might result from this new war, having already had long experience of the daring and invincible spirit of the Araucanians.  In order if possible to stifle the threatening flame at its commencement, he immediately dispatched his son Pedro into the south, with as many troops as could be collected in haste, and soon after took the same direction himself with a more considerable force.  The first skirmishes between the hostile armies were unfavourable to Antiguenu, and an attempt which he made to besiege Canete was equally unsuccessful.  Antiguenu attributed his failure on these occasions to the inexperience of his troops, and sought on every occasion for opportunities of accustoming them to the use of arms.  At length he had the satisfaction of convincing them that the Spaniards were not invincible, by defeating a body of Spaniards on the hills of Millapoa, commanded by Arias Pardo.  To keep up the ardour and confidence which this success had excited in his soldiers, he now took possession of the strong post on the top of Mount Mariguenu, a place of fortunate omen for his country.  Being either so much afflicted with the gout, or averse from exposing himself to the hazard of attacking that strong post, which had formerly proved so unfortunate to him, Villagran gave it in charge to one of his sons to dislodge the enemy from that formidable position.  The rash yet enterprising young man attacked the Araucanian entrenchments with so little precaution that almost all his army was cut in pieces, and himself killed at the entrance of the encampment, and on this occasion the flower of the Spanish troops and a great number of their auxiliaries were cut off.

Immediately after this signal victory, Antiguenu marched against the fortress of Canete, rightly judging that it would not be in a condition to resist him in the present circumstances.  Villagran was likewise convinced of the impossibility of defending that place, and anticipating the design of the Araucanian general, ordered all the inhabitants to withdraw, part of whom retired to Imperial and the rest to Conception.  Antiguenu, therefore, on his arrival at that place, so fatal to his nation, had only the trouble of destroying the fortifications and setting fire to the houses, all of which he completely destroyed.

Overcome with grief and anxiety, Villagran died soon after the disastrous battle of Mariguenu, universally regretted by the Spanish inhabitants of Chili, who lost in him a wise humane and valiant governor, to whose prudent conduct on several trying occasions they had been much beholden for the preservation of their conquests.  Before his death, in virtue of special powers vested in him by his commission from the court of Spain, he appointed his eldest son Pedro to succeed him in the government, whose endowments of mind were in no respect inferior to those of his father.  By the death of the governor, Antiguenu conceived that he had a favourable opportunity for undertaking some important enterprise.  He divided his army, which now consisted of 4000 men, into two bodies, one of which he ordered to lay siege to Conception under the command of his vice-toqui Antunecul, to attract the attention of the Spaniards in that quarter, while he marched with the other division to invest the fort of Arauco, which was defended by a strong garrison under the command of Lorenzo Bernal.