PUNTA ARENAS, THE SOUTHERNMOST TOWN
USHUAIA, Dec. 22, 1897.
We decided, before we left, that Punta Arenas, as a town, is very
extraordinary in many ways when you come to know it. Aside from the
fact that it is the world’s southernmost city, the metropolis of the
lower end of the American continent, the dumping ground for so much
of discontented humanity, the capital of Chilean Tierra del Fuego and
Patagonia, and a host of other large sounding, but small meaning,
names,--it is one of the most cosmopolitan towns of the universe. Its
life and its business are absolutely astonishing.
There is a sort of effervescent interest which one quickly acquires
in this little speck of bright life and its gloomy wilderness. The
interest begins with its misty history and ends, perhaps, to-day
with the modern re-discovery of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego by
sheep-farmers and gold-seekers. After Magellan discovered the Strait,
and led the way across the jewelled waters of the Pacific, the
enterprising Spaniards, with the important permission of the Pope,
gathered easily and peacefully the accumulated wealth of the fertile
islands and opulent empires of the South Sea. Any competition from
other nations was forbidden by the Pope and prevented by the supposed
danger of passing through the Strait. Both of these dangers were braved
by the bold half-pirate, half-explorer, but entire seaman, Francis
Drake.
Drake entered the Pacific through the Strait in 1578, and, with
a scurvy-pestered crew, deprived the Spaniards of their gold and
silver somewhat more easily than they had taken it from the Indians.
To prevent this re-harvesting of their easy-gotten profits, Pedro
Sarmiento de Gamboa was despatched from Lima, in 1579, to survey
the only supposed entrance into the Pacific, the Magellan Strait.
Sarmiento advised a fortification of the straits, and, accordingly,
two colonies were placed on commanding points. These were the cities
Nombre de Jesus, near the first narrows, and San Felipe, at what is now
called Port Famine. But eight months’ provisions were left these poor
protectors of Spanish gold, and they perished miserably before relief
was sent them. Only two survived to tell the tragedy, and these were
rescued by the British seamen--the men whom the Spaniards were sent to
destroy. Sarmiento, who placed the colonies, was captured by one of Sir
Walter Raleigh’s cruisers on his return voyage to Spain.
As this first chapter in the history of the Magellan Strait closed,
its importance also vanished, with the discovery of the passage around
Cape Horn by the Dutch navigators, Schouten and Le Maire; and for two
hundred and fifty years following the region was left to the possession
of the arctic life with which nature had stocked it.
In 1843, with no knowledge of the real worth of the Magellanic regions,
but with a sort of natural pride to possess the historic strait, Chile
placed a colony at, or near, the ancient site of San Felipe. This was
a penal settlement where political prisoners were sent. It was a sort
of Chilean Siberia, just as Staten Island is to-day for Argentina, and
thus the venture filled two missions: it held for Chile the Strait of
Magellan, and placed the troublesome convicts far from the capital,
Valparaiso. This was a particularly appropriate spot for that large
class of Spanish-American citizens, the ever restless revolutionists.
But men whose occupation is revolt, whose life is a constant navigation
of dangerous rapids, are not the proper sort of citizens to build a
town. This was soon learned in “La Colonia de Magellanes,” by which
name this antarctic exile colony was officially known. Anything which
savoured of work was opposed to their natures. War, riot, massacre,
brutal freedom, were more to their liking, and this revolting spirit
was not a little fired by frequent famines, when the infrequent vessels
from Valparaiso did not arrive. The place thus acquired, by hard
experience, the name of Port Famine. One day the exiles rose to arms,
killed the Governor, and took the town. For this they were all strung
up by the necks from the yard arms of a Chilean gunboat.
The buildings of Port Famine having been fired, the Government, after
deciding on a re-establishment of the colony, selected for the site
of its town a long tongue of sandy ground a few miles farther north.
This is the site of the present famous town, Punta Arenas, and it
takes its name from the sandy point on which it rests. Punta Arenas,
or Sandy Point, like the first colony, had as its principal reason
for existence a penal settlement, and its population was composed of
men of the same class--mental and moral outcasts, revolutionists and
high-handed criminals. The new town met a fate similar to that of the
first settlement. The prisoners revolted and, assisted by the soldiers
who were sent to protect the town, they sought the Governor. But to
keep his own blood from being spilled, this unworthy official deserted
his wife and children, and left for parts unknown. They caught the
commander of the garrison, and massacred him in a shocking manner,
after which they took the town and held a sort of drunken festivity for
three days. The Governor, in his retreat, had found a Chilean cruiser,
and as this came in sight of the town the rioters, to save their necks,
took to the pampas. Here most of the miscreants came to a miserable
death by starvation, fatigue, and cold. A few reached the Chubut River
and were taken to Buenos Aires, where the liberty for which they had
struggled was given them.
This last destruction of the colony occurred in 1877. At this time
Punta Arenas had already risen to some importance. It numbered, among
its exile settlers, several independent citizens; and these were
the creators of the true Magellanic metropolis. No more prisoners
were sent. The town was left to live and flourish, according to its
resources, or to die a natural death. Fortunately, its resources
had already been discovered. Some of the desert-like pampas, upon
which the liberators famished, had been stocked with sheep, and they
thrived unexpectedly. Gold had been found in the creeks, coal had been
found but a short distance off, the forest appeared inexhaustible,
and steamers were beginning to cut the solitude of the Strait.
Dissatisfied, rejected and venturous sailors cast in their lots with
the builders of the town. Shepherds, gold-diggers, traders, adventurous
wanderers, and striplings from the world’s population--a heterogeneous
mixture--came to rest here as a last resort. The semi-Yankee life of
Punta Arenas takes its origin from this mass, and the town owes its
growth, very largely, to the fact that its site is a terminal morain to
a restless stream of human life.
With this preliminary understanding of the causes for the metropolitan
life of the Strait of Magellan, one is not so greatly surprised at
the first glimpse of the strange street scenes. We naturally looked
for some marks of nationality in the people we first met, but quite
in vain. Spanish is the language of the place. At one street corner,
however, one hears English; at another, German; at another, French;
and at still another, Italian. Negroes are few, but Indians are quite
numerous. One of our new acquaintances took us about town. He was, I
believe, a German by birth, but he talked with us in French, and took
us to a bar where he talked English; to a magazine where he addressed
the clerk in Spanish; to the church where he addressed the Holy Father
in Italian; and others told us that he could speak the various Indian
tongues, and was not puzzled with Latin and Greek, though he never had
had a college education.
The streets are ordinary country roads, in very bad order. They are
most remarkable for their number of stagnant pools of water, and the
various heaps of ashes and debris. Stumps of trees, broken carts, tin
cans, packing boxes, dead dogs, and a host of other refuse serve to
ornament and pave the sandy bottoms. Scattered about these, and usually
not far from a bar, are groups of visitors in various attitudes. The
most numerous of these are the cowboys or gauchos, as they are called
some on horses with ponchos over their shoulders, and wearing huge,
broad-brimmed hats, and loose pantaloons; others steeped in alcohol
with a soft bed of sand for a couch, and a boulder for a pillow; and
still others, in new suits, moving about like a girl in an Easter
bonnet to display their annual acquirements. But the gauchos move in
groups to themselves, discussing sheep and squaws and the hunting
sports of the pampas. In another group one finds quite different types
of humanity. Here are the gold-diggers, men of extremes, either without
a copper or with a fat bag of gold, according to the luck of their past
season. Unlike the cowboy, who is usually in neat attire, the miner is
careless of dress, and, rich or poor, is rigged in rags; but he is a
bit of a lion in his way. If he has found rich deposits, his pocket
is the ambition of the local tradesmen, and his information is eagerly
sought by all the loafers of the town. He discusses pay-diggings,
nuggets, methods of washing gold, the relative qualities of food and
drinks, and his last feminine acquaintances in Sandy Point. And then
there are the groups of sailors, soldiers, and of tramps. The citizens
of the town one rarely sees; they are always occupied within doors, for
everybody who is anybody in Punta Arenas keeps a store and owns one or
more sheep-farms.
The location of Punta Arenas is rather unique in its natural
surroundings, and in its commercial advantages. To the west and
north-west are the slowly rising forest-covered highlands, terminating
in the high, ice-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. To the north-east
and east are the endless undulating plains of Patagonia. To the south
and south-east is the Strait of Magellan and beyond are the blue hills
of the northern plains on the main island of Tierra del Fuego. To the
south-west are the bleak islands belonging to the Fuegian group. This
location has helped to make the town the trade centre of the great
regions south of the Rio de la Plata.
[Illustration: Ona Women, in Full Dress, with Papoose Strapped to
the Shoulders.]
[Illustration: Ona Men on the Chase.]
The two very important discoveries already alluded to have made life
and a prosperous population just possible in this vast savage land.
Only a few years ago all of South America south of the river Plata was
believed to be a useless waste of barren ground, peopled by man-eating
savages. Even to-day this is generally believed to be the state of
affairs in Patagonia. But it is not true. The pioneers here are in
better health and are accumulating gold more rapidly than in any other
part of South America. The reasons for this great transformation are
the discoveries that sheep will thrive and that gold is strewn on the
various sandy beaches. The possibilities, thus afforded, have brought
the people and the capital to America’s southern end, and have made
Punta Arenas the centre of a population of pioneers, mostly rich in
profitable land and in sheep, but poor in worldly comforts.
When the far-seeing Englishman, already referred to, brought the first
sheep from the Falkland Islands about twenty-five years ago, they
thrived so well in their new home, that soon many others did likewise.
To-day almost every acre of available ground is stocked with sheep.
This sheep-farming, however, is done on such an immense scale that even
a Yankee farmer will be compelled to feel his littleness. Space will
not permit me to dwell on this interesting subject, but a man owning
ten thousand sheep is considered to be a small and poor farmer; one
owning fifty thousand is quite ordinary; and men who have a hundred
thousand are not uncommon. The Cape Horn millionaire is not noted by
the number of dollars he possesses, but by the number of sheep he
shears.
Gold mining is the occupation of the poor, and the idle population.
This is not because gold is scarce or the occupation unprofitable, but
because it requires little capital, and yields immediate returns. With
a shovel and a pan, inexperienced men earn five dollars daily. The
gold is widely diffused, but is seldom in very rich placers. Many of
the creeks and the beaches of Patagonia, both on the Atlantic side and
in the Strait of Magellan, are known to contain gold. The same is true
of Tierra del Fuego. Even the mud of the streets of Punta Arenas is
said to contain the yellow metal.
The architecture of Punta Arenas is similar to that of the mushroom
towns of the western plains. The houses are made of corrugated
sheet-iron, and are altogether uninteresting, except in that they are
constructed of material brought six thousand miles, while within a
thousand yards is a virgin forest of excellent wood. During the short
time of one year, electric lights, telephone, and telegraph plants have
been established, a really good theatre has been built and several
churches are in the course of construction. Nearly every house sells
intoxicating drinks. Alcohol is said to be served even in the churches.
Indeed, alcohol is at the base of all the crimes and most of the
pleasures of Punta Arenas.
[Illustration: Chief Colchicoli.
One of Colchicoli’s Wives.
Types of Onas.]
Unlike the immigrants to the United States, the new-comers to Patagonia
have remained as separate little colonies, and never made a homogeneous
mixture as in our States. They await with yearly anticipation an
opportunity of returning to their mother countries. The sheep-farmers
and bankers are mostly British, the storekeepers generally German.
The Anglo-Saxon is the ruling spirit, and in a very short time this
long deserted no-man’s-land will be a gilded paradise stocked with the
healthy mixture of northern races which has made the United States
the most progressive of the new nations of the world. Southern South
America is to be the Yankee land of the far south and for this, their
absorption as stupidly suggested by Rhodes is entirely unnecessary. The
people here are able to take care of themselves, and the Republican
governments of Chile and Argentina are quite capable of managing their
own affairs.