Two or three years later the government made a last effort to reduce the Araucanians. An army of three thousand Spaniards besides a large contingent of natives advanced across the Biobio. To such an overwhelming force the Araucanians dared not offer open battle, but they hung on its flanks, skirmishing and harassing, and the host was compelled to return without having accomplished anything decisive. From the protection of the forts on the Biobio, the Spanish general sent expeditions to lay waste the Indian country, but these smaller bodies were roughly handled and the first period of Araucanian wars closed with the nearly complete destruction of the Spanish forces operating in southern Chile. The authorities at Lima and Madrid gave it up as a bad job. Thenceforward the Biobio remained the southern boundary of the Spanish possessions. An army of two thousand men and a line of forts guarded the frontier, and though hostilities were frequent, for centuries no real progress was made toward depriving the Araucanians of their independence. In the progress of time the slow infiltration of Spanish blood and Spanish customs modified their characteristics, but it was not until 1882 that they became real subjects of the Chilean government. CHAPTER II THE COLONIAL PERIOD The Araucanian wars made Chile a school of arms for all South America. The appointment to its captaincy-general was eagerly sought by ambitious soldiers, and the place, especially after the seventeenth century, was a stepping-stone to the magnificent and lucrative position of viceroy at Lima. Preoccupied with the southern wars, passing most of their time on the frontiers, the governors paid little attention to central and northern Chile. The Indians peacefully cultivated the great estates of their feudal masters; and although the mining industry was considerable it never threatened the extinction of the neighbouring population. The few towns were mere villages, built of one-story, thatch-covered houses, commerce was insignificant, portable wealth small, money almost unknown. However, the landed proprietors of Chile mostly lived upon their estates, and came into more intimate contact with their Indian tenants than in the richer and more tropical provinces, a circumstance which has had a profound effect upon the character and racial composition of the modern Chilean. Although unsuccessful in Araucania, the governors prospered in their efforts to extend the Spanish dominion east of the Andes and before the end of the sixteenth century the fertile valleys of the province of Cuyo--Mendoza, San Juan, and San Luiz--as far as the central desert which separates them from the grass-covered pampas of Buenos Aires, were incorporated with Chile. At the same time the green and populous island of Chiloe--the Ireland of the Pacific--was added to the captaincy-general.