zealously availed himself of the means just placed in his hands to abate the evil effects of so many years of confusion.
The many years he had spent in connection with the Chilian administration, at that time farther advanced in the path of progress than any other to be found in South America, his many travels, his steady devotion to public life, all made him worthy of a wider field of usefulness than that afforded by an interior province. But the moral importance of a community which had undergone such trials, and the liberal instincts it had always shown, were enough to make amends for its scanty population in lending importance to his labors. An era of tranquillity in the interior followed the storms of the past, while new sources of disturbance made their appearance in the capital.
He availed himself rather of the deference with which he was regarded, than of his official power, to render acceptable various reforms in administration and in the collection of revenue, setting on foot, also, some public works, while the people, but for him, would have been disinclined to any changes. A Topographical Department, entrusted to European engineers, was employed in the work of mapping and surveying the country, a work required by a method of agriculture dependent on canals for irrigation. The map of the province has since been lithographed.
Public education, as was to be expected, received a great impulse, in the foundation of a college for advanced studies, the nucleus of a future university; a high school for children of each sex, and primary schools in each ward, parish, or department. Upon the
