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Having received a reinforcement of five hundred veteran soldiers from Peru, and raised two companies of infantry and a troop of cavalry at St Jago, the governor with these new troops, added to thirteen hundred Spaniards and six hundred auxiliaries composing the army on the frontiers, marched to relieve the fort of Arauco which was menaced by the toqui.
Besides these vessels of clay, they made others of hard wood, and even of marble; some vases of which excellently polished have been dug out from under a large heap of stones in the mountains of Arauco. From the earth they extracted gold, silver, copper, tin, and lead, and employed these metals in a variety of useful and curious works.
Almost the whole of the Araucanian troops engaged in this unequal contest were slain; but Paynenancu was made prisoner and immediately executed. The victorious governor encamped with his army on the banks of the Carampangui river, and caused the fortress of Arauco to be rebuilt, of which he gave the command to Garcia Ramon the quarter-master.
In the mean time, he abandoned the ancient scite of the fort of Arauco, and rebuilt it in a more convenient situation on the sea-shore.
Undismayed by his recent losses, the Araucanian general determined to take advantage of the governors retreat to lay siege to the fort of Arauco; and in order to secure the success of this enterprise, he endeavoured to occupy the Spanish arms in other quarters.
The Indians farther northward, about Arauco and Imperial, are still very wild, and not converted; but they have all much intercourse with the Spaniards. The padre said that the Christian Indians did not much like coming to mass, but that otherwise they showed respect for religion. The greatest difficulty is in making them observe the ceremonies of marriage.
The infantry was headed by his brother Gonzalo, supported by Pedro de Valdivia, the future hero of Arauco, whose disastrous story forms the burden of romance as well as of chronicle.9 Mass was said, as if the Spaniards were about to fight what they deemed the good fight of the faith, instead of imbruing their hands in the blood of their countrymen.
Garcilaso de Vega, the author of the sweetest and most graceful pastoral poem of modern times, after a short but splendid military career, fell sword in hand at the head of a storming party. Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in that war of Arauco, which he afterwards celebrated in one of the best heroic poems that Spain has produced.
Having destroyed the fort of Arauco, Caupolican led his army to attack that of Tucapel, which was commanded by Martin Erizar with a garrison of forty men.
The young and gallant vice-toqui, Lautaro, accordingly took post on the lofty mountain of Mariguenu, which intervenes between Conception and Arauco, and which he fortified with extraordinary care, rightly judging that the Spaniards would take that road in search of Caupolican on purpose to revenge the defeat and death of their general Valdivia.