which is worked by the inhabitants to great profit.  This city carries on a considerable commerce in wine and fruits with Buenos Ayres.  The city of San Juan near the Andes, in lat. 31 deg. 40’ S. and long. 68 deg. 34’ W. is equally populous with Mendoza, from which it is about 160 miles due north, and trades with Buenos Ayres in brandy, fruits, and Vicunna skins.  Its pomegranates are greatly esteemed in Chili, to which they are sent across the Andes.  This city is governed by a deputy from the corregidor of Mendoza, assisted by a cabildo.  In 1596, the small city of La Punta, or San Luis de Loyola, was founded in the eastern part of Cujo, in lat. 33 deg. 47’ S. long. 65 deg. 33’ W. Although the thoroughfare for all the trade from Chili and Cujo to Buenos Ayres, it is a miserable place with scarcely two hundred inhabitants; but its jurisdiction is extensive and populous, and is administered both in civil and military affairs by a deputy of the corregidor of Mendoza.  Besides these three cities, the province of Cujo contains the towns of Jachal, Vallofertil, Mogna, Corocorto, Leonsito, Caliogarta, and Pismanta[51], which do not merit particular attention.

[Footnote 51:  Besides these, modern maps insert the following, beginning in the north.  Betlen, Rioja la Nueva, Mutinan, San Juan de Jaeban, Guanachoca, all to the north of Mendoza.—­E.]

The Patagonians who border upon Cujo towards the south, and of whose gigantic stature so much has been said, do not differ materially in this respect from other men.  The Pojas, one of their tribes, are governed by several petty independent princes.  A singular species of polygamy prevails among this people, as the women are permitted to have several husbands.  As to the Cesari, of whom such wonderful stories have been reported, and who are supposed to be neighbours of the Chilese, they have no existence except in the fancies of those who take pleasure in marvellous stories.

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S3. The Indian Country, or Araucania.

That part of Chili which remains unconquered reaches from the river Biobio in the north to the Archipelago of Chiloe in the south, or between the latitudes of 37 deg. and 42’ S. This country is inhabited by three independent nations, the Araucanians, the Cunches, and the Huilliches.  The territory of the Araucanians, contains the finest plains in Chili, and is situated between the rivers Biobio and Callacallas, stretching along the sea-coast for about 186 miles, and is generally allowed to be the most pleasant and fertile district in the kingdom of Chili.  Its extent from the sea to the foot of the Andes, was formerly reckoned at 300 miles; but as the Puelches, a nation inhabiting the western side of the mountains, joined the confederacy of the Araucanians in the seventeenth century, its present breadth cannot be less than 420 miles, and the whole territory is estimated at 78,120 square miles or nearly 50 millions of acres.