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Though Don Garcia and Quiroga had been long experienced in the character of the Araucanians, they had formed a very erroneous opinion of their temper and public spirit, when they deemed them finally subdued in consequence of the victories gained in the late war.
During the flight, he fell from a high bank into the river and was drowned. The Araucanians were defeated with prodigious slaughter, many of them perishing in the river in their attempt to escape by swimming.
At length Bernal found himself compelled to abandon the place for want of provisions, and the Araucanians permitted him and the garrison to retire without molestation, contenting themselves with burning the houses and demolishing the fortifications.
The Araucanians were informed of these intentions of the governor by their spies; and being apprehensive of danger to their liberties from the proposed innovation, their chiefs met secretly to deliberate upon the best measures for eluding the designs of the governor without having recourse to arms.
With these views, he passed the Biobio in 1552, and proceeding rapidly through the provinces of Encol and Puren, unopposed by the tardy and timid operations of Lincoyan, he arrived at the river Cauten, which divides the country of the Araucanians nearly into two equal parts.
It would appear that the Araucanians had now become less scrupulous than formerly in their mode of making war; for Cadeguala was not abandoned by any of his officers on this occasion, as Caupolican had formerly been in his attempt to surprise Canete by similar means.
Caupolican and his valiant followers made a vigorous sally, and attacked the Spaniards with so much fury as to kill about forty of them at the first charge, and continued the battle for some time with much success. After a short time, Don Garcia, by a skilful evolution, cut off the retreat of the Araucanians and surrounded them on every side.
The rebellion was put down with the atrocious cruelties to which the Spaniards have invariably subjected this unhappy race. On the eastern slopes of the Andes are found savage tribes, wearing few or no clothes, painting their skins, and ornamenting themselves with the coloured feathers of birds. Towards the southern end of Chili, the fierce Araucanians inhabit the mountains.
Yet Andrew ventured next day to come into the Araucanian camp as a spy, when he was taken prisoner, suspended by his feet from a tree, and suffocated with smoke. At length Don Garcia commenced his attack upon the camp of the Araucanians, by a violent cannonade from all his artillery.
In Chile and in the River Plate Provinces an entirely different type of Indian prevailed; great warriors these, for the most part, who roamed the plains of the River Plate Provinces, or, like the Araucanians, lived a turbulent and fierce existence among the forests and mountains of the far south to the west of the Andes Chain.
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