substances. The beds contain four layers of material, the next
lowest being that of the nitrate itself. Above this are the
_chuca_, on the surface, which is nothing more than the
accumulation of ages; the _costra_ beneath, a harder and older
mass, but still a somewhat worthless débris; the _caliche_, the
real nitrate of soda, and, finally, the stratum of bed rock
called _gova_. To obtain the nitrate, a shaft is sunk to the
_gova_, on which powder is placed and exploded; the overlying
mass is thrown up and the _caliche_ containing the nitrate
scattered over the ground. This is then collected and taken to
the refining works for preparation into refined or almost pure
nitrate of soda, ready for export. In the _oficinas_” (refining
works) “machinery of the most economical and effective pattern
is used, and the methods of refining the salt are according to
the best researches of industrial chemistry. The same is true of
the facilities for transportation to the steamer. Many small but
well-equipped railways are in operation in the fields, and they
carry the product to the coast towns, from which they are
finally shipped abroad.... Great Britain takes about forty per
cent., Germany and the United States each about twenty per
cent., France about ten per cent., and the remainder goes to
such far-away places as Egypt, Japan, the Hawaiian Islands, and
Australia. _In fact, without nitrate the great agricultural
producers cannot advance._”
And it is well for Chile that these nitrate deposits have proven of such
great value—they were acquired only at the cost of a long and expensive
war. Formerly the Province of Antofagasta belonged to Bolivia and the
Provinces of Tarapacá and Tacna to Peru. The dividing line between Chile
and Bolivia, it appears, had always been a bone of contention, and, in
1866, while these republics were allied in a war with Spain, a treaty
had been entered into between them, fixing a boundary and agreeing that
the citizens of either should have the right to engage in mining
operations in the territory of the other, and export the products free
of all taxation, within a certain limited area. It appears also that in
1870 Bolivia, for a money consideration, granted to a company composed
of Chileans and Englishmen the right to work the nitrate beds both in
and north of the treaty area, also to construct a mole at the port of
Antofagasta and a road to Carácoles, where rich silver mines had been
discovered. The mole was constructed and not only a road but a railroad,
and the company is said to have invested heavily in various plants for
the preparation of the nitrate and the reduction of the silver ore. As a
result, as it was contended, it was Chilean and British capital, and
principally Chilean energy and labor that developed the wealth of the
region.
It further appears that, in 1873, Bolivia and Peru had entered into a
secret alliance, by the terms of which each was to protect the others
independence and territorial integrity from foreign aggression, and that
in 1874 another treaty between Chile and Bolivia was negotiated, having
in view the settlement of certain differences, but which the Bolivian
Congress had refused to ratify except on condition that an export duty
on nitrates should thereafter be paid. Chile remonstrated, contending
that such a tax would be in violation of the treaty of 1866. Bolivia, it
was charged, sought to impose it nevertheless and seized the property of
the Chileno-British company on default in payment. The situation having
thus become acute, Chile sent a fleet to protect the interests of her
citizens and blockaded the port of Antofagasta. At this stage Peru,
doubly concerned because of her secret alliance and because Chileans had
acquired rights in her own nitrate fields in Tarapacá, offered her
services as mediator, but no agreement could be reached and she became
involved in the dispute herself, and, because of her more accessible
situation, it fell to her lot to bear the chief burden of the defence in
the war that followed.
In spite of the heroic sacrifices of her officers and the desperate
courage with which her soldiers fought, especially toward the last, in
nearly every battle, on both land and sea, the Chileans were successful,
and at last, when they had taken Lima itself and made their victory
complete, the provinces in question were ceded to her provisionally and
have been developed to their present importance under her protection.
The half-breed descendants of the Aymaras and Incas, of which the rank
and file of the Peruvian and Bolivian armies were composed, were no
match for the virile _roto_, in whose veins flowed the fiery blood of
the Basque and Biscayan pioneers, mingled with that of the spirited,
warlike aborigines of Chile.
If, in making the grand tour of the continent one goes first to Bolivia
and visits Chile by way of the railroad from La Paz instead of going
directly from Argentina over the transandean road or by steamer through
the Strait of Magellan, one comes to the end of the trip at this very
port of Antofagasta, which lies basking in the tropical sun on a strip
of coast at the foot of a low table-land, seven hundred miles north of
Valparaiso, in the heart of the rainless desert. It is very different,
this region, from the bleak plateau up the twelve-thousand-foot slope,
with its llama trains and poncho-clad natives. Antofagasta has a
population of about 20,000, good broad streets, and a very businesslike
appearance. It is a city that looks like one of our Western mining
towns, and impresses one at first glance with its evidences of a more
vigorous and ambitious civilization. There is a large _oficina_ for the
preparation of nitrate, steam tramcar lines, smelters for the treatment
of copper and silver ores, long rows of barracks for the housing of the
laborers, corrugated iron warehouses, crowds of ships in the offing
taking on cargoes of nitrate and metals or unloading supplies; yet there
are a plaza and promenade and hotels, and most of the residences of the
officers of the companies are decidedly attractive.
For, in addition to being a nitrate and mining port, this is one of the
principal gateways through which Bolivia’s commodities still come and
her own products are sent out, and is the distributing center for the
Chilean province besides, where the land is so barren that the
inhabitants are dependent on the outside world for almost everything.
There was a time when even water had to be imported into the city
itself—it used to be said that they drank champagne because water was
too expensive—but not long ago a conduit was constructed and now it is
piped from the mountains, 250 miles away; and they have even brought
soil from the south with which to make gardens to adorn their plaza and
promenade and the grounds near the club where the Britishers have their
tennis courts and five o’clock teas. It is said that of the $127,000,000
invested in the hundred or more _oficinas_ generally throughout the
region, $53,500,000 are English, $52,500,000 Chilean, and the rest
German; so here, of course, as in the greater port of Iquique in the
Province of Tarapacá, a large proportion of the people, other than the
laboring class, is English, and certain it is that the brisk, clean-cut
Anglo-Saxon is very much in evidence, both in town and out along the
plants lining the railroad.
II
As Antofagasta is not connected with Valparaiso by railroad, the only
practicable way of getting there is by steamer. This is rather
unfortunate for the tourist, because, although the accommodations are
comfortable enough, the progress is slower and what is to be seen along
the coast is nowhere near as interesting and attractive as in the
central valley. Except at widely separated intervals, where the hills
part at the mouths of the few shallow rivers or about the bays, the
shore all the way down is dominated by steep, rocky cliffs, so high,
when the ship’s course is near the coast, as to conceal the country
behind. The only signs of life are where little ports, usually mere
clusters of tin-roofed huts, are huddled on the beach, sometimes with a
railroad climbing up the cliffs and back into the mining country beyond.
Occasionally there is a city, such as La Serena; but, unless one has
plenty of time to spare, these do not repay a stopover until the next
boat.
Valparaiso (Vale of Paradise) is built at the foot of a mountain ridge,
divided by deep ravines into nineteen separate _cerros_, or hills, that
slope down to a wide bay, opening into the sea on the north. Encircling
the beach is an embankment of masonry, called the Malecon, which
considerably broadens the water front and serves as a protection—though
there have been occasions when it has not proven a very effective
one—from the heavy seas that are driven in by the “northers” during the
two stormy winter months. The principal streets run parallel with the
embankment and increase in number in the sections where the _cerros_
recede, diminishing again where they extend almost to the water’s edge.
In one section, away around near the end, there is scarcely room enough
for the tracks of the railroad that connects the city with its
beautiful, fashionable suburb, Viña del Mar. Many have their homes on
the terraced sides and tops of the _cerros_, which are connected one
with another by handsome bridges and made accessible from the streets
below by inclined railways and elevators, so that, viewed from the
entrance to the bay, the city has the appearance of a huge amphitheater.
The city has a population of nearly 250,000, but, as some one else has
remarked, “As the principal port of the west coast, and, in a way, the
‘downtown’ for the capital and the rest of Chile, Valparaiso seems more
important than its mere population would indicate, and, although the
newspapers and street signs are in Spanish and Spanish is the language
generally spoken, it has little of the look of the old Spanish-American
town.” A large element of the population is foreign. The Germans are
said to have the largest colony and the Italians and French to come next
in order. These are mostly retail merchants of the better class; but it
is here also that the men live who design and control the vast nitrate
and mining enterprises in the north and the capitalists who finance the
big industrial projects and railway development, the exporters and
importers, bankers, brokers, and insurance men, and among these the ten
or twelve thousand English in the city predominate. The better-educated
class of Chileans speak English as well as Spanish and French. The
French have almost a monopoly of the retail trade having to do with
fashionable apparel and luxuries, for Paris has always been the Mecca of
the smart set here and in Santiago, just as it has in Rio de Janeiro and
Buenos Aires.
Although there are parts of the city that still retain something of the
old-world aspect, the buildings generally are modern—many of them new,
since it had to be largely rebuilt after the great earthquake in 1906,
which was relatively as disastrous there as the one in San Francisco of
the same year was to our principal Pacific port. There are few tall
buildings and no skyscrapers, yet the main business street, the Calle
Victoria, which parallels the Malecon almost the entire length, presents
an array of government buildings, banks, hotels, theaters, cafés, retail
shops, and office buildings larger and more substantial and elaborate
than can be seen almost anywhere in cities of that size. The shops are
of good size, and leave nothing to be desired in the way of assortment
and quality of their stocks. Probably the most attractive of all the
streets is the Avenida Brazil, which is at once a shaded boulevard,
business thoroughfare, and fashionable promenade. There are trolley
cars—with women conductors—and arc lights, libraries, first-class
educational institutions, beautiful parks and plazas where they have
public band concerts in the evenings, attractive residence districts,
and near by, at Viña del Mar, there are sea bathing, tennis, racing,
football, golf, country clubs, and a first-class hotel for those who are
not so fortunate as to have their own houses. Only about sixty miles
away (though it is farther by the railroad, which has to make a détour
to get through the coast range) is the capital, Santiago, the real
metropolis of the country.
“Santiago, the Andean city of the snow white crown,” as Marie Robinson
Wright was moved to describe it—
“Is unique in the charm of her unconventional beauty and the
rugged splendor of her surroundings. Like a queen in the giant
castle that nature has given her, with walls of the imperishable
granites of the Cordilleras and towers reaching to the skies,
she seems created for the homage of those who gaze upon her. Her
face is toward the sunset, as if in expectation of the high
destiny that awaits this land of promise in the golden west of
South America; and, from the snowy peaks behind her, marked
clear against the blue sky, to the farthest limit westward,
bordered by the boundless Pacific, there is no alien territory
to limit the prospect of her fair domain. Her jewels, rare and
resplendent, are the rich emerald of the Andean valleys, the
matchless sapphire of Andean skies, the pure diamonds of Andean
streams. Her royal robes are woven of the marvelous purple and
gold of Andean sunsets, unrivaled in brilliancy, and imparting
to her gracious beauty the glow of infinite loveliness, as they
envelop her utterly, catching even the snowy peaks of her
sovereign diadem in their magic folds.”
Nor is this in the least overdrawn. No city could be more delightfully
situated. It lies in the great central valley, on a plateau forty miles
long and about twenty wide, nearly two thousand feet above the level of
the sea, where the climate is as perfect as that in the Pyrenees, and is
almost completely enclosed by a magnificent border of mountains. Luzerne
and other show places in Switzerland are mere miniatures compared with
it. The level portion of the ground is highly cultivated with all sorts
of fruits and crops that grow in the temperate zone and is divided into
large _haciendas_ or plantations, nearly all with fine cattle and
horse-breeding farms attached, and princely mansions as of feudal lords,
and there are splendid avenues of giant eucalyptus along the roads and
separating the fields. In the heart of the city itself is a hill called
El Cerro de Santa Lucia, that rises to a height of three hundred feet
and is half as big around as Central Park in New York, a spot which such
a connoisseur as William E. Curtis declared he had “long held to be the
prettiest place in the world.” The summit is reached by a number of
winding driveways and walks, lined with trees, flowering shrubs and
overhanging vines and flanked by battlemented walls and towers,
picturesque beyond description; there are terraces ornamented with
flower beds and fountains, and grottos, balconies, and rustic seats; all
along, at intervals, are kiosks for music and refreshments; half way up
is a theater where light opera and vaudeville performances are given
both afternoons and evenings; a little farther on is a restaurant that
is a favorite resort for breakfasting and dining out, and, best of all,
from the summit there is a glorious view of the whole country around.
Across the city from Santa Lucia to the Central Railroad depot, an
avenue called the Alameda de las Delicias extends for a distance of
three miles. It is three hundred and fifty feet wide and all down the
center is a beautiful park containing statues and monuments to Chile’s
heroes. It is her hall of fame, not shut in by four walls, but placed in
the midst of this most frequented of her promenades, among the trees and
flowers and the fountains and lakes, where “the stories told in marble
and bronze may inspire the multitude to patriotism and courage;” and,
facing the driveways along the sides, are many of the handsomest of the
residences. The old center of the city is marked by the famous Plaza de
Armas, with a marble monument representing South America receiving her
baptism of fire in the war of independence. On one side are the
Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace, on another the splendid Municipal and
Intendencia Buildings, low and massive, and Government Telegraph Office;
on another, two long series of shops opening out on fine arcades that
extend the whole length of the sidewalks from corner to corner.
Opposite the Plaza O’Higgins, a few blocks away, is the Congressional
Palace, which occupies the whole square and is one of the largest and
handsomest buildings in South America. In architectural design it looks
somewhat like the Senate and House wings of our Capitol at Washington,
only of course it is much larger than either mere wing; and in the same
district is the Casa de Moneda (the Mint), in which the President and
Cabinet have their offices, a massive structure as big as our Washington
Treasury, and the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts.
It is around the plaza that society takes its customary stroll in the
evenings and the dusky-eyed, black-haired _señoritas_, according to the
Latin custom, flirt as much as they dare with the young exquisites, who
frankly and boldly admire with glances more eloquent than words. Writing
of this custom, which would not be tolerated in our cities, Arthur Ruhl
says that—
“They are dapper and very confident young men” (these
oglers), “combining in their demeanor the gallantry of their
Spanish inheritance with a certain bumptiousness rather
characteristically Chilean. They stare at those who
pass—some in _mantos_, some in French dresses with Paris
hats—and in Spanish murmur, half audibly, such observations
as, ‘I like the blonde best,’ or ‘Give me the little one.’
And, as they still retain some of that simplicity which in
the interior causes a stranger to be watched as though he
were a camel or a calliope, they will stare even at the
_gringo_, comment on the cut of his clothes or facetiously
compare his blunt walking boots with their long, thin ones.
They are rather irritating sometimes, especially the young
officers in their smart German uniforms, and one dreams of
home and a Broadway policeman marching down upon them
leisurely with a night-stick and fanning them away.”
Though why he should have mentioned a “blonde” in illustrating their
comments, one must wonder. Maybe it was because there are so few. As a
rule their hair and eyes, if not black, are a dark, rich brown, and
their complexion of the clear, cream-tinted, brunette type. “But,” he
continues—
“The young women do not mind it at all.... And you will not make
yourself at all popular by sympathizing, for they would only
laugh and say: ‘Oh, they’re all right. That’s only their way of
beginning. They’re quite sensible and nice when you come to know
them.’ There are ways and ways, and in South America a girl who
may not receive a formal call from a man without having her
mother and half the family in the room at the same time may
blandly listen to repartee that would make our maidens gasp for
breath.... It is at dusk, particularly if the band is playing,
or if it is Sunday, that the promenade begins round the Plaza—a
row of spectators on the inside benches, on the outside young
idlers and officers two or three deep—between two shuffling
concentric circles, in one of which are the men, in the other
the shrinking _señoritas_, two by two, or hanging on the arm of
a protector. Every man who can sport a top-hat and a pair of
saffron gloves, if it is Sunday, and all the women except the
very austere ones, gather here and circle round in that armed
neutrality of the sexes which is the tradition of their blood.”
In general style Santiago is not as modern as Valparaiso, though it is
far more interesting and attractive, and is not behind in public
utilities, educational facilities, and energy—or in the attractiveness
of their street-car service, for here, too, the conductors are neatly
uniformed women, lots of them young and good-looking. Many of the more
pretentious residences are old family mansions of the Moorish,
characteristically Spanish colonial type and, therefore, charming to a
stranger from the north. Most of them are like those described in the
chapter on Uruguay—built around a large square central court or _patio_,
filled with flower-beds and palms and with galleries around the sides
onto which the rooms of the upper stories open. These galleries serve
the same purpose as our interior hallways. They are usually supported by
substantial but graceful stone arches and piers, and are reached by
handsome stairways, also of stone, leading up from the court. Very often
there is a fountain and sometimes statuary, and through the big gateways
when the ponderous iron-studded doors happen to be open, delicious
glimpses may be caught in passing. The windows opening on the streets
are usually heavily barred, and the outer walls are in many cases
frescoed and tinted and ornamented with wreaths and vases of stucco.
Some few of the great houses are massive stone affairs of modern
construction that resemble the mansions on the fashionable residence
streets of our principal northern cities.
Like all the greater South American towns, Santiago has her museums,
libraries, magnificent municipal theater and places of popular
amusement; and she has her clubs and racecourse and public gatherings of
the fashionables, who are as elegantly dressed and smart-looking as
those of Buenos Aires—though she still has her religious processions too
on the great feast days, and all the ladies still wear their black,
shroudlike _mantos_ to church. Disfiguring and funereal as it is, this
is an observance that is still insisted on by the priests. In short,
though differing from our capitals in many respects, this greatest city
in Chile is obviously a metropolis and offers opportunities for
sightseeing and amusements of every description that few cities in the
world can surpass. And, as in Lima, there is an aristocracy here,
descended directly from the old Conquistadore stock, that has retained
its wealth and power in the land through all the vicissitudes of both
the colonial and republican régimes.
III
The long series of groups of islands beginning with Chiloé, about
two-thirds of the way down the coast, is said to be nothing more than a
partly submerged section of the Western Cordillera. Above the surface of
the water, for a distance of about eighty miles, they still have an
average elevation of about two thousand feet. Embraced in the Chonos
Archipelago, between Chiloé and the Taytao Peninsula, are more than a
thousand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then come the large
islands of Wellington, Madre de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, Queen Adelaide,
King William’s Land, etc., each fringed by groups of little ones and all
following the mainland in a graceful curve and separated from it by the
Messier, Sarmiento, and Smyth Channels, which, together, extend for
three hundred and sixty miles, from the Penas Gulf to the Strait of
Magellan. As the steamer glides through, at times so straight are they
and such is the uniformity of the shore line on either side, one fancies
one’s self in a wide river in the interior of the continent; at others,
when openings among the islands appear and the water stretches for miles
toward the sea or far into the recesses of the Cordillera, it seems more
like a great lake.
The fjordlike formations recall the more celebrated channel off the
coast of Norway leading to the North Cape. Indeed, it is generally
agreed by those who have seen both that there is little to choose
between them, for, in both, the indentations and mountains of the coast
and islands are similar in character; if there is less variety in the
Chilean one, if the rainstorms are more frequent, to compensate for it
there is a much greater and more attractive wealth of vegetation. From
the water’s edge to a height of fourteen or fifteen hundred feet, the
slopes, and even the smaller islands, are covered with an unbroken
mantle of beautiful, dense, green forest that presents an astonishing
contrast, in this inhospitable region, to the bleak, gray rocks and
bluish-tinted ice sheets above and the pure white snow caps on the
summits beyond.