Chili to the enemy.

The populous and opulent city of Villarica, fell into the hands of the
Araucanians in 1692, after a siege or blockade of two years and eleven
months; and soon afterwards Imperial, the capital of the Spanish
settlements beyond the Biobio, experienced a similar fate. The defence
of this city was protracted for some months by the courage of a Spanish
lady, named Donna Innes de Aguilera. Seeing the garrison quite
dispirited by the long continuance of the siege, and ready to
capitulate, she encouraged them to persist in its defence, and even
directed all the operations in person; until at last, on a favourable
opportunity offering, she escaped by sea with the bishop and most of the
inhabitants. During this siege, she lost her husband and brothers, and
her heroism was rewarded by the king with a pension of two thousand
dollars.

Osorno, likewise a rich and populous city, soon followed; as the enemy,
now freed from the attention they had hitherto given to Valdivia,
Villarica and Imperial, were able to bring their whole force against
that last possession of the Spaniards within the territories of the
Araucanian confederacy. The sufferings endured by the garrison and
inhabitants of Osorno are scarcely to be exceeded by those endured in
the most celebrated sieges recorded in history. They were long obliged
to subsist on the most loathsome food, having no other sustenance than
the carcasses of dead horses; and when these failed on cats and dogs and
the skins of beasts. Thus in little more than three years, all the
settlements which had been established by Valdivia and his successors,
between the river Biobio and the archipelago of Chiloe, and preserved at
the expence of so much blood, were destroyed, and so effectually that
hardly any vestiges of them now remain. None of them have been since
rebuilt, as what is at present called Valdivia is nothing more than a
garrison or fortified post. Though great numbers of the inhabitants of
these cities perished in the defence of their walls, by famine or by the
sword of the enemy, yet Spanish prisoners of all ranks were so numerous
among the Araucanians, that almost every family had at least one to its
share. The married Spaniards were mostly allowed to retain their wives,
and the unmarried men were supplied with wives from among the women of
the country; but the unmarried Spanish women were distributed among the
chiefs of the Araucanians, who by their customs were per