ALONG COAST TO MAGELLAN STRAITS
_Arica the Emerald Gem of the West Coast--Memorable Earthquake
History--A Future Emporium of Commerce for the Canal--Iquique
the Nitrate Port--Value of the Trade--Antofagasta’s
Copper Exports--Caldera and the Trans-Andine Railway
to Argentina--Valparaiso’s Preëminence among Pacific
Ports--Extensive Shipping and Execrable Harbor--Plans for
Improvement--No Fear of Loss from the Interoceanic Waterway--Coal
and Copper at Lota--Concepcion and Other Towns--Rough Passage
into the Straits--Cape Pillar--Punta Arenas, the Southernmost
Town of the World--Trade and Future._
The emerald gem of the West Coast is Arica, a day’s voyage from
Mollendo. After days and weeks of rocky coast without vegetation and
of the long chain of the naked Andes farther inland, the clumps of
green trees and the bushy fringe of verdure along the sandy beach
are a seeming paradise and a close one too. The huge cliffs which
beetle over Arica do not appear so barren as those farther north,
and the flat-topped hills do not limit the vision so entirely as to
shut out the thread of valley which marks the line of the railway
back to Tacna and the desert. On the highest hill is a great cross,
but down on the level are ancient and modern windmills. The train
is slowly puffing its way across the plain, while the bay is filled
with rowboats and small launches. In all it is a charming, reposeful
sight. The island fort at the base of the cliffs is rugged and
stern, but it does not spoil the picture.
[Illustration: View of Arica]
Ashore are a handsome little plaza with an elliptical enclosed plot
of shrubbery in the centre, blue morning-glories and purple vine
trees. Lieutenant Commander de Faramond, the French naval officer
who went ashore with me, stopped to look at the flowers a moment.
“Aha!” he remarked, “they have the fever here. This is the purple
fever flower of Algiers. Wherever it grows you find sickness.” Later
I made inquiries and learned that he was correct. Arica, while a
most charming spot, is peculiarly subject to malarial influences.
But a walk through the town deepens the pleasing impression. There
is a well-built custom house, the sloping cobble-paved streets are
clean, and the dwellings are very attractive. The latter are neat
one-story structures. Some are blue as to exterior, some subdued
green, others brown or orange,--a real prismatic blending. Most
of them have arbor-arched entrances, and the passing view of the
interior is delightful. The church is the biggest building, and
at a distance it is not unattractive, though it does not improve
architecturally on near approach. Glimpses of native life are
afforded by the Indian women coming in from the country. Some of them
are mounted astride their donkeys, while the panniers, or baskets
which contain their merchandise, almost smother them. Others trudge
along by the sides of their animals. The buildings in Arica are of
galvanized or corrugated iron. They are of one story, so that they
will not be shaken down by the earthquakes.
Arica’s history has been a memorable one. Sir Francis Drake and his
sea-hawks from the _Golden Hind_ who touched there in 1579, found a
collection of a score of Indian huts. The earthquake record begins
in 1605. The most celebrated of these convulsions of Nature was
that of 1868, when the United States frigate _Wateree_ was carried
a mile inland by the tidal wave, and left there to become the
dwelling of a number of Indian families, until another earthquake
and tidal wave drew it back toward the beach without harm to the
inmates. The companion ship, the _Fredonia_ was destroyed.
Commerce passes through Arica chiefly for Bolivia. Mules and burros
transport the freight from the railway terminus at Tacna into
the interior. The imports are mining-supplies and miscellaneous
merchandise. The exports are saltpetre, salt, sulphur, and some
minerals. There is a shop on shore in which are sold the noted
vicuña rugs. These are brought down from Bolivia. The skins of the
guanaco, much coarser, are vended to unwary buyers for vicuñas.
For several years the annual commerce of the port at the maximum
was $1,000,000, but it will grow rapidly.
The railroad from Arica to Tacna is of the standard gauge and 39
miles long. It was among the first constructed in South America,
the concession having been granted by the Peruvian government in
1851 and the line completed six years later. The aspiration then
was to continue it over the pampas along the route followed by the
ancient highway of the Incas and across the igneous Cordillera
of Tacora to La Paz in Bolivia. A waiting of half a century was
necessary before the project could be considered as tangible, but
by the terms of the treaty negotiated between the Bolivian and
the Chilean governments in October, 1904, it approached realization.
The distance from Tacna to La Paz is about 300 miles, but the
Corocoro copper mines, which will furnish much of the traffic, are
60 miles nearer to Tacna. The freight carried over this route by
pack animals--mules, burros, and llamas--of recent years has not
exceeded 20,000 tons annually, but in the earlier years the quantity
was much larger.
When the railway from Tacna to Corocoro and La Paz is completed,
the commercial importance of Arica as a West Coast seaport will
be greatly enhanced. This railroad will be an artery of commerce
which will bring the heart of Bolivia to the Pacific, for it will
lead to and from the most populous and most productive regions of
that country by the shortest and most direct route. The line will
be finished long before the Panama Canal is opened, but the result
will be the same. Arica is 2,200 miles from Panama, relatively 4,200
miles from New York, and less than 3,600 miles from New Orleans.
To New York around Cape Horn and Pernambuco is approximately 9,500
miles. From Arica to Liverpool via Panama is 6,900 miles; by way of
the Straits of Magellan is 10,400 miles. Can a doubt be entertained
as to the course of the commerce which will flow without ebb through
the future great port of Arica?
The afternoon on which we left Arica we had a rare privilege. It
was the sunlit view of the snow-cap of the distant Mt. Tacora in
Bolivia. The summit is 19,000 feet above sea-level. Though the other
snow-ridges often are seen, Tacora rarely shows her ghostly face.
In the late afternoon the azure mist gathered over the plain and
lower mountain range; the shadows fell on the shell-like hillsides;
the sun glistened on the chalky, beetling bowlders; the brown cliffs
became browner; the faintest suggestion of twilight hovered for a
moment; the snow-caps disappeared, and it was night and we were
steaming out of the bay.
From Arica south the cliffs rise from the sea almost perpendicularly.
In the morning Pisagua is sighted. This is a centre of the nitrate
industry and of what remains of the guano traffic. Colonel North,
the hotel-keeper who became the nitrate king, had his beginnings
as a captain of industry here. The mountains come down to the
sea in parallel ridges. Pisagua is like a little Pennsylvania
mining-town, except that it seems likely to slide into the sea. A
fearful visitation of fire and plague depopulated it in 1905.
Double-header engines drawing short trains climb the steep walls as
though they were going up a ladder. After a time they wind their
way to the nitrate plains and then across the dreary desert to
Iquique. There is not much to be seen on the railway route, and
travellers prefer to keep the ship along the sheer cliffs till
Iquique is sighted through the masts of the sailing-vessels which
are clustered in the harbor waiting for their cargo. Sometimes a
hundred of these are gathered.
There is really no harbor, and scarcely what can be called docks, for
the vessels must anchor outside and the rude breakwater is hardly
more than a pretence. To get ashore the reef has to be crossed in
a small boat. Upsets are frequent, and fatalities are not unknown.
Iquique is a fragile city of frame and corrugated iron buildings.
In the plaza are a reasonably tasteful monument and a pretty
municipal building. There is a brown wooden church with a wooden
effigy of the crucified Saviour, which is far from attractive to
look at. The town has a population of 40,000. Iquique has a history
which surpasses that of the bonanza mountain towns of the West in
swiftness, for in the first days of the saltpetre riches nothing
was allowed to be slow. It is more staid and sedate now, but the
Englishmen--younger sons and some of the earlier generation--do
not let life become too dull. They are terrific brandy and whiskey
drinkers, showing a nice discrimination in not exhausting the wealth
of the nitrate beds by taking too much soda with their brandy.
There is a Country Club and a convenient _café_ at Camache, just
out of the town proper. An American missionary school is maintained
by the Methodist Episcopal denomination. When I was in Iquique,
besides the school instructors there were only two Americans. One
was a mining prospector, and the other was waiting for something to
turn up. But North American enterprise was threatening to invade
the nitrate industry.
The municipal administration of Iquique under the Chilean authorities
is excellent; that is the common testimony of all foreigners. The
population which has to be dealt with is a rough and ready one; the
nitrate laborers are like the miners in their rude independence,
and the longshoremen and harbor workers are as burly and aggressive
as the same class in the United States.
In commercial importance Iquique ranks with the leading ports of
the Pacific, all due to the nitrate trade. Its saltpetre shipments
about equal those of all the other coast towns, and are valued at
from $28,000,000 to $30,000,000 annually. In a single year the ships
entering the port, many of them sailing-vessels, aggregate from 850
to 1,200, with a tonnage varying from 1,250,000 to 1,800,000. As the
nitrate beds are being worked on a more extensive scale, it is safe
to assume that almost any given year in the future will disclose
the presence of not fewer than 1,200 vessels in the roadstead.
Since the industry is largely in British hands, the English flag
is by far the most common, though the German ensign is seen with
growing frequency.
It is not probable that the Panama Canal will have a marked
influence, either beneficial or detrimental, on Iquique. What
nitrate freight may exist by the time the waterway is ready for
traffic will be governed by the conditions that obtain to-day. The
saltpetre fertilizers form a bulky cargo. Part of the profits of
the ocean carrying-trade lies in transporting coal from Australia
or Newcastle to the Chilean coast and then taking on the nitrates.
That brought from England scarcely would find it profitable to pay
the Canal tolls. Nor would the distance be shortened sufficiently
to secure an advantage for the nitrates as return cargo. Their
ocean route, in the future as in the past, is through the Straits
of Magellan or around Cape Horn, and Iquique remains an unimpaired
port so long as the nitrate beds are unexhausted. Some shipments
may be through the waterway direct to Charleston, to mix with the
phosphates and thus fertilize the Southern cotton fields.
At various times projects have been agitated for extending the
nitrate railways in a manner to form a through line into Bolivia, but
the preference given by the Chilean government to the Arica route
seems to end the probability of such an enterprise. In view of the
raw materials right at hand, it is surprising that neither native
nor foreign capital has established manufactories of explosives.
Twenty-four hundred miles from Panama, geographically on the Tropic
of Capricorn, is Antofagasta, a fair sort of town, with regular
streets, rectangular warehouses, and a graveyard on the hillside. Its
pride is the plaza, which has been coaxed from unwilling Nature and
made to bear evidences of grass and trees. It is the starting-point
of the two-foot six-inch gauge railway which runs 575 miles up into
the interior of Bolivia, and brings the mining products down to the
shore. The railway pays a 6 per cent annual dividend, and is said
to earn more. The gross receipts are about $9,000,000 per year.
Antofagasta is a shipping-point for the nitrates as well as for
bullion and ores. The nitrate shipments are increasing rapidly, and
promise to rival Iquique. The harbor is a wretched roadstead. To
get ashore it is necessary to brave a lashing, dangerous surf. The
Chilean government is promising extensive improvements. They are
badly needed. When made, they will enhance the commercial importance
of Antofagasta. The foreign vessels entering and clearing annually
have a tonnage of 1,000,000.
Antofagasta is the centre of the chief copper-producing district of
northern Chile, and also it is the outlet of Bolivian tin, silver,
and copper. The reduction works built by the Huanchaca Company of
Bolivia are located near here, and a large quantity of the ores are
transported to these works to be treated. It always will be their
outlet, but in the future Antofagasta will have sharper competition
than at present with Arica and Mollendo, as the shipping-port of
Bolivian products. The Canal will be of some benefit in lessening
ocean freights, more particularly for the general merchandise
imported.
Below Antofagasta is Taltal, a passably well-sheltered nitrate
shipping-port. Then the coast toward Chañaral begins to vary; the
mountains are lower, more broken and jagged, with more cross ranges.
Chañaral has copper-smelting works.
Caldera is a small town, with substantial warehouses, fronting on
a big, fine bay. It has a Panama potency, for it is the beginning
of the Copiapo Railway that in time will cross the Andes and make
the plains of northwestern Argentina tributary to the Pacific.
This trans-Andine route was the dream of William Wheelright, the
Yankee pioneer railroader of Chile and the Argentine Republic, often
called the father of public works in South America. The passes are
low and easily traversed, as compared with those farther south.
The gradual extension of population in the northwestern provinces
of Argentina, the increase in the areas under cultivation, are
followed--or, better said, are preceded--by railroad extensions. A
few years will bring her lines to the boundary of the Andes. In the
meantime the Chilean government is encouraging the prolongation of
the railway from Copiapo to the dividing line of the Cordilleras.
The time cannot be far distant when Tucuman, the railway cross-roads
of northern Argentina, will have rail communication with the West
Coast at Caldera, and an extensive district will be weighing the
comparative advantages of the Atlantic transport and the Pacific and
Panama transport for its agricultural products and the merchandise
brought to the people who grow those products for export.
Coquimbo is a port of considerable importance. From the sea it is
attractive. One main street extends along the water front, while
the others branch off up the hill at right angles. There is the
cemetery, somewhat suggestively prominent. A neat frame dwelling
in the seaside, peak-roofed style, hollowed out of the hillside,
and surrounded by needle-pointed pine trees, secures attention.
Coquimbo ships large quantities of manganese and copper, and formerly
a British coaling-station was maintained.
We arrived in Valparaiso one morning late in May. The American woman
whose home it was, had promised we should see another Bay of Naples.
The fogs lifted slowly. They showed apparently a city afloat, for
the vessel masts were first visible and then the port proper, which
seemed to lie flat to the sea. Later the skies were sapphire, yet
it was not Naples. That morning there was a celebration in honor of
the arrival of the Brazilian warship _Almirante Barroso_, and the
bay was alive with small craft and stately ships, while the people
swarmed over the heights and along the shore like ants.
Valparaiso (vale of Paradise) is the largest place on the Pacific
coast, with the exception of San Francisco, and it is equally as
fine a metropolis. Its population is 140,000. The city lies at the
foot of high hills, which no one climbs because there are ascensors,
or elevators, as in Pittsburg and Quebec. Unhappily it has not a
golden gate and a sheltered harbor. The finest part of the city is
the Avenida, or Avenue Brazil, at once shaded boulevard, business
thoroughfare, and promenade.
The city has many fine business blocks of modern construction, and
the government buildings are unusually tasteful and harmonious. All
bear the impress of Italian architecture. The commemorative spirit
finds expression in a group celebrating the heroism of Arturo Prat,
the young naval commander who gained unfading laurels in the war
with Peru. On the Avenue Brazil is a bust of William Wheelright,
the son of Massachusetts, who provided steam navigation as well as
built railways for Chile. There is also a statue to Lord Cochrane,
the Scotchman who took command of the Chilean fleet in the contest
for freedom from Spain and helped to bring victory. It cannot be
said that Chile is unmindful of the strangers who have served her,
whether in arms or in peaceful progress.
[Illustration: Scene in the Harbor of Valparaiso, showing the Arturo
Prat Statue]
The port, as is natural, is cosmopolitan. The German colony is
largest, and after that the Italians in numbers, though in influence
they are hardly so strong as either the English or the French. The
French community is self-contained and is an important factor in
commerce. The Britishers, chiefly from Scotland, are in everything
except retail trade. Though the English language is common,
Valparaiso is the one city in South America in which I heard German
spoken oftener.
The shipping of Valparaiso is vast and varied, a floating panorama of
many nations, like a miniature Hamburg. The English lines maintain a
regular fortnightly service of cargo and passenger vessels, and
also a special service of cargo vessels to Liverpool. The steamers
are of 5,000 tons and upward. The distance to Liverpool by way of
the Straits is 9,500 to 9,800 miles, and the sailing schedule is 35
days. The vessels touch alternately at the Falkland Islands, both
for mail and for the cargo of wool. They coal at Montevideo, Rio
Janeiro, and in the Madeiras. They bring out to Valparaiso general
merchandise, and they take away products of the country.
The Bay of Valparaiso is a discouraging one. It is surprising that
so extensive a commerce can be handled with such poor facilities.
The shipping approximates 1,000,000 tons yearly. The engineering
difficulties in the way of creating a real harbor are well
understood, though not easily overcome. The rains wash the hills
down into the sea, but the detritus, or silt, does not fill in what
seems to be the bottomless bed of the ocean, so profound is it.
There is no breakwater.
At the beginning of every Winter season the question is raised,--what
will be the harvest of disaster? It seems incredible that vessels
of 3,000 tons could be lost in this bay, but that is what has
happened. In May, 1903, voyaging down the coast in the _Tucapel_,
we were told that the _Arequipa_ of 3,000 tons burden was the next
ship following us. She arrived two or three days later, and took
on passengers and cargo for the return trip. One night a savage
tempest arose, many of the smaller vessels were wrecked, and the
_Arequipa_ foundered and went down with the loss of a hundred
lives. Two weeks later from my hotel window I watched the wild bay
and waited three days for a chance to get off on the _Oropesa_,
one of the big ships which run between Valparaiso and Liverpool.
Smoke from the funnels showed that the large vessels were keeping
steam up, and they frequently steamed out into the open to avoid
the dangers of the harbor. This storm was a norther which came in
a circular path from the south. The immense floating docks tossed
about as if they were eggshells; the buoys bobbed like dancing
water-sprites; the schooners plunged their noses into the angry
breakers until the mastheads dipped; again the masts and yardarms
would be as a stripped forest in Winter bending before the blasts.
And the wreckage of the hurricane of a fortnight earlier was still
visible,--two big schooners driven hard against the rocks, their
masts under water.
In July, 1904, another destructive storm swept along the coast. The
lower part of the city was completely covered with mud and water,
the sea-wall was destroyed, and the railroad badly damaged. The
loss of life was not great, but the destruction of property was
serious.
In the period from 1823 to 1893 the shipping statistics show the
loss of 378 water-craft in the Bay of Valparaiso, of which 100 were
rowing and sailing boats. The money value was incalculable.
The Chilean government after many discouragements accepted the
plans of Mr. Jacob Kraus, the Holland engineer, for conquering
the difficulties which Nature had placed in the way of making
Valparaiso Bay hospitable instead of hostile to the ships that
bear the commerce of many seas. The estimated cost of the harbor
improvement is $15,000,000 gold, though the initial provision was
for $11,000,000. The scheme contemplates the construction of a
series of sea-walls in the bay. The water is so deep that it is
considered impracticable to build a single breakwater across the
mouth of the harbor. It is believed that the several sea-walls
constructed in the manner proposed will protect the vessels and the
merchandise from the terrific seas which drive in during the storms
of the Winter months. A dry dock is included in the proposition.
The calculation is that the shipping of the port will be benefited
annually to the extent of $1,250,000 and upward by the projected
improvements. The Chilean Congress approved the Kraus plans at the
Autumn session of 1904.
These harbor improvements will lay some additional charges on
maritime commerce, but they can be borne in view of the increased
security and the better facilities. If the Panama Canal were likely
to impair the commercial prestige of Valparaiso, they would serve
as a means of retaining it. Not improbably the Congress had this
contingency in mind when sanction was given the government projects
for making the dangerous bay a safe shelter. The only loss from
vessels which will pass through the Canal instead of making the
voyage through the Straits or around Cape Horn, touching at Chilean
ports, will be in coaling them and providing other supplies. This
is not an important factor in Valparaiso’s trade. The imports and
exports of the port are based on the products and the wants of the
country. Its maritime movement, which is estimated at 3,000,000 tons
annually, is measured by the facilities provided for this foreign
commerce.
Trade with the United States grows regularly, and agricultural
implements and mineral oils, which are among the chief imports,
will pay the Canal tolls and still have cheaper ocean transport from
New York or New Orleans than down the Atlantic and up the Pacific.
It is not an unreasonable assumption that for a proportionate share
of the merchandise imported from Great Britain 9,500 miles’ water
carriage from Liverpool through the Straits of Magellan may be
offset by 7,800 miles via Panama plus the Canal tolls and other
commercial considerations. The same holds true of Hamburg and the
trade with Germany.
On two visits to Valparaiso I found that the shipping interests
were not worrying over a dimly prospective loss of commerce through
the construction of an isthmian waterway. Instead they were looking
forward to it as an incentive to making the bay a genuine harbor,
and as a stimulus to closer trade relations with the United States.
That appears to be a sound interpretation of the economic relation
of the Panama Canal to the port of Valparaiso.
After leaving Valparaiso one feels the pertinence of the suggestion
that far enough south the Pacific is not always pacific. The sea
is not excessively rough, yet it heaves and rolls uncomfortably.
The tops of the Cordilleras, covered with snow, are very clear in
the bright sunlight. At Lota there are trees and Winter vegetation
on the high hills. Lota and Coronel are really twin ports. They
both lie alongside the great vein of coal and copper, and are
coaling-stations for the vessels. Most of the steamers come down
to Lota for the fuel which will be needed in returning to Panama,
while those passing through the Straits of Magellan or around Cape
Horn take on enough to serve them to Montevideo. It crops out of
the hillside and is mined in primitive and inexpensive manner.
The copper mining is also primitive.
Lota has a good bay, but hardly a harbor. The town is not a bad
one. Its main street is well paved. It has an attractive plaza, a
club, a shabby church, a _fundicion_, or copper-smelting works in
which old processes are used, and pottery and brick factories. It
is also noted for the coal tunnel under the sea. Until they were
turned into a stock company, Lota and Coronel were the property of
the Cousiño family, and the company is still controlled by that
family. The widow Cousiño at one time was the richest woman in the
world. Cousiño Park at Lota is the pride of Chile. It is bizarre,
and blends English and French landscape gardening with some original
ideas of Nature improved and unimproved. There is a French chateau
on the hill, and there are ravines, grottoes, fountains, statuary,
artificial lakes, arbors, terraces, flower gardens, and a small
zoo. A lighthouse in the corner commanding the sea has a history.
It was brought from Paita in Peru as the spoil of war.
Indian faces are numerous in Lota. They are the strongest type I
have seen, and are of the unconquerable Araucanian stock. These
Indians and half-Indians, besides being engaged in fishing and
water traffic, are mingled with Europeans as mine-workers. It is
a half-savage mining population, among which strikes, bloodshed,
and murder are not unknown.
For those who wish to visit the Chilean Annapolis, the train may be
taken from Coronel to Concepcion, and then to Talcahuano, which is
the naval port. The journey does not occupy more than an hour. The
Chileans have a patriotic pride in this naval school. Talcahuano
is a principal port and has much shipping. It is about the only
good harbor on the Chilean coast.
[Illustration: View of Talcahuano]
Concepcion, after Santiago and Valparaiso, is the largest city in
Chile, and has a decided importance as the outlet for the great
central valley. Many passengers come by the railway from Santiago
through the central valley to Concepcion, and take the ship at
either embarkation. The English and the Germans divide the foreign
trade, which is large and profitable.
Continuing down the coast on a voyage on the _Oropesa_, we passed
the briefest day of the year, June 21, out of sight of land. The
day was clear and cold. The seas were very heavy. At sunset the
navigating officer told us we were in south latitude 41°. The
Milky Way never seemed so luminous, nor the evening star, set in
the dark southern sky, so bright. The following day was alternate
rain and shine, with just a sight of the Chiloe Archipelago through
the mists. Few of the vessels now take the more picturesque route
into the archipelago and through Smythe’s Channel. The wrecks have
become too common.
Heavier seas were encountered in the afternoon and at night. What
a night! The _Oropesa_, a ship of 7,000 tons, was pounded as with
an anvil, tossed like a chip, knocked, hammered, slammed and banged
about, chased by huge seas astern, struck obliquely by mountain
waves, caught horizontally and spun around like a top. First she
went at half speed and then at quarter speed, but with plenty of
sea-room no one worried.
The next morning at daybreak the lighthouse which marks the
Evangelist Islands was sighted. The name, Islands of Direction,
which is sometimes given them, is a better description. They fix
the entrance into the Straits of Magellan. They are four rocky
heaps,--Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After they are sighted
the rough seas become gentler, and the ocean is like a rolling,
gently swelling prairie. A knob of brown earth is seen. It is Cape
Pillar. The gray clouds change into violet and purple, a blinding
snow-storm of three hours follows; then the sun lifts a little,
and discloses on the right Desolation Islands and the great snow
fields. By mid-day the land on either side is quite close. The
channel does not appear to be more than a quarter of a mile across.
There is some brush, but no trees. The blue glaciers of which we
have read are not blue, but are white against the water-green sky.
In the afternoon a gauze spreads over the glaciers like a veil of
mist, and they are blue.
[Illustration: Scenes at the Straits of Magellan
Cape Pillar--The Evangelist Islands--Cape Froward]
A look astern shows that we are passing through the narrowing neck of
a long channel with snowy crags and slopes on either side. We are in
south latitude 54°, no twilight, a black night, not a star visible,
the water not to be seen from the lower deck, the ship groping
for anchorage like a blind fisherman. “Two hundred sixty fathoms,
no; thirty-six fathoms, yes.” We have conquered the treacherous
currents, have turned the dangerous elbow corners, and learn that
we anchor for the rest of this black night off Cape Coventry. I
thought of Ferdinand Magellan and his sail-ships threading those
unknown channels nearly four centuries ago.
We are under way at four o’clock in the morning, and come out on deck
to find the sun hooded and cloaked in the snow clouds. It clears
later, showing the straits much broader and the hills on either
side lower but still under a white mantle. We round Cape Froward,
latitude 53° 54′, at times losing sight of Tierra del Fuego. We get
a sight of Punta Arenas, the most southerly town on the American
Continent or on any continent, 1,600 miles farther south than Cape
Town, 900 miles nearer to the South Pole than Christ Church, New
Zealand. It is the world’s cross-roads for ocean travel.
The first view is of wide streets running back to forest-clad hills
which are almost lost in the snow clouds. Everything about the
town is brisk and bright. Ashore the snow crunches under our feet,
and we have the buoyant feeling of the Hudson’s Bay trapper. There
is a Chilean cruiser in the bay, and German, English, French, and
Spanish ships. Even rarer is one bearing the American flag. There
are hotels, _gasthauses_, _posadas_, and other signs which tell in
many languages of sailors’ lodging-houses. The mingling of many
tongues is also heard, for the sailors are ashore.
Punta Arenas has very good wharves and warehouses, substantial bank
buildings, some private residences that look like Swiss chalets,
and a somewhat pretentious plaza in which on this day the fountain
has become a beautiful ice crystal. The town also has sailors’
bar-rooms. There is a new church, and a few vacant lots are left
in the business section. A troop of urchins come chattering from
school, leap into the snow-drift, and pelt the passers-by, the
universal privilege of boyhood. Though it is Winter the women are
bareheaded, or most of them are, and the black alpaca shawls thrown
carelessly over their shoulders do not indicate that the cold is
penetrating. The men wear vicuña robes like blankets, or many of
them have the skins made up into overcoats. The steamer has brought
the fortnightly mail, and every one gathers at the post-office
waiting for letters. The talk is of new sheep companies and gold
washings in Tierra del Fuego.
Punta Arenas has no custom house. It is a free port,--a very wise
policy considering that its trade is of an international character,
selling to the passing ships and buying from them only such articles
as are needed for local consumption. The commercial movement reaches
$2,250,000 per year, the exports exceeding the imports by $250,000.
The export commerce is of wool, hides, tallow, ostrich feathers,
foxskins, guanaco and vicuña rugs. The imports are alcohol for the
Patagonian Indians, cereals, and general merchandise. The best
fur store is kept by a Russian woman. The town is the seat of the
territorial government of Magellans, and is the official residence
of the Governor. There is also an army barracks and a weather bureau
office. It is a station of the Chilean navy, which has rendered much
service to navigation in the hydrographic work of the Straits. Punta
Arenas has its daily newspaper, filled with shipping intelligence
and containing cable news which is transmitted by land wire from
Buenos Ayres. Wireless telegraphy finds it a convenient station.
Punta Arenas thinks it has a cloud on its future. This is the
Panama Canal. It now is an important coaling-station, the coal
being brought both from Australia and from Newcastle, and it has
a good business in supplying passing vessels. Some of this trade
will be lost when the Hamburg and the New York ships which follow
this route to San Francisco are able to take the shorter course
through the waterway. But by that time the improvements which the
Chilean government is making in the navigation of the Straits, and
the natural development of trade in the far southern regions will
have more than compensated for the diminution from the diversion
of the through ocean traffic to other channels. As the centre of
the sheep industry of Tierra del Fuego and of the Chilean mainland,
the southernmost town has a stable future.