YANKEEDOM OF SOUTH AMERICA--CHILE
On account of their energy and enterprise the people of Chile have been
called the Yankees of South America. They are a quick tempered people
but often show a disposition to be whiter than their skin would signify.
On a railroad train I saw a well-dressed young Chilean raise the car
window. Behind him was an elderly man who did not like the wind blowing
in and he evidently made some sign to the conductor, who simply put the
window down.
This angered the young man who raised the window again. A little later
the conductor came back and said something to the young man who lowered
the window immediately. The old gentleman had moved by this time and I
supposed that the incident was closed.
A little later the young man called the conductor and had him go and
apologize to the old gentleman who came and sat down in the seat with
the young man. Then they settled their differences, smoked and visited
together like old friends. I felt a sort of admiration for these men
that they would settle their difference on the spot and became friends.
Such a procedure is much better than carrying a grouch.
The country of Chile is a narrow strip of land from fifty to two hundred
and fifty miles wide, but so long that if one end were placed at New
Orleans the other end would reach to the Arctic Circle. The mighty ridge
of the Andes mountains extends almost the entire distance. One of these
peaks in Chile is nearly five miles high--the highest on the globe
except Mount Everest.
In Chile there are many rich valleys yet much of the land is a desolate
desert. One writer suggests regarding this awful silent region that the
Desert of Sahara is a botanical garden in comparison with it. I traveled
five hundred miles along this desert without seeing a tree or a blade of
grass. This was in the northern part where it never rains. Much of the
southern part is covered with water-soaked forests.
Yet this Chilean desert is almost as valuable as a gold mine. Here are
the only large deposits of nitrate of soda in the world. While no plants
of any kind grow in this desert yet from it is obtained the product that
farmers all over the world use for fertilizer. Plants of all kinds must
have food to make them grow and this Chilean desert alone furnishes this
food in abundance and in suitable form.
Many millions are invested in establishments to get this nitrate, or
saltpeter as it is often called, from the worthless material with which
it is mixed and railroads to carry it to port. Little towns have sprung
up along the seashore where the nitrates make up cargoes of hundreds of
ships which carry this fertilizer to all parts of the world.
A gentleman who lives in Santiago told me how he could set out tomato
plants in the best soil, take a little handful of nitrates that look
like common salt, dissolve it in water and pour it on the soil and the
difference it would make is almost unbelievable. But a spoonful dropped
on the plant will kill it. It never rains on these nitrate beds--if it
did they would be worthless.
Of course, the people who do the work in these deserts or in the little
ports along the shore have a hard life. No green lawns or trees adorn
their villages. The dust is irritable and the people are a hard-looking
class. In one of these towns which I saw, Antofagasta by name, the water
the people use is brought nearly two hundred miles. The people used to
drink champagne mostly for it was cheaper than water.
Not far from Antofagasta are the great salt plains, said to be large
enough to supply the whole world with this commodity for generations.
The real nitrate beds are from fifteen to fifty miles from the ocean and
at least three thousand feet above sea level. The largest beds are from
four to five hundred miles in length so the supply is practically
inexhaustible. When the nitrates are richest they are mixed with
rock--about half and half. It is blasted out with dynamite, loaded on
carts and dumped into great machines that grind it to a coarse powder,
then thrown into immense tanks of boiling water where it forms in
crystals on the sides and bottom. The water is then drawn off, the white
sparkling stuff shoveled onto drying boards and when thoroughly dry is
sacked and shipped.
The liquid that is drawn off from these vats is made into iodine, which
is so valuable that a cask of it is worth several hundred dollars. Chile
owns about all the nitrate deposits yet discovered. She exports millions
of tons of it annually, levies a tax on every ton of it and thus the
government receives an immense income each year from this one industry.
In addition to the nitrate industry, Chile has immense stores of copper,
tin and other metals. At one port where the ship stopped a small boat
brought out a few sacks of copper ore. It took but a few minutes to put
it on board but one of the officers said it was worth thirteen thousand
dollars. At another Chilean port six hundred tons of tin were added to
our cargo. Chile is about the only country in South America where coal
is found in anything like large quantities.
Of course such a mountainous region is volcanic. There are many
earthquakes but they seldom do much harm. My first night in Chile was
spent in Los Andes and I had not been in bed five minutes until an
earthquake shock made it tremble like a leaf. But the people are so used
to it that they pay no attention whatever to these minor quakes. At the
time San Francisco was ruined, Valparaiso was all but destroyed but you
would never know it by a visit to the city now.
Chile includes a large part of the island of Tierra del Fuego. At the
very southern tip of this is Cape Horn. This is a gigantic rock fourteen
hundred feet high that juts out into the ocean and the great waves that
continually lash against it make it perhaps the most dreaded spot by
sailors in all the trade routes of the world. On all sides are wrecked
vessels and this rock has been named the Giant Headstone in the Sailor's
Graveyard.
It was the famous Magellan who discovered the water passage above Cape
Horn and it is called the Strait of Magellan. While safer than the route
around Cape Horn, yet many are the stories of shipwreck, hunger and
suffering told by those who went this way during the earlier days. Here
are some of the names of places along the Strait: "Fury Island," "Famine
Reach," "Desolation Harbor," "Fatal Bay," "Hope Inlet," and "Last Wreck
Point."
No one lives down at this point but tribes of Indians. It was the
signals and campfires of these Indians that caused Magellan to call the
island "Tierra del Fuego." The name means "Land of Fire." These Indians
are said to be one of the lowest classes of human beings in existence
today. Although the weather is very cold these savages wear but little
clothing--in fact, they wore none until of later years they began
getting cast off garments from wrecks and are now making some of their
own clothing from the skins of animals.
On this strait is located Punta Arenas, which is the southernmost town
in the world. It is directly south of Boston and farther south of the
equator than Winnipeg is north of it. Only about a thousand people live
here. Many of them are rough characters and live hard and comfortless
lives. This town is the only port within a thousand miles.
Although cold and cheerless most of the time, yet millions of sheep are
raised in this southern land and Punta Arenas is the shipping point. A
kind of coarse grass grows here that is nourishing and sheep thrive and
live for weeks alone on the open plains. Wool, hides and meat are
brought to this port and shipped to the outside world. Of course all
clothing, building material and machinery must be brought in for there
are no factories in Punta Arenas.
Santiago, the capital of Chile, is located in a valley that has been
called the "Garden of South America." This valley is seven hundred miles
long, fifty or sixty miles wide and hundreds of feet above sea level. On
the east are the snow-capped Andes and on the west the coast ranges. On
the mountain slopes on either side are the great herds of cattle and
sheep and lower down the rich fields of alfalfa and grain, fruit and
flowers.
Strange to say the farming is nearly all done with oxen. I counted six
yoke of oxen in a ten-acre field. Women as well as men work in the
fields. The fences are made of stone but in many parts of the valley you
never see a stone in the field. If they have any modern farm machinery I
did not see it. All the fields are irrigated, as it seldom rains in this
valley in the summer time.
Most of the best land is owned by wealthy men who live in the city.
Those who do the work are mostly Indians or half breeds, and they have
but few of the comforts of life. Many of the farms are great tracts and
there is a store where the worker can purchase what he needs but the
prices are high and he is kept in debt. A country can never really
prosper where the tillers of the soil are ignorant and have no say in
the affairs of the government.
It is in this valley where most of the Chileans live. While in other
parts of the country there are but two people to the square mile, here
in this valley there are seventeen to the square mile. Here are most of
the schools and colleges, cities, railways and manufacturing plants.
When about sixty per cent of the people are illiterate and this class is
almost entirely the laboring class it does not look as if conditions
would be changed very soon.
I saw more drinking in Chile than in any other South American country. A
portion of the city of Valparaiso seems to be given over almost entirely
to the liquor dealers and the people who throng that district are
hard-looking folks. The fag ends of civilization seem to have gathered
here. This is the only city in South America where I was accosted by
both men and women and they almost try to hold one up in the streets in
broad daylight.
Nearly all the Chilean women dress in black. A black shawl is worn and
you would think they are all dressed in mourning, but they are not. This
black cloth is called a manto and all women, both rich and poor, wear
them. The business portion of the city of Valparaiso is built on a
narrow strip of land at the foot of a high hill.
All along there are elevators or lifts as they call them. For a couple
of pennies you can step into one of these lifts and be taken up a
hundred feet or more. While one lift goes up another comes down as they
are always built in pairs. There are winding ways where horses and
donkeys can walk up but no wheeled vehicle can be taken up or down for
it is too steep.
For this reason the dairymen and venders all have donkeys or small
horses. A dairyman will have a couple of large milk cans, one on either
side of the beast, or perhaps a small barrel on the top of a frame or
saddle. The man leads or drives the animal and they are so sure-footed
that they can go up a place so steep that one not used to climbing could
not make the ascent.
There are but few North Americans in Chile. I had breakfast (they call
the noon meal breakfast) with the American Club. There were but
twenty-five or thirty present, mostly business men. But few of these men
are satisfied to stay long in Chile.
The American Y. M. C. A. is doing some good work in Valparaiso, as in
all other South American cities. The rooms are well patronized and it
was homelike to see the leading magazines of the United States upon the
reading table. The Sunday afternoon program that I attended was well
gotten up and very interesting.
While in Chile you see more to remind you of the United States than in
any other South American country but I was not favorably impressed with
the people. They will not compare in looks or actions with the people
east of the Andes. Lack of education, culture and refinement are
noticeable everywhere. Religion and morality are conspicuous by their
absence and one cannot but pity those who live among them although one
sees some good traits in many of them.