A foreign military leader whose daring was feared by those who profited by it.

A cowardly leader is the most dangerous of men.

Like so many fanatics, he possessed an appalling streak of timidity and terror which feared all that was not absolutely familiar. As his power increased, he would doubtless attempt to destroy anything that made him anxious.

He was a forceful man, distinguished in appearance; his entire being emanated power. Ambition had been the driving force of his life. There was a ruthless streak in his nature and a recklessness which at times had led him into dangerous situations. Such men rarely pass through life untouched by scandal. I sometimes wondered whether my mother, if she had lived, would have managed to subdue that side of his nature.

he found the most experienced leaders of the age at the head of armies that had just fanaticism enough to be ferocious, but not enough to render them ungovernable.

Valdivia's actions symbolize man's indefatigable thirst to take control of a place where he can exercise total authority. That phrase, attributed to Caesar, proclaiming he would rather be first-in-command in some humble Alpine village than second-in-command in Rome, is repeated less pompously, but no less effectively, in the epic campaign that is the conquest of Chile. If, in the moment the conquistador was facing death at the hands of tht invincible Araucanian Caupolican, he had not been overwhelmed with fury, like a hunted animal, I do not doubt that judging his life, Valdivia would have felt death was fully justified. He belonged to that special class of men the species produces every so often, in whom a craving for limitless power is so extreme that any suffering to achieve it seems natural, and he had become the omnipotent ruler of a warrior nation.