Valparaiso, the principal commercial port in Chile, and the second city
in population in the Republic, is picturesquely situated upon a poorly
protected harbor on the Pacific. It is crescent in shape, describing
a semi-circle around the bay. The business section occupies a margin
of low lying ground along the water front, the residence portions
extending back over a series of high, rugged hills. Viewed from the
harbor it presents an attractive appearance. Along the “malecon” are
the business houses, uniform in height, and presenting a straight stiff
sky line, back of and beyond which rise rugged, terraced hills. Adobe
houses, painted in various colors, red tile roofs, and patios green
with verdure and brilliant with the bloom of flowers, are some of the
features of the scene presented in a view of the hills forming the
residence districts of Valparaiso. Conspicuous objects in the view are
the church of El Espiritu Santo, a large, inartistic building topped
with a huge, single, square tower, and situated in the center of the
city, and the “Escuela Naval” (naval school), a fine architectural
creation crowning one of the numerous hills that surround the bay.
Valparaiso is as cosmopolitan in architecture as it is in population.
It possesses no architectural features that can be considered national
in character; it has few public buildings worthy of the name, no
system of parks or boulevards,--nothing to distinguish it, except a
consistent mismanagement of municipal affairs. Being a great seaport,
into which sail annually thousands of ships, representing nearly all
the nations of earth, it has caught in the net of travel a cosmopolitan
conglomeration, and includes in its population all kinds and conditions
of people.
It is more European than Spanish in appearance, and the languages
spoken are as varied and numerous as the nationalities of which its
population is composed. The majority of the business is done by
foreigners, the British, Germans, Americans, French and Italians taking
the wholesale, importing and exporting trade, in the order named, while
the small retail business is largely in the hands of Italians and
Spaniards.
There are few places of amusement, especially for the poor people,
and desirable, or intellectual public entertainments are infrequent.
The municipal theater is a fine building with a capacity sufficient
to accommodate several thousand people, but with the exception of two
weeks of Italian opera during the winter it is little used.
The municipal government has done nothing in recent years to improve or
beautify the city. There is practically no drainage, except for streets
receiving the water from ravines coming down from the hills, and they
are usually in a state of disorder that renders them useless. The
streets are miserably paved and proverbially filthy, and during the
rainy season they are filled with sludge washed down from the hills.
Notwithstanding the great shipping interests represented, and the fact
that Valparaiso is the chief commercial port in the country, the bay
upon which it is built affords one of the most insecure harbors on
the west coast of South America. There is absolutely no protection to
ships and shipping interests against the strong winds and severe storms
that prevail during the months of June, July and August. There is no
breakwater in the bay, which faces to the north, the direction from
which the storms and heavy seas come during the winter, and as a result
great damage is done to vessels in port, and to cargo along the water
front.