turks. At Rome he met one of his relatives, Juan de Zúñiga, then Spanish ambassador near the papal court. On a fourth journey to Austria he was graciously received by Emperor Maximilian and by the empress, María; also by his godfather, Rudolph, who had become king of Hungary. Ercilla returned to Spain in 1577. This was the last of his journeys into foreign countries. In 1578 he published at Madrid the second part of _La Araucana_. [Sidenote: The argument] The argument of the poem is stated in the first two octaves: