public officers with some of the leading families and was in- vited to a ball at the house of Señor Camilo Aguirre, a descend- ant of the conqueror. It was a most agreeable occasion for me, partly because I had never witnessed so elaborate an affair in what might be called a frontier town, and partly because of the festive spirit that reigned, for it was the birthday of the old gentleman and the occasion had brought out the leading fami- lies, all of them of marked cultivation and intellectually as in- teresting as any company of men and women to be found anywhere.
The influence which the Aguirre family wields in the region today and the distinction it enjoys are not based solely upon the achievements of the conqueror from whom the family has descended. They are based also and chiefly upon character and strength of purpose in the present generation. Though the landed estates of the older families give them marked distine- tion, it is in the government of the city and in what might be called the native trade of the town as distinct from the trade which the foreigner controls through ownership of mines and railways that their influence is chiefly based. In a book by Luis Silva Lezaeta, published in 1904, there is an account of the life of El Conquistador Francisco de Aguirre and (in an appendix) a list of his descendants. The exploits of this famous old Spanish captain (his portrait forms the frontispiece of the book) are among the most renowned of central and southern South America. Only four short years after Almagro went via Tupiza to Copiapó, Aguirre went this way also. Like Almagro, he crossed the high and cold Puna de Atacama, taking the route via Sapaleri, Chaxnanter, and Guayaques, to San Pedro de Atacama, where he arrived in April, 1540. Two months later he was joined there by Pedro de Valdivia who had taken the road of the desert, ‘‘Despoblado,”’ from ‘Tarapacé. To- gether they reached Copiapó in September.
In the “Valle de la Posesién,”’ as Valdivia termed Copiapó, the Spaniards found a high state of cultivation based on char- acteristic Inca methods. When the Incas had effected the conquest of Copiap6é they found there a scattered hunting population. The conquering forces cleared the dense thickets
