Chile Today and Tomorrow | Project Gutenberg (2024)

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Physical Characteristics.—North, South, and CentralChile.—Brilliant Hues.—Climate.—Wet and DrySeasons.—Social Problems.—Far-flung Cities.—Formationof Character.—Animals and Plants.

Chile is a ribbon of a country, an emerald and goldstrip stretched between the snow-crowned wall of theAndes and the blue waters of the Pacific.

This ribbon is up-tilted all along its western edgeto form the coastal range defending the long centralvalley. It is lightly creased transversely where, fromeast to west, streams fed with snow-water drain downfrom the Andean peaks. Below the fortieth degree ofsouth latitude the ribbon is twisted and ragged, withthe tilted edge half sunk in stormy waters. Thirty timesas long as it is wide, Chilean territory runs from theseventeenth to the fifty-sixth degree of south latitude,for, with a Pacific coast measuring nearly three thousandmiles the average breadth is no more than ninety.It is a land of extreme contrasts; of great violence, ofgreat serenity: but whether harsh or smiling, Chile isa stimulating, a promising land holding the mind andthe heart. It is a breeder of men and women of forciblecharacter.

To the north lie the tawny and burning deserts wherenot so much as a blade of grass grows without artificial2help, where no rain falls, year after year, where everyform of life is an alien thing. In the south are broken,rocky islands and inlets, matted forests of evergreentrees with their feet in eternal swamps, of furious galesand cruel seas, where turquoise glaciers creep into thedark fiords. Eastward stands the great barrier of theAndes, snow-covered for half the year, with proud peaksrising at least eight thousand feet higher than the headof Mont Blanc. To the west, Chile looks out upon awaste of waters, with New Zealand as the nearest greatcountry.

Shut in or defended by these barriers from each pointof the compass, it is plain that Chile has had no sistersclosely pressing upon her threshold. One might reasonablyexpect to find here a race possessing characteristicsin common with island folk, a homogeneous peoplewith a distinct nationality. Today, when all naturalbarriers have been overthrown by mechanical transport,no nation escapes exterior influence, but the Chileandoes certainly retain the islander’s self-contained habit,physical hardihood, and power of assimilating ratherthan yielding to aliens. I do not think that the modernChilean owes his traits so much to inheritance from theAraucanian as to the fact that he has been nurturedin the same cradle, for, without doubt, here is a personalityand attitude of mind that distinguishes theman of Chile from his continental brothers.

Between the forbidding lands of the extreme northand far south and the frontiers of mountain and sea,lies fertile Chile—fruitful, gentle, brisk, well-watered.Nitrate and copper have their great populated camps,but they are artificial towns; the Magellanic city ofPunta Arenas has a firmer root, but both north andsouth are new, and have received rather than produced.The Central Valley of Chile is the great garden of South3America, one of the most enchantingly lovely, the mostfrankly friendly, regions in all the world.

It seems as though nature had deliberately tried tocompensate here for the arid and the stormy end ofthe belt by showering beauty upon the interveningstrip. There is none of that strange illusory quality,the sense of living in a mirage, that attends upon tropicalregions. Central Chile is fresh, dewy-bright, withthe familiar sweetness of the temperate zones of westernEurope. Here are fine cattle, sheep and horses, pleasantorchards of pears and plums and apples; olive grovesand grapevines; the long green lines of wheat fields,the spires of the poplars, the blackberry hedges edgedwith gorse and bracken and purple-headed thistles, areall familiar. The stock of the farms, every kind ofcrop—except those invaluable American contributionsto the world’s list of foods, maize and potatoes—wereintroduced from overseas, but they have longbeen absorbed into the economic life of Chile. If thevisitor is lulled into forgetfulness of his real milieu bythe sight of neat wooden fences, by the bramble-borderedand fern-edged lane, he is recalled by the suddenglimpse of a shining white cone suspended in the transparentair, the snowy head of a far volcano. Or he maysee in the thicket beside the road a trail of copihue withits bright rosy bell, or note that the farmer, ruddy-cheekedand bright-eyed, riding a fine horse along a deepmuddy road, wears a gay poncho and a pair of enormoussilver spurs.

It is the Chilean south that has brought to thePacific Coast its fame as a land of beautiful pictures.Before Puerto Montt is reached, the edge of LakeLlanquihue is skirted by the railway, and the sight ofthis splendid sheet of water is an introduction to thewild and lovely scenery that was still unknown fifty4years ago. The mountain and lake regions of Chilehave even yet not been thoroughly explored, and thatso much of this magnificent territory has been chartedis partly due to the ancient uncertainty of exact boundarylimits with Argentina, and, after long negotiations,the surveying work of Holdich at the head of the commissionof 1898, reporting to King Edward VII asarbitrator. Between Chile and Argentina lies a seriesof exquisite lakes, many lying in old volcano cups.There is no more lovely body of fresh water in the worldthan Todos los Santos, with emerald heights rising clearfrom the mirror of the water; Rupanco, Riñihue,Ranco, and Viedma are beads upon a splendid chainof fine waters.

Chile is a land of brilliant hues. The dark waters,shouldered by tree-clothed mountains, of the Strait ofMagellan, reflect yellow and russet leaf-changes asbright as in the maple woods of Canada. Blue glaciers,pure snow heads and the delicate green of fern brakesare contrasted with the crimson of wild fuchsias andthe mass of glorious bloom of apple and cherry orchards.Farther north, where poplars stand like tall flamesagainst the background of the hills in the Chileanautumn, and the willows line the rivers with gold, allis soft and glowing; but beyond the northern limits ofvegetation where nothing meets the eye but masses oforange mountains that seem like glowing draperieshung against the unchanging blue sky, there is anextraordinary clarity of line and tint.

When the sun descends, quick flushes of pink andyellow, sheets of pale green and violet, flood theburning desert and the deeply scored heights; thereis no movement, no sound, and yet the wide sceneappears instinct with life, to move beneath the wavesof pure light.

5Every smallest thread of water is here edged with alush growth of bright emerald plants, every bush is amass of orange or purple flowers. And in the settledspots there is grace in every tree, a picturesque quality ineach little thatched hut by the wayside, an insouciancethat lends charm to ’dobe walls and maize patches.The beauty and the kindliness of Chile are, in fact,apt to destroy one’s critical faculties.

The weather in Chile may be called extremely obvious.It is impossible to ignore it, as in some othercountries, despite the situation of the greater part ofChilean territory within the temperate zone. The remarkabletopographical conditions of this strip forceeach barometrical change upon the attention.

In the rainless north, modifications are chiefly confinedto the effects of the curious sea-mist, the camanchaca,spreading over some parts of the pampas to fiftymiles inland; appearing about six in the evening,these fogs screen the coast and promptly lower the temperature,so, that, scorching at midday, one shiversunder blankets at night. In the extreme south,among the islands and channels of the Magellanic region,boisterous seas and violent winds, cold and rain,made it the terror of sailors for three hundred years.The prevailing weather displays traits almost as unvaryingas in the sharply contrasted north. Fine andcalm days are rarities, although the climate is certainlynot unhealthy, as Punta Arenas demonstrates.

But it is in the central region lying between Coquimboand Valdivia that changes of weather have themost spectacular effect. In the valleys of the Aconcagua,the Mapocho, the Maule and the Bio-Bio wehave perhaps the most striking results when the rainyseason begins, usually towards the end of April. In the6lowlands a blinding deluge descends that promptlyclears town streets of pedestrians and frequently reducescabs and street cars to temporary inactivity,while every country path and highway is transformedby a few hours’ rain into a deep morass. But wheneverit rains in the central Chilean valleys snow is fallingupon the Andean heights, and presently the eyes thatfor months have glanced with the indifference of customat the far-distant, blue-shrouded, tawny mountainsare astonished with a vision of giant peaks andshoulders that seem to have made an immense strideforward to the edge of the next field, their serene magnificencecovered with shining white.

The effect upon the foothills is no less striking.During the last months of the dry season—enduringin the vineyard regions for some eight months—everyinch of ground that is not artificially irrigated hastaken on a uniform sandy hue. The whole earth isparched and the roads are a foot deep in dust. Butwithin a week of the first rain a shimmering veil of lightgreen tinges the land; in ten days every knoll and hillsidehas its carpet of young grass, and in a month thewhole face of the country is changed, awakened, brilliant,bursting out with sturdy fertility. Such riversas the Aconcagua and the Mapocho, dwindled to ripplingthreads among the wide stone-strewn beds, arechanged in a night to raging torrents, fed from the sidesof the mountains. More than once these silver streamshave swept from their shallow banks, torn down protectingbarriers, and done serious material damage, besideschanging their courses—a matter of great importin regions where water-rights are the chief causesof quarrel among farmers.

7With the setting in of the definite dry season at thebeginning of September, the upper part of CentralChile thenceforth forgets the sound of rain for overhalf a year. Bright blue skies and unrelenting middayheat are almost unchanged; the watered country isa series of orchards, and the famous big black grapes,the peaches and plums and apples of Central Chile,succeed the strawberry crops. Chile in the early partof the dry season is a garden of flowers, and the fruitripeningat the end of the year fills the valleys withbusy scenes. There are thousands of workers in theorchards, grain fields and vineyards, and the heavywheeledox-carts send up swirling masses of dust inevery lane. Before the New Year the snow has meltedunder the summer sun from almost every part of theCordilleras, although I have seen it linger in deep foldsof Aconcagua and Tupungato until late February.Down south in Magellanic territory the permanentsnow line comes down to a couple of thousand feetabove sea level, and cold weather is the rule. Thesqualls of the Strait are generally rain-laden.

Aconcagua, highest peak of South America, is notactually a Chilean mountain, lying just across the Argentinefrontier; but it is so familiar a feature of CentralChile that it is constantly annexed in thought.Mercedario, another magnificent height, also just escapesthe boundary line. Beautiful Tupungato, 21,300ft., is outclassed among Chilean peaks, as regards altitude,by Tocorpuri and Llullaico farther north, and isclosely rivalled by a number of less famous mountains—Socompa,Baya, San Pedro and San Pablo, PeñaBlanco, San Francisco, Muerto, Solo, Salado, TresCruces and Toro; below Central Chile the averageheight of the crests of the great volcanic wall dropsfrom fifteen to nine thousand feet, but even such comparativelymodest peaks as Osorno, Llaima, Calbuco,Lonquimay, Villa Rica, and the most southerly Paine,8Burney, Balmaceda and Sarmiento, are striking anddignified with their snow crowns.

The long dry season of Mid Chile, and the violenceof rains in the wet months, render the construction ofpermanent roads a task necessitating immense outlay.Chile has 35,000 kilometres of highroads, but reckonsonly a few thousand kilometres in first-class condition:a recent Road Law aims at a reform of vital importanceto the Chilean farmer. But if roads arescarce, Chile has an excellent system of railways,serving the main length of her territory, connectingwith all exporting points along the coast, and linkingValparaiso to Buenos Aires. The adequate equipmentof ports—of which there are sixty, important or embryo—hasalways presented difficulties, owing to theshallow character of almost every indentation, withthe notable exception of Talcahuano, and the prevalenceof heavy ground swells and strong gales from the northand the southwest.

The social problems of Chile are no more and no lessthan the problems of any other country of the temperatezone inhabited by a progressive white population.The difficulties of adequate transport to serveher growing industrial and farming regions; questionsregarding a large working population crowded into greatmining camps; political and educational problems, areall hers: but she is aided towards solution by the homogeneityof her hardy race.

Chile has no “black” or “yellow” population. Thereare in the country only four African Negroes, and theforeigners resident are mainly Western Europeans andthe nationals of sister states. Peruvians, prior to thefriction of 1920, formed 20 per cent of the foreignpopulation; Bolivians number 22,000 or 16 per cent;there are 20,000 Spaniards, about 13 per cent; Germans,11,000, or 8 per cent; French, 10,000; British,10,000; Italians, 13,000; Swiss, 2000; North Americans,1000; Chinese, 2000; Argentines, 7000.

9The various foreign elements are lost among Chile’sfour million native-born, and the majority of all newcomersremain in the country and are presently addedto the Chilean stock. There has never been, fortunatelyfor the country, any influx of unassimilableraces; and while there is plenty of room for a largepopulation, increase is more certain when it is fromthe inside rather than superimposed.

Chile has, in fact, enjoyed all the advantages of beingknown as a poor country for many generations; therehave been no periods of delirious boom or extravagance,she has been comparatively little exploited, owes comparativelylittle to the outside world, and has developedher soul with a certain leisure.

Politically, she has been equally lucky. Most of herrulers have been wise and cultivated men of highprobity. The unhappy Balmaceda, against whom wasfomented the solitary revolt in Chile since she settleddown to work after Independence, bears a name that istoday revered throughout the country, with no accusationaffecting his integrity. No Governor or Presidentof Chile has been assassinated during the whole historyof the country, before or since the close of theSpanish colonial régime.

The genuine exercise of the vote, and the temperamentalcheerfulness and sanity of the Chilean, havesaved the country from many miseries suffered by lessunified lands.

Two special causes of the general level-headednessand sobriety of the Chilean are, first, the strong positionof women in family life, and next the high standardof education. Education provides a channel through10which youth can flow, and here, where state elementaryschools are spread throughout the country to the numberof 3000, with 1000 private and secondary schools,every boy and girl has a chance. The Chilean Governmenthas long followed a policy of sending a number ofthe brightest students of the high schools and universitiesabroad for final courses in languages and science,and for this reason is less dependent than the majorityof young countries upon the exterior world for engineers,chemists and teachers.

The fine prosperous cities of Chile possess, of course,all the equipment, all the luxury and grace, of moderncities all over the world. If one were to shut out thebackground of snow-crowned mountains, and happenedto be out of sight of such streets as retain Spanishbalconies and tiled roofs, one might imagine many adistrict of Santiago to be a part of a first-class Frenchor English city. The tramways, the common use ofmotor cars and electricity, the good paving and goodshops, the beauty and fashion of the Chilean women,the beautifully built and equipped houses, the goodrestaurants, the plentiful supply of newspapers, theappearance and avocations of the people, render Valparaisoand the Chilean capital among the front-rankcities of the world.

But Chilean cities vary greatly. In the central regionis the great group of centres of Spanish foundation,those of the extreme north showing faces, for themost part, as youthful as those of Western Patagoniaor Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan. Temuco,built after the final breaking-down of the Araucanianfrontier, dates as a modern town only from 1881. OldTarata, in the still disputed Province of Tacna, dreamingwith its back to the hills and face to the desert, isa link with the past, for although it is away from thetraffic stream today it was once a stopping-place onthe direct Inca route between Potosí and Arica on thePacific; Tacna owes its modern existence to its littlerailway; but Arica is newly alive, a busy port in abower of gay flowers, a garden on the edge of a waste.

11South of Arica lies a fringe of new nitrate townsalong the sea-border of the pampas salitreras; Pisagua,Junin, Iquique (not long ago the greatest exporter ofnitrate, but yielding pride of place to Antofagasta),Caleta Buena, Tocopilla, Mejillones, also overshadowedtoday by her younger sister, big, well-served,thriving Antofagasta; Coloso, Paposo, Taltal—all liebaking in the bright aridity of the rainless belt, precariouslysupplied with food and water from afar. Inlandthere are no populations more permanent thanthose of the nitrate oficinas, save here and there alongthe beds of snow-fed streams. Next in order fromnorth to south comes the string of copper ports, withinterior towns beginning to appear as the edge of thepermanently fertile lands is reached. Chañaral, Caldera,Carrizal, points where the famous “Chile bars”of copper were smelted and shipped overseas; inlandCopiapó, dependent for wealth upon copper and silvermines, but clothed with all the charm of a cloveredgedoasis in the desert; the houses are built low forfear of earthquakes, roofed with red tiles and washedpink and blue; the gardens are full of scented flowers.Another oasis is Vallenar, set in the Atacama desertbeside its violet-shadowed ravine and surrounded witha little ring of jade fields.

Still farther south, Coquimbo, a newer, busy littlecity, sweetly placed upon its beautiful curving bay amile or two from its Spanish-built, slumbering eldersister La Serena. From this point southward the12towns lie closer together, and eastward along each fertilevalley are clusters of fine fruit farms with dependentvillages, filling the railway cars with figs andpeaches, grapes and apricots; but where water fails,scrub and cactus deny a living. Here is old Combarbalá,there Illapel with its town-long avenue of orangetrees hung with golden globes; Santa Rosa de losAndes, highroad to the chief mountain crossing; anda number of centres of the lovely grape country,younger sisters of San Felipe. Santiago, spread beneathher two famous hills, Santa Lucia and San Cristobal;Valparaiso, risen from the earthquake of 1906,solidly built on its narrow stretch of sand beneath thethousand-foot cliffs, crowned with new dwellings andreached by electric lifts, an energetic and wealthy portwith its brilliant suburb, Viña del Mar. Beyond thesegreat twin centres of movement lies all the fast-developingagricultural and manufacturing south—Talca, arapid and promising growth; dusty Rancagua, lookingtowards the big interior copper camp; Chillán, head ofa great fruit region; Concepción, most agreeable ofcities, nestled beside the bright Bio-Bio in a bower ofwoods, with its fine port, Talcahuano; the coal-miningsea-border towns, Coronel, Lota, Arauco, Lebu; Temuco,one of the most prosperous of all the vigorousyoung southern towns, placed in wonderfully productivecountry; handsome Valdivia, facing a factory-coveredisland on the fine river flowing to Corral port,justly proud of its equipment and buildings; Osorno,a rising centre of industry; Puerto Montt, still in itsyouth but with good reasons for sturdy growth. Andlast of all, Punta Arenas, the visibly growing city, finebuildings shouldering little shacks, looking away fromthe beech-covered hills of Brunswick Peninsula towardsthe pearly distance of the Polar seas; PuntaArenas is not only a new city of Yugo-Slav and Scotsmillionaires, of the tributary sheep-raising country: itis the commercial key of Chile’s Far South.

13The majority of these towns are more than convenientcentres for crowding populations; they owetheir existence to special and widely divergent causesthat have also formed the character of the people.To certain circumstances in Chilean history can beascribed a powerful part in making the Chilean—thedisappearance of the Indian as a worker, and consequentself-dependence; the great rise of the nitrate industry,and the creation of national wealth and greatprivate fortunes; and the enlargement of the nationalhorizon by war. But the effect of different regionsand their calls upon resources have been and are stillequally important. Much of the spirit of the Chileanis due to the independent life of the mineral-hunter ofthe north, solitary, even-tempered, enduring, deeplyattached to the soil. The day of this class of minerhas departed almost as definitely as that of the cunningcraftsmen who, in colonial days, fashioned incopper or silver all domestic utensils of Chilean homes:but his influence lives. Marked also is the influenceof the skilled horseman, the woodsman, the man of thecamp who knows how to kill and cook his food, howto cross mountain passes or trackless forest or unbridgedstream; the far-flung Chilean cities bear thestamp of the Chilean character created by these specialcircumstances, and generalisations must be made andreceived with this fact in mind.

The Santiaguino, occupied in finance, law, politicsor trade, is addicted to cheery club life, is a countryand garden lover, and has a keen understanding andaffection for horses; his characteristics bring him readilyinto sympathetic touch with the British, allied by14many blood-ties. He is famed as a charming host, agenial welcomer of the stranger, and there is no cityin the world where the visitor will be more agreeablyinterviewed by an acute press, more quickly and spontaneouslygreeted and made at home than by the frankand kindly Chilean family.

The dweller in Santiago and Valparaiso possesses amarked characteristic rare in any part of Latin America:he is a born speculator and financier, and is anactive attendant and operator upon the local Bolsa(Stock Exchange). In some of the smaller and lessdeveloped states of Spanish America the Stock Exchangeis non-existent or negligible: but in Chile theBolsa is thronged daily, and the operations are active,eager, and dictated by a highly intelligent appreciationof the market conditions of the world. The cablesare incessantly used in this connection, and manya Chilean fortune has been made and lost by the followerof exchange fluctuations. The Chilean understandsand is accustomed to investment, and is notalarmed as are many American nations at the prospectof investing his money abroad. He has gone afield fora century, and, operating in Antofagasta and Tarapacálong before they were Chilean de facto, has since theiracquisition ranged farther into the mining districtsof central Bolivia. Chilean capital and technical skillare responsible for half the mines operated in that sisterstate. Operations in Bolivian mining shares—suchas the famous and spectacular Llallaguas—form a considerableitem in the work of the Chilean Bolsa.

Behind the bright social life of the Chilean cities liethe great farming and mining areas, with their dependenceupon that hardy Chilean worker nicknamed theroto—originally, the “out at elbows” class. Todaythe term has lost its depreciatory meaning, and the15workman in general is a roto. He has fine qualities ofhardihood, loyalty and endurance; and although hehas sometimes had a repute for free use of the corvo, thedeadly curved knife in whose use he has an extraordinaryfacility, it is only upon too-festive occasions orduring jealous quarrels that he is apt to give way topassion. The measures taken by the Government andby large employers of workmen in industries or minesto stop the traffic in the worst forms of liquor, and tosubstitute the light and innocuous Chilean wines, haslessened these troubles during recent years, and it istrue of Chile as of most parts of South America thatthere is no organised crime. Cases of theft are common,but are ascribed mainly to the lower class ofSouth European who comes to Chile for work and formsa part of the shifting population moving from camp tocamp. Chile’s Ley de Residencia, by which criminalsare deported from the scene of discovered ill-deeds toanother part of the coast, means very often that thenorth and south exchange ne’er-do-wells.

It is partly due to this perhaps too kindly system thatChile has suffered considerably from strikes during thepast few years. The entry of malcontents bringing theflag and doctrines of the I. W. W. created trouble inthe coal mines of the south, the copper camps and thenitrate fields of the north, and the ingenuous characterof the native-born lends itself to the ready acceptanceof specious theories. I have seen the flag of the Californian-bredIndustrial Workers of the World paradedin Santiago, while such “red” periodicals as El Socialistaof Antofagasta spread a hash-up of violentand hysterical propaganda, a medley of Marxian andBolshevik ideas, amongst railway and port workmen.The women, always an element to be reckoned with inChile, were brought into the Antofagasta railway strike16in 1919, and when the first strike-breaking train wasrun out of the port, the wives of the strikers laid themselvesdown on the tracks in a theatrical attemptobviously instigated by the practised foreign agitator.

The radical administration of Señor Arturo Alessandri,with its avowed sympathy with the workers, wasable to counteract the pernicious influence of the exteriortrouble-maker as, perhaps, a more conservativegovernment could not; and the firmness with which,in late 1921, the President dealt with an attemptedtie-up of Valparaiso port, declaring his intention of redressingany genuine grievances but at the same timemaking clear his determination that the work of theport should not be interfered with, has been salutary.The powerful Workman’s Federation (Federación deObreros) of Chile has done much good work, and islikely to do more if it is purged of foreign interferenceand retains the sympathies of the middle classChilean.

The best cure for red socialism in South America isthe pleasant tonic sport. No better sign of the realhealthfulness of the Chilean race is to be found than theenthusiasm with which football, cricket and the recentintroduction of American baseball have been taken up.All Chilean newspapers have their page of Deportes,with much space devoted to futbolismo, and thehorse races at Viña del Mar and Santiago are eagerlyattended by the peasant as well as by the Chileanmillionaire.

Such sports as river fishing and boating are denied tothe dweller in north, and most of central Chile, by thescarcity of streams, but there are plenty of coarse, iffew sporting, fish in all rivers of constant flow. To thesouth, trout and salmon have been introduced withmarked success and the angler’s art has developed.17Bull-fighting was never a Chilean pastime; a fine breedof game-cocks was introduced about the middle of lastcentury (through the gifts of the celebrated LordDerby, who responded to the petition of a sportingChilean priest) and has had a marked effect upon countrystrains, but in its most popular day cock-fightingwas never to Chile what it is to Cuba. The wholenational tendency is towards out-of-door games andsport: the Chilean is a wonderful rider, has bred anextremely fine type of small horses, is a good poloplayer, and owes much of his sturdy health to the nationalhabit of horsemanship.

Chile has no noxious insects, with the exception ofone venomous spider; and she has no poisonous snakesor reptiles. But she is rich in strange and beautifulbirds, many singing with exquisite sweetness.

Large animals indigenous to the country are rare,although all European domesticated animals, as horses,cattle, hogs and sheep, thrive splendidly; a few forestdeer are still found; the guanaco lives in the more remoteuplands and cold south, and there are jaguars in thewoodland.

Among plants, Chile’s special gift to the world hasbeen the potato, invaluable to millions of householdstoday. Different varieties of Solanum tuberosum arefound wild on the West Coast of South America all theway from South Chile to Colombia, growing in Chilefrom Magallanes to Arica, both near the seashore andin the foothills of the Andes. The potato has a widenative habitat, and it was and is as useful to the indigenousfolk of Chile, Bolivia and Peru as to WesternEurope today. Of other foods, the mealy, chestnut-likekernel of the Araucaria Chiliensis is eaten only inthe country, as in the case of its cousin, the kernel of18Araucaria Brasilensis. The strawberry, Fragaria Chiloensis,appears to be wild in south Chile, with a numberof small sweet berries of the myrtle and berberistribes.

Quantities of beautiful flowers and plants, herbs andshrubs, are native to Chile and found wild only in thisbelt. Of them, none is more striking and lovely thanthe Copihue, the rosy bell of a slim vine clinging to treesin the southern woodland; the flaming Tropœolumspeciosa is a bright mantle of the hedgerows, the brilliantblue crocus (Tecophilea) lies in sheets on Andeanfoothills, the turquoise and golden Puyas are strikingfeatures of many a Chilean landscape, and the lovelyEucryphias are shrubs as beautiful as the Fire Bush(Embothrium coccineum).

But of all Chilean offerings, none has been of moreimportance to the world, apart from the potato, thanthat strange naturally produced chemical of the northernrainless regions, nitrate of soda. Nitrate hasbrought millions of exhausted or semi-productive acresinto rich fertility, employs a hundred thousand peoplein its production and transport, and is today a necessityof the farmer. Artificial production is unlikely to rivalthe natural deposits in the markets of the world, owingto the cost of manufacture, and the Chilean fields, immenseand practically inexhaustible, form a naturaltreasure of prime industrial importance. Other nationsbesides Chile are fortunate in possessing copper,coal, iron and silver: in the possession of nitrate theWest Coast is without a competitor.

The only cloud upon the Chilean political horizon,remaining since the War of the Pacific, is the problemof the two provinces now combined as Tacna, with thecity of Tacna as capital. That the future of this littleregion troubles the West Coast is a striking illustrationof the result of leaving territorial questions unsettled,for no equal shadow is cast by the provinces definitelyadded to Chilean soil, the valuable Tarapacá and Antofagasta.

19Not only Chile and Peru are involved in the Tacnadispute: the question of renewed access to the sea byBolivia lends that country a lively interest in settlement,and, in addition, every South American countryis concerned in the amicable resolution of a domesticproblem affecting the present credit and future peaceof the continent. Nor can the nationals of overseascountries investing in or trading with the West Coastremain indifferent; when, in 1922, discussions wereopened in Washington between the representatives ofChile and Peru, all friends of South America hoped fora happy result from these new and direct conversations,in a region far removed from the acute feeling of thePacific Coast.

The whole story of the Tacna question is discussedin detail in other pages.[1]

1. Chapter VI.

Inca Rule and Native Chiefs.—Spanish Colonial Period.—TheFight for Independence.—RepublicanChile.

Neither in her deep woodlands nor upon her openplains does Chile possess monuments of ancient civilisation.The foundations of her flourishing cities date backno farther than 400 years at the most; the arts andcrafts of daily life are based upon imported concepts,owning no native origin. As a settled, built, cultivatedcountry, Chile is for the main part genuinely new.

The old races of the south, whether nomad hunters ofthe interior or fisherfolk of the coast and Magellanicwaterways, built no towns, constructed and carvednothing that serves today as a memorial; bones hiddenin caves, chipped spear and arrow heads, harpoons andfish-hooks, remain as the only evidence of the life ofpast generations, the only witnesses by which the conditionof their present descendants can be measured.Farther north, where Inca culture penetrated, are suchruins of dwellings as those of Calama, with their burialsites. Traces of the Inca highways are yet to be foundas far south as the Atacama desert and Copiapó. Butin contrast with the archæological wealth of Boliviaand Peru, of Central America and Mexico, Chile hasnot a single pre-Spanish temple nor the rudest monolithto show. The north and central valley of Chile as faras the present Talca were under Inca control for about21one hundred years before the Spanish conquest, Peruvianrecords yielding the only historical accounts ofevents in Chile prior to Almagro’s expedition.

A friendly connection between the Peruvian empireand the settled tribes of the Chilean north seems tohave been of old standing, a tradition confirmed bythe evidence of burial grounds. Upon the authorityof the historian Montesinos, the Inca Yahuar Huaccacgave a daughter and a niece in marriage to two chiefsof Chile; these two princesses came later, with theirchildren, to visit Peru, their uncle Viracocha being thenInca. A revolt took place during their absence, and thefamily was only reinstated by the might of the Inca,and under his tutelage. It was, however, the IncaPachacuti who began the definite explorations andconquests that, continued by his son Tupac Yupanquiand his grandson Huayna Ccapac, increased the Incadominion to a great empire extending from the AncasmayuRiver, north of Quito, to the banks of the Maulein Chile.

Tupac Yupanqui (1439–75) conquered the Antis,[2]people of the Collao, and from Charcas decided to gofarther south. He entered Chile, defeated the powerfulSinchi (chieftain) Michimalongo and later Tangalongo,the latter ruling country down to the Maule. Here thesame fierce tribes who afterwards resisted the finestSpanish troops opposed him, and after setting up frontiercolumns, or walls, as a mark of conquest on the riverbanks, the Inca returned to Cuzco via Coquimbo. Fromthis time Chile was officially organised. Quechua-speakingcolonists (mitimaes) were sent here as throughoutall the rest of the thousand leagues of Inca territory,registering the population and imposing tributes of22country produce. Curacas were instituted as triballeaders in lieu of the Sinchis, who were in old Chileobeyed only in wartime. Extension of this definiteorganisation was energetically carried on by the greatInca, Huayna Ccapac, and it was during this periodthat the Peruvians constructed the great roads that soastonished, and aided, the Spaniards. The effectivetransport system and the success of the Inca rulers inpacifying districts by the simple method of transportingthe original population where disaffection was suspected,replacing them with settlers from a distance,the whole meticulous paternalism of the Inca system,regulating every part of the social frame from thecradle to the grave so thoroughly that initiative wasstifled, rendered easy the task of the invading European.He did no more than step into Inca shoes, and the Inca’ssubjects received the change of masters almost withapathy.

2. From which name the word Andes, in whose lower folds the Antisdwelt, was probably derived.

That careful observer Cieza de Leon, in Peru from1532–50, leaves a precise account of the Inca roads thatran south from Cuzco both along the sierras and alsothroughout the coastal border. The highways weremade, he says, fifteen feet wide in the valleys, with astrong wall on either side, the whole space being pavedwith cement and shaded with trees. “These trees, inmany places, spread their branches, laden with fruit,over the road and many birds fluttered among theleaves.” Resthouses containing provisions for the Incaofficials and troops were built at regular intervals, andit was strictly forbidden that Peruvians should interferewith the property of natives in nearby fields orhouses.

In deserts where the sand drifted high, and pavingwas useless, huge posts were driven in to mark the way.Zarate, who gives the width of the roads as 40 feet,23says that “broad embankments were made on eitherside,” and all early travellers in Inca territory agreethat these lost highways were extremely well made.He adds that the posts in the desert were connected withstout cords, but that even in his day the Spaniardshad destroyed many of the posts, using them for makingfires. The road of the coast, like that of the sierra,was 1500 miles long; and of Chilean traces any travellerthrough the Atacama copper regions may see a survivalat the station of “Camino del Inca,” where the modernrailway cuts across the ancient road.

Along the Sierra highway came, in 1535, the firstSpaniard to set foot in Chile, Diego de Almagro. Hewas not the first European to explore Chilean territory,for the Portuguese Fernão de Magalhães had discoveredthe Strait bearing his name in 1520; but he was thepioneer explorer by land. The name Chile is a nativeword which was probably the appellation of a (pre-Spanish)local chief; it was the name by which theIncas designated that part of the country under theircontrol, and it persisted in spite of Valdivia’s laterattempt to call it “Nueva Estramadura,” just as“Mejico” and “Cuba” survived and “Nueva España”and “Española” faded out. It has been frequently butmistakenly said that the word Chile actually does mean“chilly” in the Quechua tongue; as a matter of factthe Quechua word meaning “cold” is chiri. In earlySpanish times the name Chile applied only to part ofthe central valley with “Copayapu” in the extremenorth, “Coquimpu” just below it, and the centralregion partly ascribed to “Canconicagua.” But thename Chile was simple and was so quickly adopted thatAlmagro’s adherents were soon politically grouped as“los de Chile”—the men of Chile, and when thecountry was definitely colonised the name was extended24to denote all the settled country south of Peru, thatis, between Copiapó and Chiloé Island.

The original spur to conquest of Chile was rivalrybetween the Pizarro brothers and their fellow conquistador,the old Adelantado Diego de Almagro. ThePizarros wanted to retain rich Cuzco, and Almagrowas an inconvenient claimant; the magnificent cityof the Incas, today a grievous sight with its shabbymodern buildings superimposed upon the stately stonewalls of the Incas, was already a smashed and lootedruin; but it had yielded so much treasure that it wasprobably impossible for the conquistadores to give upsearch for other golden cities. Mexico, Guatemala,Peru, and the Chibcha Kingdom, had followed in rapidsuccession, and it is not surprising that when Indiansspoke of the riches of the south, Almagro, over seventyyears old, should be ready to march into Chile. Almagrohad a commission from Charles V to conquerand rule over 200 leagues of land south of FranciscoPizarro’s territory (New Castille); it was to be calledNueva Toledo. At about the same time, 1534, a grantwas given to the ill-fated Alcazaba of 300 leagues ofland, commencing at the southern boundary of Almagro’sterritory, under the name of Nueva Leon.

Almagro set out with over 500 Spaniards and 15,000Peruvian Indians, after spending 500,000 pesos onequipment. He marched south from Cuzco, crossed theAndes and went by Titicaca Lake, following the Incaroute; perhaps as a guide and a means of securing theloyal service of the Peruvians, who would never deserta member of their ruling clan, the Spanish leader tookwith him an Inca priest and the young Paullu TupacYupanqui, son of the Huayna Ccapac and brother ofthe Inca Manco. The latter had been crowned in25Cuzco in early 1534 by Pizarro, probably with thedouble object of quieting Peru and to obviate chargesmade by his personal enemies in Spain. Both CharlesV and the Pope emphasised their possession of tenderconsciences with regard to native American rulers.This young scion of the Incas survived the expeditioninto Chile, and was with Almagro’s son at the battle ofChupas.

Terrible sufferings were experienced by the expeditionin the bitterly cold Andes, where deep snow and cruelwinds killed the Peruvians by thousands. Many of theSpanish soldiers too were frozen to death, and foodsupplies failed. When at last they turned west anadvance party of horsemen went ahead to bring food,cheerfully yielded by the settled natives, to theirstarving and exhausted comrades. Arriving in the greenCopiapó valley, Almagro was well received at first, butpressing his search for gold to extremes, quarrels arose,the natives were “punished,” and Almagro moved on,after receiving reinforcements brought by Orgoñez. Astrong party was sent forward to report on southerlyconditions, and marched as far as the Rio Claro (tributaryof the Maule) where savage Indians confrontedthe outposts of the old Inca empire. When Almagroheard this report, and realised that neither treasuresof gold nor rich cities existed, he decided to return toCuzco, making his way back by the coastal road andtraversing the scorching, waterless deserts of Atacamaand Tarapacá. At his arrival in Arequipa at the endof 1536 he had lost 10,000 Indians and 156 Spaniards.The rest of Almagro’s story—the news of the Peruvianrevolt, his seizure of Cuzco, and his execution at theage of seventy-five by Hernando Pizarro, when fortunefinally deserted him—belongs to the history of Peru.The fact that a man had made the Chilean journey26with Almagro was considered, later on, as a claim uponroyal consideration. The petition of Diego de Pantoja,in 1561, makes this point, while that of Encinas, 1558, iseven more emphatic in speaking of the sufferings of thesoldiers; he went south, he says, with Captain Gomezde Alvarado, fighting Indians of the “Picones, Pomamaucaes,Maule and Itata” and traversing painfully“snow and water, swamps, creeks, crossing rivers byswimming or on rafts” and with no food but wild herbs.For the moment the efforts of the Europeans werewithout result; during another two years Chile remainedin the hands of her native rulers.

Spanish Colonial Period

There was no actual conquest of Chile by the Spaniards.Those native tribes which had submitted to theInca régime accepted the Europeans: they who haddefied the Inca continued to defy the Spanish.

There were angry outbursts on the part of certainnorthern and central tribes when the Spaniards returnedin force in 1540, but when these had been overcome andpeace made, the Indians remained consistently loyal.The “Changos” of the coastal border took up a permanentposition as friends just as the Mapuches(“Araucanians”) took up a permanent position asenemies. The Spanish settled Chile, organised a socialsystem, built cities and defences, cultivated the ground,brought in blood and culture, created a nation; butSouth Chile was never a conquered country in the samesense that Mexico and Peru were conquered countries.

The next attempt to plant the Spanish flag in Chilefollowing the abortive expedition of Almagro was wellplanned and successful. Captain Pedro de Valdivia,thirty-five years old, a campmaster of Hernando27Pizarro, and a man of formed and resolute character,wanted to increase his fortune, consisting of an estatenear Cuzco. He obtained without difficulty from FranciscoPizarro a commission to open up Chile, a land ofpoor repute since the return of Almagro; his appointmentwas that of Lieutenant Governor. His chiefdifficulty was in raising men, for as he says in a letterwritten in 1545 to Charles V, those who turned mostfrom the project were the soldiers who had accompaniedAlmagro on the first unfortunate journey, when 1,500,000pesos were spent “with, as the only fruit, the redoubleddefiance of the Indians.”

He set out at the beginning of 1540, however, withnearly 200 Spaniards and 1000 Peruvian Indians, andavoiding the Andes traversed the coastal deserts, arrivingin the valley of the Mapocho at the end of thesame year. On the eve of departure a blow to his hopesthreatened in the arrival of Sanchez de la Hoz, armedwith a royal commission for the settlement of Chile;but Valdivia, equal to the occasion, induced his rivalto provide a couple of ships, equip a force with fiftyhorses, supplies, arms, etc., and agreed to meet him ata small port just north of the Atacama desert. Theappointment was kept, but as soon as the new arrivalwent ashore Valdivia arrested him, made him sign arenunciation of his claims to leadership and henceforthobliged him to serve as a common soldier. EventuallySanchez de la Hoz joined a conspiracy against Valdivia,was discovered, and was beheaded in Santiago de Chile.

In February, 1541, Valdivia founded Santiago “deNueva Estremadura,” Valdivia naming his provinceafter Estremadura in Spain, where he was born in thetown of La Serena. The colony had a hard struggle forexistence, the Indians attacking the fortifications ofSanta Lucia hill, where the settlers built the first houses28of wood and thatched grass; in the letter mentionedabove Valdivia says that the third year of the colonywas not so difficult, but that during the first two yearsthey had passed through great necessities. They ateroots, having no meat, and the man who obtained fiftygrains of maize each day counted himself fortunate.He says also that they got a little gold, and gives Chilethe first praises, so often repeated subsequently, for itsenchanting climate. For people who want to settlepermanently, there is no better land in the world thanChile, he declares; there is good level land, veryhealthy and pleasing, and the winter lasts but fourmonths. In summer the climate is delicious, and menare able to walk without danger in the sunshine. Thefields give abundant returns, and cattle thrive.

Live stock, in fact, throve so well that within twenty-fiveyears of the settlement the Indians of the southpossessed flocks and herds, and, learning from theEuropeans, went mounted on horseback into battle.

Needing men and supplies, early in 1543 Valdiviasent six Spaniards by land to Peru. Captured by CopiapóIndians, the Captain Monroy and a soldier namedMiranda escaped by an act of treachery against afriendly Indian woman, and arrived safely in Cuzcoafter a terrible journey through the deserts. But, tocajole Peru into giving help, Valdivia had sent themwith stirrups and bits made of gold, a display so successfulthat by the end of the year sixty new settlersand a ship with stores reached Chile, followed by captainsVillagra and Escobar with 300 more men. Valdiviawas determined to overcome the south, and set outwith 200 men by land while a ship followed along thecoast. The Indians rose behind him, burnt his embryoshipbuilding yard at Concon (mouth of the AconcaguaRiver), trapped and killed his gold-miners at Quillota,29and besieged the little settlement of Santiago. It washere that Inez Suarez, who had followed Valdivia fromCuzco, rendered her name immortal by her activedefence of the fort; tradition says that she cut off withher own hands the heads of six Indian chieftain prisonersand threw them over the palisades to intimidate theattackers. Valdivia returned, from the Maule, where hehad received a check, and re-established his colony. Hehad founded La Serena as a check on the northern Indiansand a post on the road to Cuzco, in 1544, but sawthat stronger assistance was needed to colonise and holdChile, and returned to Peru for more help in 1547. Thecountry was in civil war, with Gonzalo Pizarro rangedagainst Gasca, President of the Audience of Peru.Valdivia adopted the royal appointee’s side, was aninvaluable aid with his experience of Indian wars, andhelped turn the scale, taking the old Pizarro supporter,Carbajal, prisoner. He got his reward when he receivedformal appointment as Governor of Chile, in 1548.With a large force of well-equipped men he started outanew, was stopped on the Atacama border with ordersto return to stand a trial on certain technical charges,was acquitted, set out again, and reached Santiago inApril, 1549. He found that the Serena settlement hadbeen destroyed, rebuilt it, and made an agreement ofpeace with the northern Indians that was never againbroken.

With the central and northern colonies secure, Valdiviaturned his face south again, prepared a strongexpedition and set out in January, 1550. He waschecked at the Bio-Bio River, fought for a year in thatregion, attempting a settlement at Talcahuano, andbuilt a constantly attacked fort at Concepción, wherethe present Penco stands on a beautiful curve of coast.In February, 1551, he went on, leaving fifty men in30Penco; founded Imperial, leaving forty men in a fort,and in early 1552 reached the banks of the CallacallaRiver and founded Valdivia City, 1552. His next stepwas to create a chain of forts—Arauco, on the sea;Villarica, on the edge of Lake Lauquen; Osorno, oppositeChiloé Island some eighty miles inland; Tucapel,Puren, and Angol, “la Ciudad de los Infantes de Chile,”between Tucapel and the sea.

The fierce Araucanian Indians determined to destroyevery settlement of the invader, and, themselves hardynomads, were well fitted for the work of continual attack.The leaders Caupolican and the young Lautaro—thelatter trained in Spanish ways and speech duringsome years of service as a groom of Valdivia’s—roseup, organised their people, adopting certain Spanishmilitary methods, and began a series of relentless andsystematic raids of destruction. Upon both sides,savage cruelties were practised, and from this timebegan to date the deliberate seizure of white womenand children by the Indians. The courage with whichmany Spanish wives accompanied their husbands didnot save them from the huts of the wild natives, and thechildren borne in course of time of Indian fathers byEuropean mothers were so numerous that certaintribes became noted for their fair skins, pink cheeks andblue eyes.

In 1553, in attempting to stem the tide of Araucanianattacks on the frail forts, of which Tucapel andArauco had already fallen, Pedro de Valdivia’s forceswere overwhelmed by Lautaro and the Governor wasmade prisoner and barbarously executed. He was thenfifty-six years of age. His policy in trying to establishsettlements in the heart of Araucanian territory wasnot justified by the necessities of his colonists, who hadmore land than they could use in the fine central region.31But he was impelled by false stories of gold to be foundin the south, by hope of extending the territory underhis jurisdiction for the Spanish crown, and no doubtalso held the belief, based upon former experiences,that definite submission of the South American nativescould be commanded by vigorous action. This ideahad been proved correct with regard to all settled districts,but it did not apply to the elusive Mapuches.Nevertheless it was persisted in for a long time, costinga river of Spanish blood and an immense treasure inSpanish gold.

Flushed with success after the death of Valdivia, theIndians attacked all the forts simultaneously; Concepciónwas twice ruined and restored, in 1554 and 1555,and again smashed when Francisco de Villagra, successorof Valdivia temporarily, was trapped on theseashore after crossing the Bio-Bio and badly defeated.He redeemed his lost prestige when he broke the armiesof Lautaro and killed this leader at Santiago soon afterwards,the Araucanians, emboldened, having rangedoutside their own territory to attack the invadingEuropeans.

In 1557 there came to Chile as Governor the youngGarcia Hurtado de Mendoza, son of the Marquis deCañete, Viceroy of Peru. He brought from Spain awell-equipped force of 600 Spaniards, and, arriving atConcepción from the sea, rebuilt the stronghold,mounted guns for the first time, restored all the southerlyforts, and in the course of fierce battles in 1558took prisoner and killed Caupolican.

When Garcia Hurtado left Chile in 1560 the Indianstook heart and renewed attacks, and the anxious ruleof Quiroga, with another interval of Villagra’s control,was concerned almost exclusively with Indian troubles.Quiroga, a determined man, was the first Spaniard to32take possession of Chiloé, founding the town of Castro;he carried war into Araucanian territory relentlessly,shipping every able-bodied Indian he could catch to themines of Peru. But his experience, and that of hissuccessors, was that the natives were never more thanmomentarily beaten, that they rose behind him whenhis troops passed from one region to another, and thatalmost any fort could be overwhelmed by the extraordinarynumbers that the savage chiefs brought intothe field. The tactics of the Araucanians upon thebattlefield, of attacking in great numbers, but keepingback enormous quantities of men who came forwardwhen the first army was rolled back by Spanish guns,were disheartening; every settlement remained in aconstant state of siege, perpetually harassed.

In 1567 Philip II of Spain authorized the establishmentof a Royal Audience in Concepción; it endureduntil 1574, but was then suppressed owing to the insecurityof the colony. A year later the struggling settlementswere further discouraged by a terrible earthquakeand tidal wave that devastated the coast fromSantiago to Valdivia, and in 1579 all western SpanishAmerica was thrown into a state of consternation by theamazing news that Drake had rounded the toe of SouthAmerica and had begun raiding the Pacific coast.

The enforcement of the “New Laws”—signed byCharles V in 1542, but suspended or ignored by thevarious Audiences as long as was possible—forbiddingSpaniards to make the Indians work against their will,infuriated the colonists of Chile, who saw no other wayof cultivating land or operating mines but by drivingthe natives to these tasks; a few Negroes were sent onfrom Panama or Buenos Aires, but transportation wasexpensive and farmers could not afford to import manyslaves. Chile never yielded a large quantity of gold;33it was pre-eminently an agricultural and stock-raisingcountry, and therefore a poor one compared with suchregions as Peru with its golden treasure or Charcas(Alto Peru) with its tremendous production of silverfrom the wonderful mines of Potosí. That in the faceof all hardships and difficulties the colonisation of CentralChile steadily extended is a standing tribute tothe courage of the settlers, as well as to the attractionsof an exhilarating climate.

In 1583 came Alonso de Sotomayor, Marques deVilla Hermosa, setting out with Sarmiento and a splendidSpanish fleet of twenty-three ships; the originalintention to pass through the Strait of Magellan wasabandoned, and Sotomayor with a strong army marchedoverland from Buenos Aires. He too wasted lives andtreasure in attempting to subdue the south, but inevitablythe Indians rose behind his forces, burning fortsand destroying the guard ships he placed upon the Bio-BioRiver. By the time that Martin Garcia Oñez deLoyola succeeded to the Governorship in 1592 the endlesswars with the Araucanians had become bitterlyunpopular; the Indians had gathered new audacityunder the toqui (leader in war) Paillamacu, and withhim Oñez tried to make a treaty. Hope was also placedin the pacifying influence of Jesuits, who enteredin 1593, but these first missionaries were killed, and anarmed force sent south in 1598 was wiped out, the GovernorOñez being amongst the slain. Paillamacu,jubilant, besieged all the forts at once, and Spanish rulewas further threatened by the appearance in the Pacificof Dutch corsairs. The Cordes expedition of 1600landed on Chiloé, sacked and held Castro. A Spanishforce under Ocampo took back the town, but Spanishprestige suffered by the Indians’ realisation of quarrelsamong white men. Ocampo also raised the siege of34Angol and Imperial, but carried away settlers andabandoned these places. Forts upon the sea border,although safer than inland points, were not impregnable,and the Araucanians had grown so bold that morethan once when Spanish vessels visiting the seaports ranaground the Indians swam out, killed the crew andlooted the ships in plain view of the settlers.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, withRamon as Governor, it was practically decided torestrict Spanish occupation of the territory south of theBio-Bio River to seaports, and to maintain a line offorts upon the frontier. For about 100 years 2000Spanish troops were maintained for defensive purposes,chiefly distributed throughout fourteen frontier strongholds,of which the chief were Arauco, Santa Juana,Puren, Los Angeles, Tucapel and Yumbel, and in Concepciónand Valdivia. Chilean revenues were insufficientfor these army expenses, and Lima contributed100,000 pesos, for Valparaiso, Concepción and the frontier,half in specie and half in clothes and stores; about8000 pesos of this sum was used in repairing forts andin giving presents or paying compensation to theIndians. Valdivia, with Osorno and Chiloé, receivedan additional 70,000 pesos from the royal treasury ofLima, and these points were governed and supplieddirect from the viceregal capital.

Determination upon none but defensive fighting wasdue largely to Jesuit influence in Spain, under PhilipII, III and IV; Father Luis de Valdivia in 1612brought a new band of missionaries, and the south wasleft to them and their prospective converts. TheAudience was restored, in Santiago, in 1609, and theGovernor of Chile, while subordinate to the LimaViceroyalty, was President of the Audience of Santiagoas well as Captain-General of the province, his jurisdiction35including the territory from the desert of Atacama,where Peru ended, to all the southern country hecould control (the Taitao peninsula was explored in1618) and also the province of Cuyo, extending acrossthe Andes and embracing the city of Mendoza on thepost-road to Buenos Aires.

Pirates harassed the authorities in 1616, when LeMaire found the small strait bearing his name; in 1623,when L’Hermite, with thirteen ships and 1600 men,troubled the coasts; and notably by the DutchmanBrouwer in 1644, when Valdivia was seized and threestrong forts built by the invaders. The death of Brouwer,three months after his arrival, disheartened thestrong force of Dutch under his control; the regionwas also discovered to be less promising of easy wealththan had been imagined and the place was given up.The Spanish returned in 1645, occupying and completingthe excellent fortifications of the Dutch.

A terrible battle with Indians near Chillan endingwith the defeat of a new Araucanian leader, Putapichion,with great slaughter, the then Governor ofChile, Francisco de Zuñiga, Marques de Baides, attemptedto make a definite peace, holding the celebratedfirst “Parliament of Quillin” in 1641; thesecond Parliament of Quillin was held in 1647, withreiterated understanding that the Araucanians were tobe recognised as owners of independent territory southof the Bio-Bio, but not to invade territory to the north.A third peace meeting was held in 1650 and thenceforthit became customary for each new Governor of Chile tocall a meeting at the Bio-Bio border, where he repairedin state, met thousands of Araucanians, feasted themfor several days and gave presents, with mutual complimentsand speech-making. None of these friendlyconclaves, however, prevented the Spaniards from raiding36in Araucanian territory on occasion, or gave pauseto Indian chiefs who saw an opportunity. In the middleof the century a disastrous rising of all the Indians,supposedly converted and friendly, took place betweenthe Maule and Bio-Bio Rivers; 400 farms were burnt,Concepción besieged, and enormous quantities of cattle,women and children taken to Araucania.

Nevertheless, outside the troubled zone Chile prospered;the Spanish colony grew from 1700 (with 8600Indians and 300 Negroes) in 1613 to 30,000 in 1670.Vineyards and olive groves were planted, the wine ofChile becoming so famous that it was shipped all theway to Panama, Mexico and Central America, to Paraguayand Argentina. The Governor Juan Henriquez,a native of Lima, was responsible for much of thisagricultural encouragement, and for construction of abridge over the Mapocho River and of a canal bringingspring water to Santiago. It was this same governorwho shipped hundreds of Araucanians as slaves to Peru,and sent to Lima for execution the young Englishmenof Narborough’s scientific expedition, treacherouslycaptured at Corral in December, 1670. By this timethe coast forts had been rebuilt, partly on account ofanxiety regarding the activities of adventuring shipsof rival nations, which, forbidden lawful trade, rangedthe Pacific as corsairs and smugglers. The famousCaptain Bartholomew Sharp, with one ship and 146men, terrorised the coast in 1680; he sacked Arica andburnt Coquimbo among his exploits. After the day ofthe pirate Davis, raiding about 1686, it was decided torender the fertile islands off the coast less useful asrendezvous; Mocha was depopulated and an attemptmade to kill all the goats that thrived on Juan Fernandez.

Many times during the seventeenth century theChilean colonies were almost ruined by earthquakes;37the live volcanos of the Andean backbone broke outfrom time to time, and in many cases the overthrowof dwellings by temblores and terremotos was accompaniedat the unfortunate coastal settlements by furiousonslaughts of tidal waves, when numbers of people weredrowned. Santiago was badly damaged by the earthquakeof 1642, but suffered worse in 1647; ten yearslater a terrible earthquake and tidal wave destroyedConcepción on its original site where Penco villagestands today, and the city was later moved to its presentsituation on the north of the green-wooded, silver Bio-Bio,with its banks of black volcanic sand.

In 1700 the Spanish were able to regard the dangerof active aggression on the part of the Dutch withoutalarm. Spain had preserved the integrity of her enormousAmerican colonies in the teeth of an array ofenergetic rivals, sea-adventuring people with vigorouspopulations lacking space for new settlements, sharingthe most jealously guarded regions of South Americawith but one country, Portugal. For sixty years,indeed, after the tragic death of Sebastião at El Kebirin 1578, Spain held Portugal and Portugal’s splendidcolonies abroad, including Brazil; until 1640 the Kingsof Spain were absolute masters of South America. Thelong-continued struggle with England and its constantthreat to the colonies was one reason why Spain reluctantlymade concessions from time to time in herdealings with Holland, a country openly displaying akeen desire to share in American profits. The formationof the Dutch West Indian Company, with comprehensiveplans for settlement as well as for trade,received strong government backing, and the forcibleoccupation of the Brazilian coast region of Pernambucobetween 1624 and 1654 caused great anxiety to Spain.Nevertheless, a commercial agreement for the supply38of indispensable Negro slaves, brought from the Portuguesecolonies of West Africa, endured until Holland’ssea power was definitely affected by reverses at thehands of the English.

A sign of change of influence which had a significantand lasting effect upon the South American Pacific Coastwas displayed when early in the eighteenth centuryLouis XIV of France induced Philip V of Spain to giveto French traders the right to supply slaves to theAmerican colonies in place of the Dutch. A certainamount of general commerce could not be denied tovessels bringing slaves, and presently limited agreementswere made by which two French companieswere allowed to do business with South America. Themonopolist companies of Seville and Cadiz, crying ruin,protested vainly, for viceroys and governors as well assettlers found the visits of the French ships convenientand profitable; the corsairs of England too were beingtransformed by economic circumstances into smugglerswhose operations were welcome in many quarters.France did not limit her interest in South America tocommerce: we find from about 1705 onwards an increasingnumber of French scientists and writers visitingthe West Coast—as Feuillée, the Jesuit Father andcareful botanist, who published the first account ofChilean plant life; and Frezier, the distinguished engineer,who left a descriptive volume of perennialinterest. It was this most observant writer who firstnoted the use of the Quechua word maté as applied tothe small gourd, often beautifully carved and silver-mounted,from which it was and is usual to drink aninfusion of the “herb of Paraguay,” in Chile and Peru.Sidelights of great value are also presented by theletters of French Jesuit priests who came to the WestCoast about this time, and many of whom, like the39devoted Father Nyel, thought that the supreme rewardfor a laborious life spent among wild natives was to bekilled—“meriting reception of the crown of martyrdomas the worthy recompense of apostolic work.”Father Nyel wrote, in 1705, when he was planning theestablishment of a mission among the Araucanians, thatin spite of having murdered the noble Father NicolasMascardi thirty years previously the Indians beggedfor Jesuits to enter their land again to instruct them.But in order to succeed with these people it was necessaryto have “a strong constitution, complete indifferenceto all the comforts of life, a persuasive gentleness,strength, courage, and determination in spite of insurmountabledifficulties encountered amidst a barbarouspeople.”

The most distinguished of the scientists who were,perhaps somewhat grudgingly, given leave to enter theSpanish colonies were the French Academicians, headedby La Condamine, who came to Ecuador in 1735 tomeasure an arc of the meridian upon the Equator, andwhose Spanish associates, sent by Madrid, made a detailed,frank and brilliant report of the condition ofPeru, Ecuador and Chile. The Noticias Secretas handedto the King upon their return are extremely illuminating,especially in the light of the events of eighty yearslater, when the irritation which they observed between“creoles” (native-born Americans of European blood)and Spaniards from the Peninsula came to a head. Thevoyage of Juan and Ulloa, the accounts of Frezier, Feuilléeand the Jesuits, were as eagerly read in Europe asthe biographies of the corsairs, for whatever officialreports were made by Spanish officials from SpanishAmerica never saw daylight, strangers were forbidden toenter, and in consequence South America had the magicof the unknown.

40By the middle of the eighteenth century Chile wasstill a small country, settled chiefly between Coquimboand Concepción, yielding a little gold and silver fromsurface veins, but with her greatest activity in connectionwith agriculture; she was spared the feverish excitementsand reactions of wealthier countries. Mostof her trade was conducted by land, over the Andes intoArgentina, with a brisk exchange of Chilean woollenponchos, honey, hams and lard for yerba maté fromParaguay and European goods imported at BuenosAires; to Peru was shipped wheat and wine and beefor pork fat (grasa), exchanged for cargoes of aji (redpepper) from Arica and silver from Potosí.

Commerce with the Araucanians, eager buyers ofhardware, metal implements and ornaments in exchangefor guanaco skins and cattle, went on in spite of the mistrustengendered by the events of 1723, when a generalrising of the Indians took place, the settled villagesof converts created by the Jesuit missionaries weredeserted, and a new war commenced. The Araucaniansthemselves sued for peace on this occasion, a newParliament was held with fresh agreements that thecountry below the Bio-Bio should be intact to theIndians, and the Governor agreed to withdraw theSpanish officials who had been posted in the villages ofChristian Indians.

Castro, on Chiloé Island, traded its famous baconand lard and planks of hardwoods (chiefly alerce) formanufactured goods, and maintained a sturdy if isolatedexistence; Osorno was little but a fort; Valdivia,with its port of Corral, was carefully guarded, since itwas considered as the key to the South Sea, and fiveor six forts covered the bay and the waterway to thecity. In 1720 there were a couple of thousand peoplehere, chiefly convicts of Peru and Chile sent south during41their period of punishment, and the garrisons weremaintained by Spanish and Peruvian Indian soldiers.Concepción was not only a Spanish stronghold, but agenuine agricultural colony, its splendid soil and enchantingclimate, bright, balmy and temperate, bringingthe settler who forms the backbone of Chileansociety. Valparaiso was nothing but a shabby port,lacking a customhouse, all goods being shipped bymule-back to Santiago, ninety miles inland, or rather,120 miles by the Zapata pass and Pudahuel, the onlyroad then existing. It was fairly well defended byupper and lower forts overlooking the curve on thebay’s south where the houses of Valparaiso lay alonga narrow strip of beach. Santiago was a well-built city,the centre of a fortunate agricultural and pastoralregion; northwards lay but one settlement of note,La Serena (Coquimbo), with Copiapó, a prosperoussilver mining centre, farther north.

The changes affecting Spanish America were notlimited to the entry of the French. Philip V, to induceQueen Anne of England to sign the Peace of Utrecht,agreed to give the right of supplying slaves (asiento) tothe South Sea Company, for thirty years, from 1713 to1743; by this agreement 4800 Negroes were to be annuallytaken to the Plate, and as a further and extraordinaryconcession the company was allowed tosend one ship each year to the Porto Bello fair (belowPanama, on the Atlantic coast). At the same time aperemptory stop was put to the overseas commerce ofthe French, who had been allowed by Louis XIV duringthe War of the Spanish Succession to trade from St.Malo to the American colonies of Spain, herself toomuch involved to aid them with supplies.

The war of 1739 between England and Spain put an42end to the English traffic for nine years, but the termsof peace included an indemnity to be paid to the SouthSea Company for their trading rights, a British merchantin Buenos Aires carrying on for a few years (until1752) the transportation of African slaves; after thistime a group of Spanish merchants took up this traffic.It was in 1748 that Spain, finding her commerce withthe colonies greatly reduced by home troubles, and themore or less legitimate efforts of other nations, from the15,000 or even 25,000 tons of shipping formerly senteach year under convoy across the Atlantic, stopped theyearly visits of the famous galleons and the protectingwarships. This fleet had sailed annually for 200 years.A system of unguarded merchant boats was licensed,ships sailing for the Plate six times a year.

In 1774 the rules forbidding the Spanish Americancolonies to trade with each other were relaxed byCharles III, and the effect of this is illustrated by thefigures of Spanish merchant shipping sailing for theAmericas in 1778, the year of the erection of a Viceroyaltyin Buenos Aires, the fourth of Spanish America;no less than 170 vessels sailed, as against twelve tofifteen in the days of the yearly fleet of jealously licensedvessels.

In 1785 there was further relaxation, all the ports ofSpain and all the ports of Spanish America being allowedto trade mutually, and as other proof of liberalideas there came, in 1788, the appointment of AmbroseO’Higgins as Governor of Chile. This excellent organiserwas born in Ireland, in County Sligo, and spentpart of his barefoot youth in running errands for thegreat folk of his native village; he went as a youth toSpain, enlisting in the Spanish army, as many adventurousIrish did about this time, and later made his wayto the Spanish American colonies. He distinguishedhimself in the Araucanian wars, was made a colonel,and in 1788 was nominated to the Chilean captain-generalshipby Teodoro de Croix, the Viceroy of Peru,a native of Lille. The name of Ambrose O’Higgins isas much respected in Chile today as that of his son,Bernardo, born in Chillan, who became Supreme Directorduring the early days of Chilean independence.

43Governor O’Higgins called the Parliament of Negretewith the Araucanians, and set about the improvementof Chile; found and rebuilt the ruins of Osorno fort,and made a road from Osorno to Valdivia; anotherhighway from Valparaiso to Santiago; and a third fromSantiago to Mendoza. He constructed bridges, notablyover the turbulent Mapocho River, and his goodChilean work only ceased when he was created Viceroyof Peru, with the title of Marquis of Osorno. Heremained in that post until his death in 1801. A spurtin town foundation during the eighteenth century alsobears witness to the growing prosperity of Chile. Between1736 and 1746 the courtly and wideawake governorDon José Manso de Velasco, Conde de Superunda,founded San Felipe, Melipilla, Rancagua and Cauquenes;the same official encouraged the operation ofmines, making cannon for the defence of one of the Concepciónforts from local copper, and reopening goldmines at Tiltil (between Santiago and Valparaiso) anddeveloping the copper works of Coquimbo and ofCopiapó. His successor, Don Domingo Ortiz, foundedHuasco and Curicó, built the University of Santiago andbegan the Mint, completed during the régime of DonLuis Muñoz between 1802 and 1807. The plans, traditionsays, were mixed with those for Lima, and by mistakeChile received authority for a much more splendidbuilding than was intended for her, La Moneda stillserving as Government offices in Santiago.

44At the beginning of the nineteenth century Europehad undergone violent spiritual as well as materialchanges that could not fail to affect the world andinevitably produced reactions in the Americas. Theindependence of the United States had less effect uponSouth American thought than the French Revolution,for with North America the South was not in touch.There was little commerce, and the language difficultywas a bar, while French literature and French movementswere extremely influential. The ideas of theEncyclopedists fell upon fertile soil.

When Napoleon conquered Spain, putting his brotherJoseph Buonaparte upon the royal throne of the Bourbonsand driving Ferdinand VII into exile, there waslittle thought upon the West Coast of this misfortuneas an opportune time for seizing freedom. Even whenthe action of Mexico and Buenos Aires pointed theroad of independence, Peru and Chile demurred fromdisloyalty and declared their intention of returning tothe king when he should be again upon the Spanishthrone. The grievances against Spain of which somuch was afterwards heard were not realised by themajority of the populace, and in fact the creoles werewell aware that from narrow trading policies, the dictationof officials, sumptuary laws, and the still-existentalthough waning burden of the Inquisition, Spain sufferedeven more acutely than her overseas dominions.The rights of mayorazgo, that is the preservation, intactfor generation after generation, of enormous estateswhich could not be broken up among a number of heirs,or divided for sale, were a source of definite complaint;but it was an inheritance from the land tenure laws ofSpain, also inelastic, to which they were inured by custom.The most fertile ground for the growth of animositybetween the colonies and the mother country45seems to have been the tangible annoyance of the streamfrom the Peninsula, both of officials and merchants oradventurers. Don Antonio Ulloa, writing the “NoticiasSecretas” for the King’s eye in 1735, noted that the bigtowns were “theatres of discord between Spanish andcreoles.... It is enough for a man to be a Europeanor chapeton to be at once opposed to the creoles, andsufficient to have been born in the Indies to hateEuropeans. This ill-will is raised to so high a grade thatin some respects it exceeds the open hatred with whichtwo nations at war abuse and insult each other.” Hethought the feeling tended to increase rather than todiminish, and notes that it was more bitter in the interiorand mountainous regions, because the coastpeople were bent to a more liberal spirit by their dependenceupon commerce with strangers, had more work todo and something else to think about. He gave asreasons for the mutual dislike, first, the “vanity andpresumption” of the creoles; and next, the wretchedcondition in which many poor Europeans usually arrivedin the Indies. The native-born were lazy, thoughtthe Spanish officer, and envied the industrious andintelligent Spaniard the fortune which he presentlymade. The succession of Peninsular officials to manyposts in the colonies was not without its influence inproviding grievances also, but as a matter of fact anumber of minor berths were frequently filled by thenative-born, who also became Inquisitors and clerics,the list of viceroys and governors also providing afew colonial names, and a large number of American-bornreceiving good positions in Spain. But on thewhole the colonies were necessarily still dependent uponSpain for blood, ideas, intercourse with the world, and,but for Napoleon, independence would have been longdelayed.

In many parts of Spanish America people had to bealmost cudgelled into rebellion, and would never havestirred had they lacked a leader inoculated with agrandiose vision.

But here again the quite accidental figure of Napoleonintervened. It happened that both San Martín andBolívar, the two most powerful instruments of the SouthAmerican Revolution, were actual witnesses of triumphalceremonies of the Napoleonic armies. The daywhen Simón Bolívar saw the Corsican enter Paris at thehead of magnificent conquering troops, greeted with allthe hysteric adulation due to a second Alexander, theimmediate fate of Spain’s South American colonies wassealed. It is easy to understand that such young menas San Martín and Bolívar, intelligent, trained to arms,well aware of the golden opportunity awaiting in theirown countries overseas, and of the force behind theslogan of freedom, beheld themselves with rosy imaginationin the same kingly rôle. Statues of these leadersstand all over Latin America, and it is but just thattributes should be paid. But the day of blind homageis past. Critics have dared to arise, and the skies havenot fallen upon their blasphemy.

The formation of the “Gran Reunion Americana,”with definite aims towards self-government of theSpanish American colonies, was one result. Inauguratedin Buenos Aires, it spread “lodges” all overSouth America, following freemasonry in its terminology.One of the most influential of these branches was“Lautaro Lodge,” at Concepción, with Bernardo O’Higginsas a member. The illegitimate son of the brilliantAmbrose O’Higgins by a native woman, Bernardo,born in Chillan in 1778, was sent to England for education47and returned to Chile upon the death of his father.Imbued with liberal ideas, candid and open-hearted,the young O’Higgins stood inevitably upon the side ofemancipation, and served as one of the revolutionaries’most valuable assets. The stars worked together forthe success of the extremists, for a motive far removedfrom any idea of revolutionary merits brought themthe powerful aid of the Roman Catholic Church.Napoleon the “antichrist” was anathema: the colonistswere therefore encouraged to refuse obedience tohis puppet kings, and we find the clerics of the Americashand in glove with the members of the Reunion Americana.

The colonists were by no means inclined in everyregion throughout South America to commit themselvesunreservedly to the apostles of liberty; here andthere the feeling of revolt was genuinely national, aspontaneous movement from the inside; in otherregions the native-born only after some years, and whenseparation was practically forced upon them from theexterior, disavowed Spain. Confusion was introduced,that made it difficult for the most loyal to discoverwhere allegiance lay, by the several claimants overseas.To Joseph Buonaparte no one wished to submit, and theFrench emissaries were coldly received; Seville settingup a Junta (Council) loyal to the deposed Ferdinand,asked and received the adhesion of the Viceroys in theAmericas, but when this body was overthrown a newJunta established in Galicia sent out a new set of Viceroys.Next came the Central Junta, also obeyed untilthe French occupation of Andalusia dissolved it, andlater a new authority of Spanish royalists, a Regency ofthree members, was announced in an edict sent out bythe Archbishop of Laodicea.

Confronted with these various claims, and taking48breath after the English occupation of the Plate,Buenos Aires decided to form her own provincial Junta,in the name of Ferdinand, action supported if not suggestedby the Viceroy Baltazar Cisneros.

In the middle of 1810, with Abascal, Marques de laConcordia, as Viceroy of Peru and General CarrascoGovernor of Chile, there arrived to the West Coast therequest of exiled Ferdinand that his American coloniesshould obey Napoleon. This bombshell was receivedwith disgust by Carrasco, who wished to work with theJunta of Buenos Aires, but he did his official duty andread the document aloud to the populace of Santiago.This was in June. A tremendous public uproar followed,Carrasco and the rest of the Audience wereturned out, and by popular acclaim an Assembly ofNotables was formed, headed by Mateo de Toro Zambranoy Urueta, Conde de la Conquista, a highly respectedold aristocrat who had been Governor of Chilein 1772. This body ruled on the understanding thatChile would refuse French control and would remainwholeheartedly Ferdinand’s.

The Conde de la Conquista died in November, 1810,was replaced by Dr. Juan Martinez de Rosas, and electionsfor a popular congress were held in April, 1811,giving the signal for open strife between the differentparties evolved by the confused political atmosphere.The first blood shed in Chile on account of independencewas not a struggle with the mother country, but theresult of dissensions among adherents of the Spanish orArgentine Juntas, “old Spaniards,” groups desiringcomplete independence, the church party, and foreigninterests. It was during this fight that the young JoséMiguel Carrera came first into military prominence;he was the son of a Chilean landowner, Ignacio Carrera,secretary of the Junta.

49Congress held its first meeting in Santiago, in July,1811, the deputy from Chillan being Bernardo O’Higgins,educated in England and endowed with the prestigeof his father’s name. It was not long before O’Higgins,then but thirty-five years old, was regarded as theleader of the “Penquistos” (southerners of Penco orConcepción, who wanted to see that pleasant city restoredto her ancient pride as capital of Chile), in oppositionto the rich central group, with Santiago as theirstronghold and the Carreras as one of the most ambitiousfamilies. In common with many another newclique, the Carreras were growing rich upon theproperty which was now eagerly confiscated from the“old Spaniards” and from the wealthy religious orders,whose accumulated lands and long ascendancy hadengendered such bitter enmity that, during the longwar of Spain with England, Juan and Ulloa reported,many people said openly that it would be a good thingif England took possession of the Pacific Coast, so thatthey would be free from the oppression of the clerics.The Carreras, however, wanted more than money:their determination to seize political power was demonstratedwhen, in December, 1811, a military coup putthe three sons of Ignacio into complete control of all thenewly recruited Chilean land forces, with José Miguelas the commander-in-chief.

This young man dispersed the national congress byforce, proclaimed himself President of a new Junta, andbanished Dr. Martinez to Mendoza: all this still in thename of Ferdinand. But the confiscation of property,removal of Spanish officers from the army, declarationof free trade (a tacit invitation promptly accepted bymany foreigners), abolition of slavery and collection ofchurch income, spelt practical independence fromSpain, and strong exception was taken in more than50one quarter. Valdivia and Concepción set up juntasindependent of Santiago, and over a year of disruptionfollowed, until the viceroy of Peru sent reinforcementsto the Spanish commander in Chiloé Island, GeneralAntonio Pareja, and the latter sailed north, landingat the mouth of the Maule with 2000 royalist troopsfor the disciplining of Chile.

José Miguel Carrera marched a Chilean army southwards,falling in with the Spaniards at Yerbas Buenas,fifteen miles from Talca; the ability of O’Higgins, commandingthe forces in the field, brought about thedefeat of Pareja, who was driven to Chillan—the extremesouth remaining pro-Spanish and, in one spot oranother, subject to Spanish influence until late in theyear 1824.

A strange accident now turned the political tideagainst the Carreras. The central provinces, determinedto endure no longer a rule of loot and tyrannyworse than that imposed by Spain, deposed José Miguelin his absence by a vote of the Junta, and gave completecontrol of the army to Bernardo O’Higgins; theCarreras hurried north to watch their interests, werecaught by a Spanish patrol and sent to Chillan. TheSpaniards were presently reinforced by troops underGainza, took Talca, and became strong enough by May,1814, to arrange the Convenio de Lircay with the newpolitical leader of Chile, Henriquez Lastra, Governorof Valparaiso. By this agreement the Spanish troopswere to retire to Lima, on the assurance that Chile remainedfaithful to Ferdinand VII; its execution wasguaranteed by Captain Hillier of the British man-of-warPhoebe.

But before the Convenio could be ratified, two eventshappened to prevent this solution of complications.The Carreras escaped and collected an army opposed to51the agreement; the Viceroy Abascal received strong reinforcementsfrom Spain, changed his mind aboutsigning, and sent, instead of his signature, 5000 troopsunder General Mariano Osorio.

The parties of Carrera and O’Higgins composed theirdifferences in the face of this aggression, marched to theencounter at Rancagua, and were there signally defeated,in October, 1814. The overthrow was so completethat the Chileans who had opposed Spain feltcertain that no mercy was to be expected, and, withtheir wives and families, began an extraordinary exodusfrom the country over the Andes to Mendoza. Theweather was cold, with deep snow and bitter winds;without proper baggage or sufficient food thousands ofunhappy refugees crowded the mountain paths andpasses for days.

Meanwhile, General Osorio marched north andentered the capital in triumph, welcomed enthusiasticallynot only by those citizens who remained royalistbut by thousands who were tired of the partisan intriguesand condition of civil war to which the Carreras hadreduced the country for over two years. A new SpanishGovernor, Francisco Casimiro Marco del Pont, wasinaugurated, about one hundred citizens prominent inthe growing independence of Chile were deported toJuan Fernandez island, and for another twenty-eightmonths Spain resumed the rule of Chile, as she still retainedcontrol of Lower and Upper Peru and Ecuador.A fierce struggle between the Spanish and the northernpatriots under Simón Bolívar had begun in 1811 andcontinued with tremendous reversals of fortune; Venezuelaand Colombia (New Granada) were drenched inblood. Over the Andes, Buenos Aires had been actuallyindependent since the middle of 1810, although theSpanish authorities held out with peninsular troops in52part of the northwest of Argentina, holding the roadsinto N. W. South America. Pueyrredon, the SupremeDirector of Buenos Aires, seeing that Chile with comparativelyfacile mountain passes was the key to theWest, decided to bring her to the fold of independence,raised an army, and put José de San Martín at its head.While the eldest of the Carrera brothers, with whom SanMartín was upon hostile terms, went to the UnitedStates to try to get help in the Chilean struggle, astrong force of 4000 men was collected in Mendoza, thecelebrated “Army of the Andes.” By this time eventshad put Spain and the South American colonies intothe position of furious opponents; the PeruvianViceroy’s actions forced Chileans to see patriotism ashostility to Spain. For the plain citizen, lover of hiscountry with a desire to live in peace and to give andtake fairly, it must have been difficult to choose sidesas regards the authorities to whom he gave recognitionand paid taxes; but for such revolutionaries as SanMartín the vision was simpler. He hung his own portraiton the wall beside that of the Corsican; thememory of that superhuman conqueror infected hisblood and filled his landscape.

The Spaniards in Chile, aware of the situation of theArmy of the Andes, were tricked into believing that themain body intended to descend into the central valleyby the southerly Planchon Pass. But early in Februarywhen the army was ready to set out, most of the troopswere marched by the Putaendo and the Cumbre,emerging near the plain of Chacabuco on the 12th. TheSpanish troops sent hurriedly to the encounter werescattered like chaff by the hardy South Americans,inured to wild country and able to march for days withsun-dried meat and a handful of toasted maize as theironly food. The battle of Chacabuco was a rout so decisivethat the Spanish leaders did not even attempt toenter and hold Santiago: they fled hastily to Valparaiso,and, accompanied by scores of their panic-strickensympathisers, filled nine ships and sailed awayto Peru.

53Bernardo O’Higgins, to whose energy this success waschiefly due, was made Supreme Director of Chile,openly independent now, with no more talk of Ferdinand,although the actual proclamation was delayeduntil February 12, 1818, upon the anniversary ofChacabuco. In the same year Osorio came back, with5000 Spanish troops, and in March San Martín wassurprised and his army badly defeated at CanchaRayada; it was followed by a repetition of the exodusover the Andes as after the Rancagua defeat, but inbetter weather. Nor did the exile of the patriots lastso long, for on April 5, before the Spaniards could takepossession of Santiago, the Chileans attacked again andwon the final victory of Maipu. Only about 200Spaniards escaped to take ship for Peru, all therest falling upon the Maipu plain or being takenprisoner.

Three days later, in Mendoza, the two younger sonsof Ignacio Carrera were shot upon a frivolous charge,an event generally regarded with regret in Chile andalways ascribed to the revengeful spirit of San Martín.These young men had been refused permission to jointhe Army of the Andes, were on parole in Buenos Airesand were still in that city when José Miguel returnedfrom the United States. Here he had obtained meansto fit out an expedition, promising to pay the debt withfunds obtained from Chilean import duties later on; hechartered five ships, took on arms and ammunitionsufficient for several thousand men, and received asvolunteers a number of technical workmen, and over54a hundred military officers, including seventy Frenchand British.

But when Carrera in his first ship entered BuenosAires on the way to the Horn, the vessel was seized andhe was placed under arrest on board a brig, from whichhe escaped into the Argentine interior. The remainingvessels of his fleet put back to North America. Histwo brothers also fled in disguise, but were captured,sent in chains to Mendoza, and there executed by theorder of San Martín’s secretary.

The place of the Carreras in history is not great, butthey were Chileans of energy and courage deserving abetter fate: the story of their youth and good looks, andthe tale of Juan José’s beautiful wife who shared hismiserable prison until his execution, are still remembered.The fate of the elder brother was no more fortunate:during three years he allied himself with variousguerilla revolutionaries in the heart of South America,but was eventually caught and identified, sent to Mendoza,and shot, in 1821.

Chile, now upon her own feet, was still not given upby the Viceroy of Peru, now General Pezuela, and sincea land attack could not be again contemplated for atime, the Frigate Esmeralda was sent with the brigPezuela to blockade Valparaiso. These vessels weredriven off by the brilliant action of the Lautaro, a vesselrecently bought and armed by the Chilean governmentand commanded by a young British naval officer,Lieutenant O’Brien, killed at the moment of boardingthe Spanish ship. This was Chile’s first naval victory,herald of almost unbroken success upon the sea; shewas heartened to the immediate strengthening of thisservice, and set about the acquisition of vessels whilealso sending abroad for naval leaders. Chileans had up55to that time, of course, no experience in this arm of anation’s defence: the first Chilean-born admiral,Blanco Encalada, had had no experience but that of amidshipman in the Spanish navy for a few years in hisyouth. Chile was wise in looking overseas for technicalskill. It happened that many British soldiers and sailors,fresh from the Napoleonic wars, were in Englandwhen the Chilean envoys came to seek help: hundredsof men took service, partly no doubt for the sake ofadventure but also from a genuine sympathy withthe gallant fight put up by a little country rangedagainst the ancient enemy Spain. Among the navalofficers who came was Lord Cochrane, with a mostdistinguished naval career to his credit, the hero of ascore of daring deeds at sea and an extremely competentorganiser; no personality of Independence is morerevered in Chile today than that of Cochrane, and hewho said that republics are notoriously ungrateful couldnever make such a charge against Chile.

But before Cochrane arrived a new success hadcheered the embryo navy. Serious danger threatenedwith news of the coming of a formidable Spanish navalforce: a courier brought the story hotfoot from BuenosAires, where the squadron had put in. Nine ships convoyedby the Maria Isabella of 50 guns set sail fromSpain with two thousand troops, but one ship mutiniedoff the Argentine coast and joined the new Republic;another transport disappeared in the Pacific; seven,with the fine frigate, arrived in Talcahuano Bay inOctober, 1818, in a wretched state, over 500 men havingdied on the way. Chile’s new little navy by this timeconsisted of five vessels: the San Martin, carrying 1000men, was formerly the British East Indiaman Cumberland,which entered Valparaiso in August, laden withcoal, commanded by a Briton named Wilkinson, and56went out as a vessel of war of Chile, under the samecommand. The Lautaro was now commanded by CaptainWorcester, an American merchant skipper; theChacabuco, by Captain Francisco Diaz, an “old Spaniard”who sided with the cause of Independence; the Pueyrredon,Captain Vasquez; and the Araucana, commandedby another Briton, Captain Morris. This force set sailsouthwards on October 9, and ten days later foundthe enemy ensconced under the forts of Talcahuano,a town which with Valdivia and Chiloé remained in thehands of the Spanish. In the spirited action whichfollowed the Maria Isabella was run aground, but wasseized and got off safely by the Chileans, while theseven Spanish transports were all taken, in the bay orlater at sea.

Returning in triumph in November, the fleet wasalmost at once taken in hand by Cochrane, just arrivedfrom England, and plans made for attacking Callao,where a Spanish squadron had its base. Neither theChilean nor the Argentine patriots had any quarrelwith Peru, but here was the stronghold of Spain on theWest Coast; the Pacific could only be rendered safe forenfranchised Chile by its reduction.

In January, 1819, Cochrane sailed north in commandof the fleet, consisting then of his flagship, the O’Higgins(formerly the Spanish Maria Isabella), the Lautaro,San Martin and Chacabuco. He took a provision shipand a gunboat of Spain, blockaded Callao successfullyfrom early February till the beginning of May, althoughCallao was defended by fourteen ships of warand powerful batteries; he found time also to takeseveral small ports up and down the Peruvian coast, aswell as prizes carrying loads of cocoa, useful stores, and200,000 pesos in money. Most of the coast towns werequite ready to embrace independence, but were alternately57punished by royalists and patriots for compliancewith demands for supplies.

When Admiral Blanco and Cochrane returned toChile another vessel had just been added to the littlenavy, the Independencia, purchased in the UnitedStates. Two vessels had in fact been bought, but whenthey arrived in Buenos Aires the agents of Chile hadnot sufficient specie to complete the payments for both,and had to see the second sail away to Rio, where shewas sold to the Brazilian government, although Chilehad paid half her price. The relations between theUnited States and Chile were peculiar at this juncture;the bulk of the population were certainly not unsympathetic,and a number of American individuals weredoing a brisk commerce with the young country, but acertain small jealousy seems to have been showntowards Cochrane, and comparatively little help wasgiven to the patriotic cause. But the United StatesGovernment quickly recognised the new Chileangovernment and had appointed a consul during thedays of Carrera’s régime.

Before Cochrane refitted his ships for new expeditions,the patriot armies had gained ground in thesouth, and the outlook had considerably improved. InSeptember, 1819, the Chilean navy returned to Callaowith seven ships, chased the Spanish frigate Pruebainto the Guayas River, sailed up 40 miles to Guayaquiland seized two armed prizes, the Aguila and theBigoña. At Puna island, where Spain built most of thevessels used in the Pacific between West Coast ports,Cochrane loaded his prizes with the famous hardwoodsof the Guayaquil region, sailed out and took the Potrillo,a provision ship, and sent her to Valparaiso with newswhile he turned towards Talcahuano with the objectof aiding in the obstinate southern struggle.

58General Freire, in command of the Chilean army,lent him 250 men, and Cochrane proceeded in a smallschooner to reconnoitre the entrance to Valdivia. Herehe landed, at sunset on February 2, 1820, led hisforce of about 350 to the fort “del Inglez,” attackedand took it, went on and stormed Corral fortress, andbefore the night was over the Chileans had takenpossession of the four other main batteries of the southside. With the dawn came the O’Higgins, and realizingthe uselessness of further fighting, the Spanish troopsabandoned the northern forts and fled up river to Valdivia.The defenders numbered 2000, and the fortswere provided with plenty of excellent guns: successwas due to the daring of this stroke of Cochrane, aresourceful sea-fighter who well knew the value of asurprise.

“At first it was my intention to have destroyed thefortifications and to have taken the artillery and storeson board,” wrote the Admiral to Zenteno, the ChileanMinister of War and Marine a few days later, “but Icould not resolve to leave without defence the safestand most beautiful harbour I have seen in the Pacific,and whose fortifications must doubtless have cost morethan a million dollars.” He left a small force, andsailed farther south to try to take the last Spanishstronghold in Chiloé, where the gallant Colonel Quintanillamaintained a plucky and hopeless stand—andwas destined to maintain it for nearly five more years.Cochrane landed in the bay of San Carlos on February17, took the outer forts, but lost the way in woods andboggy roads during a black night, and thus gave theSpaniards time to assemble a force too strong for theChilean attackers. They withdrew, and a body of 100men was sent to take Osorno; this town was taken withoutresistance on February 26, and thenceforth Spanish59military work on the mainland was limited to guerilladisturbances in the forestal interior. Many Spaniardstook refuge among the Indians, and the tragi-comedywas enacted, for several years, of both the new Chileanparties and the Spaniards flattering and bullying theAraucanians into taking sides. To political divergencesthe native must have been profoundly indifferent;despite the fact that his frontier still stood at the Bio-BioRiver and his southerly lands were intact, his spirit hadbeen warped by the steady pressure of three centuries,and perhaps most seriously changed by the civilisedhabits he had learnt from the white man. He had takento cultivation, to the use of European foods and a fewimplements; as a result, he had needs hindering hisancient freedom and he could be cajoled by their satisfaction.“I have distributed to each cacique on takingleave,” wrote Beauchef to Cochrane after the taking ofOsorno, “a little indigo, tobacco, ribbon and othertrifles.” And also with ribbon, tobacco and “trifles”the Spanish survivors, or the recalcitrant Benavides(wavering first on one side and then the other andfinally to outlawry in the woods), and the patriots ofChile, bought the Indian, giving him short shrift whenterritory or villages changed hands. Eventually, in1822, a Chilean punitive force was sent to the south, theIndian country inland from Valdivia was reduced, andthe Spaniards troubling that region gave up. Thediary of Dr. Thomas Leighton, an English surgeonacting as medical officer of the expedition, as quoted byMiers, is extremely illuminating.

With Valdivia in their hands, the Chileans were ableto contemplate a bold stroke. It was decided to clearSpain once and for all from the Pacific by bringing Peruinto the camp of independence: the return of Cochranefrom the south was the signal for completion of plans60for a combined naval and military attack upon the lastgreat stronghold of Spain. The “Ejercito Libertador”(liberating army) was prepared with immense enthusiasm,embarking from Valparaiso in August, 1820,preceded by proclamations from O’Higgins, whodeclared the wish of Chile to contribute to the freedomand happiness of the Peruvians, who would “frameyour own government and be your own legislators.”“No influence,” he stated, “civil or military, direct orindirect, shall be exercised by these your brothers overyour social institutions. You shall send away the armedforce that comes to protect you whenever you wish;and no pretext of your danger or your security shallserve to maintain it against your consent. No militarydivision shall occupy a free town except at the invitationof the legal authorities; and the Peninsular groupsand ideas prevailing before the time of Independenceshall not be punished by us or with our consent.”O’Higgins was undoubtedly sincere; Cochrane was freefrom any trace of selfish or ulterior motives; but SanMartín’s objects were less simple. His position waspeculiar; sent originally into Chile at the instance ofPueyrredon, he had practically disavowed his party inthe Argentine, where no political laurels seemed likelyto offer, and taken service with Chile. But here he hadto share popular affection with the beloved O’Higginsand the applauded Cochrane; in Peru he might havethe field to himself, and to this end he forthwith worked.

The Chilean fleet spent 50 days in Pisco, while theChilean Colonel Arenales marched upon and took anumber of other small Peruvian towns on or tributary tothe coast, with Ica, Nasca and Arica among them; fromthe latter port he marched inland and seized Tacna.Meanwhile San Martín was negotiating with the PeruvianViceroy, Pezuela, but the “truce of Miraflores”61split upon two rocks—the Viceroy refused demandsthat he should acknowledge the independence of theSouth American colonies: San Martín could not signacknowledgment of even nominal submission to theSpanish Crown. The Liberating Army eventually setsail again on September 28, and passed on to Callao,where on November 5 Cochrane, with 240 volunteers,performed the exploit, never forgotten in the annals ofthe Pacific, of cutting out the Spanish frigate Esmeralda.This fine ship had 40 guns and 350 men, layinside a strong boom and a line of old vessels, was surroundedby 27 gunboats and protected by 300 guns ofthe forts on shore. But Cochrane boarded and took her,and with a couple of other Spanish gunboats sent heroutside to an anchorage beyond the reach of the Peruviancannon. Renamed the Valdivia, she afterwardsserved as a unit of the Chilean fleet.

San Martín, now at Ancon with his forces, delayedthe projected attack upon Lima, sent out sheaves ofgrandiloquent proclamations, and watched with anxietyaffairs farther north, where the now triumphant Bolívarwas occupying Quito and might push forward toGuayaquil—a rich province also coveted by SanMartín and to which he now sent envoys with suggestionsthat Bolívar should be kept out. For the nextseven months San Martín’s forces remained idle, althougha part of the force under the British ColonelMiller and the able General Arenales continued torange the coast; Cochrane maintained a close blockadeof Callao, and at last, unable to get supplies andalarmed by the insecurity of their position in Lima, theSpanish authorities evacuated the city and went toCuzco. This was on July 6, 1821, and for about aweek order was kept in Lima by Captain Basil Hall ofH. M. S. Conway with a handful of marines. San Martín62then sailed to Callao and took possession of Lima,where Independence was proclaimed on July 28.

On August 4, San Martín declared himself Protectorof Peru, proclaiming his absolute authority andnaming three associates as the cabinet ministers.Requested by Cochrane to pay the wages and bountypromised to the fleet on the fall of Lima, San Martínanswered that he could not, as Protector of Peru, payChile’s debts, said that he could only find the money ifthe squadron were sold to Peru for his use, and presentlyhad the effrontery to invite Cochrane to leave the serviceof Chile and become Admiral of Peru.

Cochrane’s indignant replies are historical; he sailedaway after repeated attempts to obtain the sailors’wages, and, learning that San Martín had shipped aconsiderable treasure to Ancon (upon the advance onCallao of the still undefeated Spaniards), went there andtook possession of the gold and silver. One can imaginethe grim smile of the experienced old sailor as he madethis haul.

San Martín assented with reluctance eventually to itsuse as part payment of the sums due, but there was nopossibility of further friendly intercourse. Cochranesailed north, on October 6, with the Chilean fleet in awretched state, ill equipped and almost unseaworthy.He went up the Guayas to Guayaquil, received withrejoicing by the now emancipated town, refitted, andput to sea again in the first week of December. FonsecaBay was visited on December 28, Tehuantepec onJanuary 6, Acapulco three weeks later, in the huntfor two Spanish ships, the Prueba and the Venganza;the latter was chased and followed into Guayaquil, theformer into Callao, where Cochrane himself reappearedin April. Here San Martín sent his ministers to waitupon the sailor, making new propositions, including the63post of admiral of the joint squadrons of Chile and Peru.Cochrane answered bluntly that he would have nodealings with a government founded upon a breach offaith toward the Peruvians, supported by tyranny andthe violation of all laws; that no flag but that of Chilewould be hoisted upon his ships; and he refused to setfoot ashore. He brought the fleet back to Valparaisoon June 2, 1822, after two and a half years of ceaselesseffort in the service of Chile. The Pacific no longershowed a Spanish flag upon ship or fortress: his workwas done. When Cochrane left Chile in January, 1823,the independence of the country was definitely assured.

Spanish rule in the Americas had endured for threehundred years, but at the end of that period it cannotbe said that the profit of her conquest and colonisationwas on the side of Spain. The amazing courage of theconquistadores forms a record without parallel, notupon the part of such great figures as Cortes and Pizarroonly, but scores of less known pioneers. “In a periodof seventy years,” Cieza de Leon has written, “theyhave overcome and opened up another world than thatof which we had knowledge, without bringing with themwaggons of provision, nor great store of baggage, nortents in which to rest, nor anything but a sword and ashield and a small bag in which they carried their food.”

Between 1519 and 1811 the Spaniards smashed threeestablished and at least one embryo civilization in theAmericas; but on the other side of the ledger they gavethe contact with West European speech, thought,crafts and aims that brought immense American regionsinto line with the rest of the modern world. It is truethat vast stores of precious metals were taken away:but in return were given two things more valuable,ideas and blood.

64Spain herself materially suffered in the long run. Herbest youth was drained overseas, or lost in the wars inEurope to which her gold tempted her. In 1800 thecommerce, agriculture, wealth and industry of Spainwere “almost nothing, compared to what they werewhen she conquered America,” says Torrijos. Thepopulation had been cut in half. Spain has been correctlycharged with narrowness of policy in regard toher colonies; it is frequently forgotten that all rules ofcommerce and colonization were narrow during thesame period—examples are still to be found of nationssurrounding themselves with a sky-high tariff wall;and if Spain forbade the American colonies to cultivateSpanish products, in turn Spaniards were not permittedto grow the crops peculiarly American. As a matter offact this rule was much more rigidly insisted uponwithin the small compass of Spain, since in the Americasit was to the interest and convenience of officials toshut their eyes to breaches of the rule. Spain’s decreeforbidding cultivation of the vine in Chile, for example,was practically a dead letter, a show being only occasionallymade of attempts to carry out the law.

Chile, free and young, faced many problems, but wasable to look upon the future with confidence, secureat least in the active sympathy of the greater part ofthe world. Spain, her power broken and her armiesdestroyed, stood alone. Her wounds were long inhealing.

Republican Chile

Accounts of the naval or military affairs of one particularnation often read as if those events had occurredin a heavily screened vacuum. But the march of affairsin the Pacific during the struggle for independence werenot only watched breathlessly by other American65nations—particularly Mexico, Central America, Colombiaand the United States—but also by Europe,immensely affected by the success or failure of Spainto reassert her possession of the colonies. Vessels ofwar of the United States and Britain ranged up anddown the coast, their position as neutrals complicatedby the fact that many of their own nationals wereinterested, either openly and quite un-neutrally, inpromoting the success of the revolting South Americans,or in commercial transactions which were frequentlyperfectly legitimate and straightforward, but whichwere sometimes kaleidoscopic. Fluid and irregulartrade conditions had prevailed upon the coast for acentury: Spain had been forced during her long warsto give an increased number of trading licences, andmuch commerce was performed under cover of Spanishnames by foreign merchants. During Cochrane’s effortsto stop the smuggling and underhand traffic that wenton, particularly in the series of small ports (headed byPisco and Arica) in South Peru, he found himself morethan once at loggerheads with the merchants, and withthe British and other foreign squadrons watching affairs.Duties ran high, sometimes up to 60 per cent advalorem, and in consequence along this “Entremedios”region a tremendous amount of smuggling flourished;many of these little villages formed on occasion marketsfor the interior of such size that the coast wasglutted with European goods and merchandise amongthe sand-hills was as cheap as at a bargain sale.

Banks did not exist, and there was no adequate exchangeof South American products; cash was paid andhad to be shipped overseas. A custom grew up amongthe British traders of sending such payments home bynaval vessels, and as a percentage was paid upon thesesums for safe-carriage to the captains of men-of-war, a66direct interest was created in commercial prosperity.When Cochrane, on behalf of the Chilean government,suggested a new customs rate of 18 per cent, taking onboard and guarding a quantity of disputed goods, therewere international and loud objections to his “floatingcustomhouse.” With the establishment of the youngcountries was closely entangled a number of commercialinterests with wide ramifications.

While the movement of affairs in Lower and UpperPeru, Bolivia and Ecuador, filled public attention, thenew Chile struggled to secure stability as a self-governedcountry. The steps towards this end were not alleasy. The country had never been wealthy—in fact,scarcely self-supporting, for the shipments of agriculturaland mineral products to Peru and Spain did notpay the costs of government and defence against theIndians—and she was now nearly bankrupt. Aterrible burden of expense had been incurred for themilitary and naval campaigns in her own south and inPeru, and the confiscated property of “old Spaniards”and the religious orders was not an inexhaustible treasure.A loan raised in London in 1822 gave no morethan temporary relief, and heavier taxes were imposedthan in the days of Spanish control. The exhilarationof new hopes, the realization of the inner strength ofthe Chilean nation, did not suffice to save the countryfrom a period of dissatisfaction and unrest.

Bernardo O’Higgins never lost his personal popularity,but murmurs against his minister of finance, Rodriguez,imperilled his position. The national congresscalled in July, 1822, sat until October to frame a newtariff (commercial regulations) and a new constitutionto supersede the tentative proclamation of 1818. Butilliberal restrictions created by the new decrees closedall the minor ports to foreign vessels, and every Andeanpass but one; prohibitory duties were placed on manyarticles of foreign manufacture.

67The composition of Senate and Chamber of Deputieswas outlined, the Senate’s and Director’s term of officefixed at six years, while the deputies, from whom aproperty qualification was required, were to be electedannually, one for every 15,000 people. The Directorwas made head of the army and navy, with powers tocreate foreign treaties and to make peace and war. Thetreasury and all ecclesiastical appointments were in hishands, as well as the naming of ambassadors, judges,ministers and secretaries of state. In the middle ofOctober, 1822, General San Martín suddenly reappearedin Valparaiso, in the character of a privatecitizen whose health required a sojourn at the medicinalbaths of Cauquenes. He told a tale of voluntary renunciationof Peruvian dignities that received littlecredence; as a matter of fact, the luck that for a periodhad made him appear a master of men had failed himat last.

From the time when he made himself Protector inLima (August, 1821) the Peruvians had taken exceptionto his arrogance, his oppressive treatment of leadingcitizens, the extortions of his ministers, and complainedof the want of stability in the country. In the interiorSpanish forces still maintained themselves, while SanMartín kept idle an army of 8000 men, a burden uponthe populace. Early in April, 1822, the royalist GeneralCanterac marched quickly upon the coast and inflicteda severe defeat upon the forces of the Protector, nearIca. San Martín, alarmed, decided to ask aid fromBolívar, fresh from victories in the Ecuadorian interior,and sailed to Guayaquil. He was received byBolívar on July 26, but with such hostility that,fearing for his personal safety, he left hurriedly on July6828, and sailed back to Callao. He found that Peruhad undergone a coup d’état. Upon his departureleading citizens held a meeting, insisted upon the resignationof his unpopular minister, Monteagudo, anddeported him. San Martín accepted the warning andwaited only until the convocation of congress to offerhis resignation and to leave the country. If he had anydream of returning to take a part in public affairs inChile or Argentina, it was speedily dissipated, andpresently he retired to an estate at Mendoza, now apart of his native Argentina. His arrival and the fearsof Chile that he contemplated some disturbing strokeprobably hastened the irruption of feeling against theheads of the Chilean Government, by whom San Martínwas received with extreme friendliness. No hostilitywas expressed against O’Higgins, whose memory agreeablysurvives in Chile, but the detested Rodriguez wasincreasingly blamed for the blighting commercialdecrees and the general depression of the country.

In November, 1822, Chile experienced one of themost disastrous earthquakes of the century: a monthlater another upheaval occurred, with armed insurrectionsboth in the north and south. The division of the“Penquistos” from Santiago was newly emphasizedby violent dissatisfaction with laws against grain exports,and the cause of the south was championed byGeneral Ramon Freire, military governor of Concepción,and echoed by Coquimbo, also angered by theheavy export dues placed upon copper, collected in thenorth but spent in Santiago.

While the troops of Freire crossed the Maule, hisnorthern supporters under Benevente marched south;by the end of January they had reached Aconcagua andhad secured the adhesion of Quillota. On the 28th agroup of leading citizens visited O’Higgins and induced69him to resign his authority into the hands of a junta ofthree, until the national congress could be again summoned.But the arrival of Freire in Valparaiso Baywith three warships and 1500 men put a different complexionupon governmental plans. Freire camped hismen outside Santiago, declared his lack of personalambition, but presently accepted the offer of theDirectorship from the Junta. A new constitution wasevolved at the end of 1823, which does not concernhistory since it was abrogated a year later in the faceof new danger from Spain, speedily dispelled, whenFreire needed larger powers.

From this period Chile slowly fought her way tosocial solidarity, her true wealth in agriculture developingsteadily as the population increased. It is true thatfrom a political standpoint there were few outstandingfigures during the last eighty years of the nineteenthcentury, but whether from the outside or the inside themen appeared who brought the country to economicstrength and gave her all that she lacked as regardsmarkets, means of communication and development ofher almost unsuspected resources.

In 1830 internal disturbances took place, chiefly asthe result of the reaction of the pelucones (the Conservative-Church-aristocraticgroup) against the Governmentparty of pipiolas (Liberals). The victory ofthe Army of the South at Lircay (April 17, ’31) resultedin the election of the successful general, Prieto,as President, and during his term of office (1831–41)the brilliant minister, Diego Portales, advanced thecountry’s progress materially and framed the Constitutionwhich is still in force. Portales was assassinatedupon the eve of Chile’s expedition to free Perufrom the domination of a foreign dictator, in 1837.70The occasion of this war was the rise of the aggressiveBolivian general, Santa Cruz, and his invasion and reductionof Peru. Chile regarded this forced Confederationas a challenge, sent armies to the north, tookLima, and defeated Santa Cruz at the battle of Yungay(January, 1839), when the Confederation fell apart.

The victor of Yungay, General Bulnes, ruled Chile foranother ten years (1841–51), a prosperous and quietperiod marking a tremendous stride forward in thecountry’s advance. Manuel Montt, the next President,served for another ten-year period, but was troubledfirst with a rebellion under General de la Cruz, crushedat the battle of Loncomilla at the end of 1851; by arevolt of the Atacama miners, put down at CerroGrande in April, 1859; and a serious affray at Valparaisolate in the same year. During the succeedinggovernment of José Perez occurred Spain’s last hostileact against her former colonies, when in 1865 a navalsquadron sailed into the Pacific, seized the Chinchaislands off Peru and demanded the payment of the oldPeruvian colonial debt. Chile made the cause hers,and mobilized her fleet, brought upon herself thebombardment of Valparaiso on March 31, 1866, butseized the Peruvian gunboat Covadonga off Papudoport.

In 1879, during the administration of Anibal Pinto,war broke out between Chile and Bolivia, afterwardsjoined by Peru, with the result, after the cessation ofhostilities in 1883, of the acquisition by Chile of practicallyall the nitrate fields of South America.

A little later, Chile’s internal peace was curiously disturbedby the recurrence of old trouble concerning churchprivileges. The Chilean government claimed the rightof nomination of church dignitaries, and the questionwas brought to a head when the Pope refused to appoint71a candidate to the Archbishopric of Santiago chosenby the administration of Santa Maria (1881–86). Agovernmental decree rendering civil marriages legalin the eye of Chile, and another insisting upon the rightto bury non-Roman Catholics in city cemeteries, rouseda great deal of popular passion and clerical objection.

Unrest culminated during the administration of Balmaceda,when quarrels broke out between the Presidentand Congress, and his attempts to govern thecountry without that body ended in a mutiny of thefleet. Sailing to the north, the insurgents preparedtheir plans for eight months, training an army, until itwas brought south in August, 1891, and Balmaceda wasdefeated at the battles of Concon and Placilla. Whenthe president shot himself in September of the sameyear, the mantle fell upon one of the insurrecto leaders,Admiral Jorge Montt, son of Manuel. Another of theMontt family, Pedro, occupied the presidential chairfrom 1906 to 1910, a period marked by great energy inthe construction of ports, highways and railroads.

Since the Balmaceda revolt Chile has enjoyed completeinternal and external peace, the administrationof the country remaining in civilian hands and followingthe normal course of electoral changes.

Drake and the “Golden Hind.”—Thomas Cavendish.—TheNarborough Expedition.—Sharp and Dampier.—CaptainBetagh.—The Loss of the “Wager.”—Juanand Ulloa.—Resident Foreigners.—Strangersand Independence.

From the time when she planted her first colonies onthe West Coast of South America Spain did her utmostto keep strangers from those shores or from any knowledgeof them. A veil of mystery hung over the Pacific,torn aside roughly when Drake’s little vessel weatheredthe furies of the Magellanic Strait and the resoundingtale was published broadcast throughout Europe.

There is no reason to doubt the historic truth ofDrake’s words as repeated by the gallant Captain JohnOxenham—that, viewing the Pacific from a hill onthe Isthmus of Panama during his famous raid uponNombre de Dios in 1572, Drake “besought AlmightyGod of His goodness to give him life and leave to sailonce in an English ship in that sea.” The Devonshiresailor undoubtedly urged repeatedly in England, afterthat time, that reprisals for Spanish injuries inflictedupon England could be best made by direct attack, andas he told Queen Elizabeth, small good could be done byattempts on Spain herself, but that as all Philip’s wealthwas drawn from overseas “the only way to annoy himwas by his Indyes.” The Queen, however, did notconsent to such strokes until after Philip had tried toraise a rebellion in Ireland and actually landed forces73there; both she and her envoys had in mind, not onlya blow at Spanish prestige, and “some of their silverand gold which they got out of the earth and sent toSpain to trouble all the world,” but the extension of theProtestant faith and the glory of England by the conquestand settlement of wild lands. The evidence ofOxenham and Butler before the Inquisition in Lima in1579 proves that Drake intended to colonise if he could,“because in England there are many inhabitants andbut little land.” When, on leaving the coasts ofMexico, he sailed farther north, landed after enteringthe Golden Gate and claimed “Nova Albion” for theQueen, he felt completely justified because “theSpaniards never had any dealing, or so much as set afoot, in this country, only to many degrees southwardof this place.” San Francisco stands today on the spotwhere Drake’s chaplain held service; the map, stillextant, of Drake’s correction, show that he foresaw thetime when English-speaking colonies would disputewith Spain, France and Portugal possession of theAmericas.

Armed with Elizabeth’s formal commission, her ownsword, and the title of Captain-General, Drake sailedfrom Plymouth on November 15, 1577, with fiveships, of which the largest was the Pelican, of only 100tons, but very strongly built. Officers and crew totalledabout 164, and among them was his cousin John Drake,then a clever lad of fourteen years. A storm compelledthem to put into Falmouth, and after repairs they sailedagain on December 13. Land was first touched atCape Mogador; thence the little fleet sailed to CapeBlanco, where they took a Portuguese ship with a storeof fish and biscuit; to Cape Verde, where a Spanishmerchantman’s load of cloth was seized; next to theriver Plate, for water and wood, on April 27, 1578,74and on to Port San Julian, where Magellan hadexecuted mutineers, and where, for the same crime ofmutiny, Drake beheaded Thomas Doughty. Themaster-gunner Oliver was killed here by Patagonians,and during the two-months’ stay the Portuguese prize,the Maria, as well as the Christopher and the Swanwere broken up. The weather was cold and the expeditionwas sorely in need of firewood.

Sailing south, they sighted the entrance of the Straiton August 17, naming one of the three islands off thesouth shore “Elizabeth Island.” The Strait was actuallyentered on the twenty-first of August, with winterwell advanced. They saw no Indians at first, butquantities of the smoke from the innumerable fires thatgave the great island on the south its original name of“Land of Smoke.” At Penguin Island they stopped tokill and salt a supply of birds, the Purchas account ofthe voyage stating: “This Strait is extreme cold withFrost and Snow continually: the Trees seeme to stoopewith the burthen of the Weather and yet are greenecontinually; and many good and sweet Herbes doevery plentifully grow and increase under them.”

At the passage’s western end the weather was so furiousthat the Marigold sank with all hands. The captainof the Elizabeth put his ship about and deserted, fleeingback through the Strait for England, where he waspromptly sent to prison. With the loss of a pinnace,whose one survivor, Peter Carder, a Cornishman,eventually made his way back to England in 1586, afterterrible sufferings in Patagonia and Brazil, Drake hadonly his own flagship, the Pelican, whose name he nowchanged to the Golden Hind. About 80 men remained,half of the number who had set out from Plymouth.

Driven down to the sixty-sixth degree of southlatitude, 14 degrees south of the western opening of75the Strait, Drake put about as soon as the terriblegales permitted and ran north outside the channels andarchipelagos of South Chile. They saw Valdivia, orrather, Corral, but did not enter, anchoring first at theisland of Mocha, in about 38 degrees, almost oppositethe present Traiguen. Here a party went ashore to getwater, but were fiercely assailed by well-armed Indians,who wounded every man of the English company,some receiving over twenty arrows. Returning hastily,the party left two men behind, and three others diedof their wounds on board.

Sailing farther north in search of Valparaiso, theyovershot the entrance, but discovered their mistakewhen they anchored in the bay of Quintero, 18 miles tothe north, and found an intelligent Indian, who toldthem of a Spanish ship then lying off Valparaiso. Himthey took as a guide, and returning boldly sailed intoand anchored in the bay at high noon of December 5,1578. At anchor also they saw La Capitana (“theflagship”) in which Pedro Sarmiento had a few yearspreviously made his famous voyage of discovery to theSolomons. The Spaniards aboard the Capitana, neverdreaming that a vessel in the Pacific could be other thanSpanish, hailed and welcomed them. Drake sent aboarding party, which rudely awakened their hostswhen one Thomas Moon began to lay about him,struck a Spaniard and said to him (says the Purchasaccount) “Abaxo Perro, that is in English, Goe downeDogge.” The Spaniards were put under hatches, aprize crew sent aboard, and going ashore and breakingopen the warehouse Drake added 1700 jars of wine,and stores of salt pork and flour, to the treasure he hadfound in the Capitana, amounting to 24,000 pesos of the“very fine and pure gold of Baldivia,” due for shipmentto Peru. One Spanish sailor pluckily swam ashore and76warned the inhabitants of the settlement; there werebut nine households, and the people abandoned theplace to the English, who found little to loot but thesilver ornaments from the chapel. Two days later theyweighed anchor and returned to Quintero, where thefriendly Indian was set ashore with gifts, and Drakeset his course for more northerly ports, using the sea-chartof the Capitana’s pilot.

At Tongoy Bay, where they put in next, they foundno water, and went on to the beautiful Herradura justabove it, a few miles south of Coquimbo Bay with itslittle Spanish stronghold of La Serena. Twelve menwent ashore here to get water, but were attacked by anumber of Spanish horsemen. Thomas Minivy, leaderof the shore party, got his men into the boat, but wasattacked, and, defending their embarkation with arquebusand sword, was killed. Drake now went on toSalada Bay, where he stayed for over a month to careenthe Golden Hind, to bring up from the hold and place inposition his artillery, and to build, on board the Capitana,a pinnace with planks brought from England.She was launched on January 9, 1579. Severaltimes during his stay Spaniards came from Coquimboto look at him, but did not attack, according to thestatement made later to Captain Sarmiento by JuanGriego, the boatswain of the Capitana taken along thecoast by Drake, and corroborated by the log-book andNuño da Silva the pilot.

Setting sail, they missed the mouth of the CopiapóRiver, and had an anxious search for water along thearid coasts of Tarapacá. Entering at length the mouthof the Pisagua River they had a stroke of luck, for thereon the bank lay a Spaniard, fast asleep, in charge ofa train of llamas laden with silver bars from Potosí anda quantity of charqui (dried meat). Taking him as a77guide, and seizing his cargo, they sailed for the port ofArica, a village of only 20 houses, but at that time thechief point of embarkation of the silver from the interiormines. Brought from the mountains by Indians andllamas, the precious bars were sea-borne from Arica toPeru (Callao, for Lima) to await the yearly despatch oftreasure to Panama City, and overland by Cruces toPorto Bello. Of these arrangements and their usualdate Drake well knew, for but six years previously hehad lain in wait for and captured the train load of mulescarrying silver ingots along the cobble-paved pathwaythrough the Isthmian forest.

Proceeding to Arica, the Golden Hind surprised andtook two ships, one containing 33 bars of silver; buthearing that a ship laden with a richer treasure was inthe port of Chule (about five miles north of Ilo) he hurriedon. However, before his arrival warning had reachedthe captain, who disembarked and buried the silverbars, and Drake’s only satisfaction was to take the shipalong and set her adrift, himself sailing on to Callao.Strangely enough, no news had reached Lima of thelong sojourn and repeated raids of Drake upon thecoast, and he was able to enter the bay without rousingsuspicion on the part of the vessels anchored there. Atthis time (February 13, 1579), John Oxenham wasstill alive, in the prison of the Inquisition in Lima, withtwo or three of his crew; Drake knew it, and althoughhe could not risk the ruin of his expedition by any suchattempt as an attack on Lima, he hoped to seizeSpaniards of sufficient importance to exchange for theEnglish prisoners. When John Drake was examinedbefore the Inquisition in Lima in 1587 he said that“Captain Francis... in the boat, with six or sevenmen, accompanied by the pinnace carrying twenty orthirty men, went to the other vessels anchored there and78cut their cables.... This was done so that, havingbeen cut loose, the wind would carry these ships out ofport, where he could seize them and hold them forransom, so that in exchange they would give him theEnglishman who was said to be a prisoner in Lima.”The plan did not succeed. A calm fell, and an attack bythe pinnace on a ship from Panama was repulsed withthe loss of a man; she was afterwards taken when her crewabandoned her. At night the tide carried them outsidethe port, and when in the morning three or fourvessels came out against the Golden Hind Drake ranbefore the wind, sailing north until Paita was reached.A ship was taken here and another farther north, butit was not until the first day of March that young JohnDrake won the chain of gold that had been promised tothe first person sighting the coveted treasure ship ofSan Juan de Anton. Two days later Drake transferredfrom the captured ship an immense treasure, includingmuch gold and fourteen chests of silver, letting her goon March 6.

Thence his exploits do not greatly concern thePacific coast; he took vessels off Nicaragua, plunderedthe Port of Guatulco in Mexico, sailed to the Californiancoast, and when he met ice shaped his coursesouthwest, making for the Moluccas, the Cape of GoodHope, and so back to Plymouth, arriving with thegreatest treasure that was ever carried in one littlesailing vessel and the undying record of an extraordinarilybold feat in the circumnavigation of the globe.

It is the effect of Drake’s exploit upon the West Coastwhich concerns these pages chiefly, but it is only fair tothe memory of a gallant man and fine sailor to say thatnot only was he beloved at home, but that the nobleSpaniards with whom he came in contact did justice tohis qualities. Not unnaturally, the ports that he raided79feared and hated his name; but such a man as DonFrancisco de Zarate taken prisoner by Drake off Acajutla(El Salvador) in April, 1579, called him “one ofthe greatest mariners that sails the seas, both as anavigator and as a commander.” A remark of Zarate’sthat follows sheds a bright light on Drake: “Nine orten cavaliers, cadets of noble English families, formpart of the council which he calls together for the mosttrifling matter, although he takes advice from no one.But he enjoys hearing what they say, and afterwardsissues his orders.” Zarate was shown, and apparentlyaccepted the propriety of, Elizabeth’s commission toDrake, and informs the Viceroy of Mexico that “Imanaged to find out whether the General was liked, andthey (the crew of the Golden Hind) all said that theyadored him.”

Thomas Cavendish

The effect of Drake’s feat upon the New World waselectric. The Viceroys of New Spain and Peru, theAudiencia of Panama, Governors of every province,hastened to strengthen weak ports with troops andartillery; ships changed their routes, scores of reportsand letters went home to Spain. Philip II, whothrough his clever Ambassador at the court of Elizabethknew of the expedition before it sailed, wrote discreetlyon the margin of one such letter, “Before theCorsair reaches England it is not expedient to speak tothe Queen. When he arrives, yes. Investigate whetherit would be well to erect a fort in the Port of Magellan.”

But noisy as was the repute of the exploit in thePacific and in Spain, it had no less effect upon theimagination of Europeans desiring a share in explorationand its rewards. Spain’s tragic effort to found a80settlement in the Strait was almost blotted out whenThomas Cavendish passed through in 1586.

Cavendish was a native of Trimley in Suffolk, agood mariner; he sailed across the Atlantic with threeships, the largest of 120 tons, entered the Strait inJanuary, 1586, and passed out into the Pacific on February24. Sailing north to the island of St. Mary,he found stores of good wheat and barley, and potatoroots “very good to eat.” Hogs and hens, introducedby the Spaniards, were thriving, and although theIndian small farmers were so much in subjection tothe Spaniards that they dared not eat a hog nor henthemselves, in compensation for these restrictions allhad been made Christians.

Running north, Cavendish anchored near Concepción;in the bay of Quintero they had an encounterwith Spaniards on horseback, and the captain himself,who travelled eight miles inland, declared the valleycountry to be “very fruitful, with fair fresh rivers.”Off Arica the raiders took a ship, and went on north,raiding the coastal vessels; eventually they burntPaita, raided Puna Island at the mouth of the GuayasRiver, and lost men there.

Cavendish took two years and two months to completethe round of the globe, and the Pacific had hardlysettled down again after the trouble caused by thiscorsair when, in early 1594, Richard Hawkins, son andgrandson of fine mariners, came through the Strait.An acute observer, he noted the handsome Winter’sBark trees of the southern channels, finding the seedslike good pepper and the bark “very stomachic andmedicinal.” On the West Coast Hawkins was unlucky,encountering a strong Spanish fleet whichcaptured him in June, 1594. He was taken toLima, sent prisoner to Spain, and after eight years81of captivity was released to return to his Devonhome.

In 1598 the Dutch appeared, in the person of CaptainOliver Noort, piloted by one Melis, an Englishmanwho had sailed with Cavendish. Noort traversedthe Strait, sailed north to Mocha Island, where hedrank chicha for the first time and found it “somewhatsourish,” and nearby seized a Spanish ship. OffArica his ships encountered terrible “arenales” (sand-ladenwinds) and two strayed from touch with theflagship. Bad weather persisted until June 13, when“the Spanish pilot was for ill demeanures, by publikesentence, cast overboard. A prosperous wind happilysucceeded.”

The exploit of Noort brought many of his countrymeninto the Pacific, and from the beginning of theseventeenth century Holland sent out scores of finenavigators. Spilbergen came through the Strait in1615, and it was a Dutchman, Willem CorneliusSchouten of Hoorn, sailing here in the same year, withJacob Le Maire of Amsterdam, who found and namedmany islands south of Tierra del Fuego, as Staten,Maurice, Barnvelt, as they also named Cape Hoornand Le Maire’s Strait. The famous Jacques l’Hermitecame through and up the coast in 1623–4; and by thesesoutherly passages also came five ships of a Dutch expeditionin 1642–3, of which Hendrick Brouwer or“Brewer” left an account.

The Narborough Expedition

In 1669 it occurred to the English Crown that betterinformation concerning Patagonia and Chile was desirable,and the experienced Sir John Narborough wassent out with two ships in 1669. The Sweepstakes, of82300 tons, had 36 pieces of artillery; the Batchellor,pink of 70 tons, had four pieces; the crew totalled onehundred. They were well provisioned and carriedplenty of beads, hatchets, etc., to trade with the nativesof the southerly channels, the design of thevoyage, which was at the king’s private cost, being“to make a discovery both of the seas and coasts ofthat part of the world, and to lay the foundation of atrade there.” Narborough was enjoined not to goashore before he got south of the Plate River, and notto interfere with any Spanish settlements; Port Desirehe considered beyond Spain’s jurisdiction, formallytaking possession in the name of Charles II. Hethought better of Patagonia than Darwin, nearly twohundred years later, for he recorded that the soil wasmarly and good, that in his opinion it might be madeexcellent corn-ground, being ready to till, and that“tis very like the land on Newmarket Heath.” Henoted that the Indians seen in this region had dogswith them, with grey coats and painted red in spots.

Reaching the eastern entrance of the Strait on October22, he anchored just outside the first Narrowat night, and passed the white cliff of Cape Gregorynext morning; when he went ashore at ElizabethIsland natives came to him, but did not recognise thegold and copper he showed; and although “my LieutenantPeckett danced with them hand in hand” andobligingly exchanged his red coat for one of theirskin-coverings, while Narborough showed them “allthe courteous respect I could,” shortly afterwards hehad reason to suspect them of planning to sink his skiff.They too had dogs, but no other domestic animal, andthe sailor decided that they were but brutish, and gaveup hope of friendship or trade. He passed “Sandpoint,”named Freshwater Bay, and six leagues to the83south reached “Port Famen,” where driftwood lay asthick as in a carpenter’s yard.

“A little within land from the waterside grow bravegreen woods, and up in the valleys large timber-trees,two foot throughout and some upwards of 40 feet long,much like our Beech-timber in England; the leavesof the trees are like green birch-tree leaves, curiouslysweet... there are several clear places in the woods,and grass growing like fenced fields in England.” Hecaught plenty of fish, noticed the spicy Winter’s Barkand used it to stew with his food, but could find notraces of minerals in the soil. The Indians here tookthe knives and looking-glasses Narborough gave them“to gain their loves,” but, he records, refused brandy.Sounding and taking careful observations as he wentalong, he named Desolation Island, passed out byCape Pillar, and noted the Four Evangelists (callingthem the “Islands of Direction”) as guides for thewestern end of the Strait.

On November 26 he lay off the island of Socorro,in 45° south latitude, and on the 30th found andnamed Narborough’s Island, taking possession “for hisMajesty and his Heirs.” By this time all the ship’sstore of bread was exhausted, everyone eating pease;they proceeded to No Man’s Land, a small island atthe south of Chiloé, and by December 15 anchoredat the entrance to Valdivia Bay. Here they sent aSpaniard of the crew ashore, with bells, tobacco, ringsand jew’s-harps to trade with the natives, and an undertakingto burn a fire at night as a signal. No fire wasseen and apparently Narborough was never able todiscover what became of him. The lieutenant gatheredgreen apples from the thick woods close to thewater’s edge. Next morning the lieutenant in hisboat, rowing by the shore, came suddenly upon the84Spaniards’ small fort of St. James, was invited to landby the Spanish soldiery, and noted that the fort wasstrongly palisaded against Indian raids, and that theSpaniards used “very ordinary” match-lock musquetoons.The officers received the English sailorscourteously, sitting “on chairs and benches placedabout a table, under the shade, for the sun shone verywarm, it being a very fair day,” the captain callingfor wine in a silver bowl and firing five of his guns insalute. He asked for news of wars in Europe, saidthey had much trouble with the valiant and barbarousIndians, who fought on horseback and infested thecamp so closely that the Spaniards never entered thethick woods nor went more than a musket-shot’s distancefrom the palisades. A fine dinner was servedupon silver dishes, and it was suggested that fourSpaniards should go back to the English ship with thelieutenant, and pilot her into the port. But Narboroughremembered the old tale of “treacherous dealingswith Captain (John) Hawkins at St. Juan deUlloa,” and although he listened attentively whilethey talked of the gold they found here and troubleswith the natives, and the great trade the Pacific coasthad with the Chinese by way of the Philippines, hedeclined to take his ship in, and said he only wantedwood and fresh water. On December 17 he sent eighteenmen ashore to barter merchandise with the Spaniards,many courtesies being exchanged. Four of the Spaniards’wives, “very proper white women born in thekingdom of Peru of Spanish parents,” who had neverbeen in Europe, insisted on sitting down in the ship’sboat, “to say that they had been in a boat that camefrom Europe.” Other Spaniards had Indian wives, allbeing finely dressed in silks, with gold chains andjewelled earrings. The English were then asked to go85to Fort St. Peter, two miles inside the bay, where theGovernor of Valdivia received Lieutenant Armiger andhis companions politely, accepting their presents andoffering them wine; but when they asked for a cask ofwater he sent soldiers and seized the boat, also takingthe Englishmen prisoners, saying he had orders from theCaptain General of Chile. A letter from Armiger toNarborough, sent next day, stated that “myself andMr. Fortescue are kept here as prisoners, but for whatcause I cannot tell; but they still pretend friendshipand say that if you will bring the ship into the harbouryou shall have all the accommodation that may be.Sir, I need not advise you further.” This was the lastwe hear of him, for Narborough could not obtain hisrelease and sailed away a few days later. Three menwere with Armiger—John Fortescue, Hugh Cooe thetrumpeter, and Thomas Highway, a Moor of Barbary,who spoke good Spanish. Returning through theStrait, the expedition reached home in the middle of1671, sighting the Lizard on June 10.

Narborough’s careful and seamanlike observations,his sailing directions, record of soundings, etc., as wellas his acute notes upon South Chile, were the firstexplicit details published in England of the conditionof this region in the seventeenth century; the book wasthe manual used seventy years later by the crew of theWager’s longboat.

Narborough thought that advantageous trade mightbe made in South Chile if “leave were granted by theKing of Spain for the English to trade freely in all theirports and coasts; for the people which inhabit thereare very desirous of a trade: but the Governors durstnot permit it without orders, unless ships were to gothither and trade per force and not take notice of theGovernors.” And as Spain continued to follow the86policy of exclusion, and open hostilities recurred, thiswas what happened, until before another fifty years hadpassed the authorities were either taking part in thesmuggling that went on or trying to shut their eyesto it.

Sharp and Dampier

The next English stranger upon Chilean coasts wasthe pirate Captain Bartholomew Sharp, raiding upand down all the West Coast in 1680 in boats thathe built in Panama, and sailing southwards “as farin a fortnight as the Spaniards usually do in threemonths,” says Basil Ringrose. They made for the“vastly rich town of Arica,” took a couple of vesselson the way, but finding Arica roused and the countryin arms against them, took Ilo, and proceeded south toplunder Coquimbo. Hence they sailed for Juan FernandezIsland. The crew deposed Sharp and electedWatling as the commander, and presently sailed backto Iquique with minds still fixed upon the riches ofArica. On a second attempt at this port Watling waskilled; Sharp was reappointed, and the buccaneerswent to Huasco for provisions (“for fruits this placeis not inferior to Coquimbo”), and after raiding offthe Central American and Mexican coast, returned toEngland. They intended to traverse Magellan Strait,but must have rounded the Horn, for to their surpriseno land was encountered until they found themselvesin the West Indies. Their story encouraged Davis tothe plundering of Coquimbo in 1686.

Between this time and the arrival of Anson, one ofthe most interesting of the raiders in the South Seaswas Dampier, who was an adventurer of great experienceand resource. The sailing-master in one ofthe vessels of Dampier’s expedition of 1703 was Alexander87Selkirk. This Scot had a quarrel with CaptainStradling, and was put ashore at Juan Fernandez,where the corsairs usually assembled to get freshwater and to repair their vessels. It is said that beforethe ship left he asked to be readmitted, but wasrefused. He lived alone on the island for a period offour years and four months, and was eventually rescuedby Woodes Rogers, captain of the Duke privateer, onFebruary 12, 1709. Dampier, curiously enough, wasthen acting as Rogers’ pilot, and must have been interestedin the adventures of the original of RobinsonCrusoe.

Captain Betagh

A narrative of uncommon interest is that of CaptainBetagh, an Irishman with an observant eye and alively pen, who, raiding in the company of CaptainsClipperton and Shelvocke upon the West Coast in theyear 1720, recorded his adventures in a racy tale.

The Success and the Speedwell carried King George’scommission, a state of war existing between Spain andEngland, and the legality of their privateering was sofar recognised that when a number of the British,including Betagh, were caught and sent prisoner toLima, no charge against them regarding attacks uponcoastal towns was made, and the only serious accusationwas that, early in their cruise, a Portuguese andtherefore friendly vessel had been seized and a quantityof money taken. The two vessels, of which the largerdid not exceed 170 tons burden, sailed south down theEastern Coast of South America late in 1719, encounteringsuch bad weather off Tierra del Fuego that theywere greatly delayed. Many of the crew died and therest were reduced to eating mussels and wild celeryfound on the forbidding shore. The vessels missed a88rendezvous at Juan Fernandez, and Captains Clippertonand Shelvocke raided separately up and down theWest Coast in an extraordinary series of adventures.Three Spanish men-of-war came out after them, aswell as after the French “interlopers,” but the seaswere wide and the little privateers besides being fastwere manned by hardy British sailors, while most ofthe Spanish vessels were obliged to carry Indian orNegro crews. A number of small vessels were taken,but one prize brought misfortune; the prize crew putaboard was overpowered by the original crew, the shiprun aground, and the handful of British sent prisonersto Lima. Not long after, Betagh was sent to cruise inthe Mercury, a little fruit bark seized off Paita. Inthis unlikely vessel he actually succeeded in taking twoprizes, exchanging into the second, an old English-builtpink full of peddler’s goods running betweenPanama and Peru. But the pink was chased by theSpanish warship Brilliant and overtaken, luck, however,remaining with Betagh when the Admiral provedto be Don Pedro Miranda, who had been a formerprisoner of Sir Charles Wager and so well treated byhim that not only did the Spaniard treat his Englishprisoners kindly, but brought Betagh to his own tableand toasted the gallant Wager at every meal.

Reversals of fortune of this kind were not unusual,and no doubt bred tolerance; another example was occurringin the Pacific at almost the same time. Clipperton,taking the Prince Eugene, found aboard theMarquis de Villa Roca with his wife and child. On aprevious voyage Clipperton had been taken before thisofficial in Panama, and the terms now arranged werenot made harsher by resentment. The antagonistsrecognised the fortune of war.

Betagh, with a surgeon and sergeant of marines, was89set ashore at Paita, whence they were sent by theusual route of the coast peddlers to Piura, and later toLima. Here the venerable Archbishop Diego Morsillo,the Viceroy, refused to proceed harshly againstthe prisoners in the matter of the Portuguese moidores,and “would sign no order for the shedding of innocentblood.” Betagh was permitted to live with one CaptainFitzgerald, a native of St. Malo, who offeredagreeable hospitality. Another group of Clipperton’smen, taken and also brought to Lima not long after,yielded to suggestion and became converts to RomanCatholicism, with merchants of Lima standing as godfathers.Apparently the Limeños were not disposed toseverity towards these brands wrested from the burning,for when an assortment met at a public housekept by one John Bell to confirm their baptism with abowl of punch, and became so dimmed of vision thatthey knocked down and smashed the image of a saintin mistake for an aggressor, the Inquisition releasedthem after a five days’ cooling of their heads. Norwas the action of the authorities anything but strangelylenient when the same precious converts were caughtout in a more serious business. Headed by oneSprake, they formed an audacious plot to seize a shipat Callao, and, to get money for firearms, had the effronteryto beg for alms in the Lima streets as “poorEnglish newly baptised.” Discovered, they were alljailed for a time, but presently released with the exceptionof the ringleader, with whom the Governmentwas “greatly provoked.”

Betagh himself was permitted to work his way homein the Spanish ship Flying Fish, and returned to Londonin October, 1721. His book, written soon after he returned,is a valuable companion picture to that ofByron: both were straightforward narrators of the90experiences upon the West Coast of young navalofficers engaged in their duty of “cruising upon andannoying the enemy” in the closed waters of theSouth Seas, at a time of extreme interest in worldaffairs. Betagh’s descriptions show that he had aneye for scenery, as when he said of Coquimbo that it“stands on a green rising ground about ten yards high,which nature has formed like a terrace, north and southin a direct line of more than a mile. The first streetmakes a delightful walk, having the prospect of thecountry round it and the bay before it. All this issweetly placed in a valley ever green and watered witha river which having taken its rise from among themountains, flows through the vales and meadows in awinding stream to the sea.”

The Loss of the “Wager”

Spain being again at war with England in 1740,Commodore Anson was sent to the Pacific, as Vernonto the Atlantic, colonies of Spain on exactly the sameprinciple as had prevailed in Elizabeth’s day—totouch the enemy in one of his tenderest spots.

The authority under which they sailed was notquestioned; the rule of conduct on both sides was thatof the “gallant enemy.” Britain’s Caribbean possessionsdate from that series of raids.

Lord Anson sailed from England in September,1740, with the flagship Centurion, and the warshipsGloucester, Pearl, Severn, Tryal and Wager, with twostore-ships. The mission of the fleet was to harry theSpaniards in the Pacific, and the route was round theHorn. But when Anson reached Juan FernandezIsland in June, 1741, but three vessels remained, andhis available crew was reduced from 1000 to 335.

91Nevertheless he harassed the coast, and capturedPaita; but was forced to sink two unseaworthyvessels, collecting the remainder of the crew on theCenturion, and remained cruising about the Pacificuntil in June, 1744, he took one of the treasure-shipson her way from Mexico with enormous wealth onboard, and sailed home with the spoils. He is saidto have brought back more than a million pounds’ worthof gold, and to have entered port with a big goldenSpanish candlestick tied to every yardarm of his ship.

Of the Wager’s fate Anson did not know for severalyears; this vessel was cast away on an island off SouthChile, a number of the crew escaping in various ways.The loss of the Wager and the subsequent fate of hercrew not only forms a moving and almost incrediblestory with which Chilean colonial life is interwoven,but had a lasting effect upon international maritimelaw. For, following the desertion of the captain bythe insubordinate leaders in the Speedwell longboat, anact of Parliament was passed which made such conductmutiny in the eyes of justice. Until that time the payof a crew ceased when their ship was wrecked, and theythen had no employers nor commanders and the officers,in consequence, were without technical authority,although in practice this control was almost invariablyconceded.

The Wager was an old East Indiaman. She set saildeeply laden with repairing gear and stores for thesquadron, and was in no condition to withstand thefierce buffeting of the South Seas. She lost a mastafter passing Le Maire Strait, failed to regain touchwith the squadron, and while hastening in the teethof terrible weather to reach the rendezvous at SocorroIsland, south of Valdivia, she was wrecked off a desolateisland lying between 47 and 48 degrees of south latitude.92The names of Wager and Byron Islands, in thesouth of the Gulf of Peñas, commemorate the shipwreckand struggle for life of the survivors, and thename of that single-hearted and clear-headed midshipman,young John Byron, who wrote an accountof the affair forty years afterwards, when he had becomea Commodore of George IV’s fleet.

The wreck occurred on May 14, 1741. About 140men of the crew and marines, the captain and officers,got ashore, were able to save a certain amount of saltpork, flour, wine, etc., from the Wager, but foundnothing on the island that could serve as food but wildcelery, the shell-fish of the wave-battered rocks, and afew sea-birds. Indians who visited them occasionally,almost as badly off as themselves, bartered a few mangydogs and, once, three sheep, for ship’s merchandise, butboth shelter and food were insufficient; rains and violentweather were continual, and to make matters worsequarrels broke out, a party withdrawing themselvesfrom the authority of the captain, who alienated manyothers when he shot a turbulent midshipman. Fortymen were dead, from drowning or their sufferings onthe island, before a means of escape was ready withthe repair and lengthening of the Wager’s longboat.In this little vessel Captain Cheap proposed to makehis way north until he could fall in with and seizea coasting ship of the Spaniards, a capture which wouldpermit him to search for and rejoin Anson’s squadron.But the disaffected crew, led by the carpenter andgunner, who had borrowed and taken to heart the bookof Voyages of Narborough, now declared their intentionof going south and making for Magellan’s Strait.The captain objected, was made prisoner, and at thelast moment was left behind, with a lieutenant ofmarines and the surgeon, when the ringleaders realised93the scant accommodation of the Speedwell. Byron,who had gone on board believing that all the survivorswere being taken off, returned to his captain, with afew other men, in the barge. They had nothing toeat but sea-weed, fried in the tallow of candles, andwild herbs; there were no more shell-fish, and all theparty were extremely weak; but the captain decided toattempt a northward journey and the starving menbegan to mend as well as they could the barge and littleyawl left to them. A number of the first desertersfrom the nearby lagoon now rejoined them, and a totalof twenty finally embarked on December 15. Encounteringrain, cold and adverse winds, they crawledalong the rocky, wooded and broken coast, frequentlybeing forced to lie upon their oars all night, since theheavy breakers prevented a landing for rest and shelter.The yawl was sunk when they tried to round the headlandof Tres Montes Peninsula, and hereabouts theywere forced, since the barge could carry no more, toleave on shore four marines, giving them arms and whatother provisions they could; these plucky men stoodto watch the barge out of sight, giving three cheers andcalling out “God Save the King.” With that gesturethey disappeared from history, for when the bargehad to put back again, and search was made for themarines, no trace was found but a musket thrownupon the beach.

Now and then they found a seal, and feasted; orberries, and lived for days upon them; and after twomonths of incessant struggle were driven back to thescene of the wreck. Here they were in the utmost extremities,and all must have died of starvation had notan Indian chief from the Chonos Islands, in contactwith the Spanish and bearing the wand of office, visitedthe place a fortnight later. To him they offered94the barge if he would conduct them to a Spanish settlement,and a few days later the thirteen English andthe Indian “Martin” with his servant embarked, steeringnorth. Some days later six men took the bargeand deserted, and thenceforth the party made theirway in an Indian canoe, with frequent portages, throughthe broken and inhospitable Chonos country. Byronspeaks warmly of the kindness shown by Indian womento him, and his notes upon the country and the customsof the wild folk are of great interest; but thejourney was terrible, and the surgeon soon succumbedof starvation. The only person to whom the Indianmen showed respect was Captain Cheap, whose naturehad become “soured,” as the loyal but plain-spokenByron permitted himself to remark, and who was carelessof the misery of his companions. Starving and inrags, covered with vermin, and exhausted with theconstant work of rowing, they arrived at length at anisland ninety miles south of Chiloé, and traversed thefinal stretch of water in the crazy canoe. Once uponChiloé their worst wretchedness was over: the ChiloteIndians “vied with each other who should take themost care of us,” fed them well, laid sheepskin bedsby a blazing fire and went out at midnight to kill asheep for their food. Next day women came from farand near to see the shipwrecked strangers, each bringing“a pipkin in her hand, containing either fowls ormutton made into broth, potatos, eggs or other eatables,”and Byron says that they did nothing but eatfor the best part of the day, and in fact, all the timethey stayed upon the island. The Spanish corregidorat Castro sent for them, and a formidable escort ofsoldiers with drawn swords, led by four officers, solemnlyconducted them to the town, where their appearancemade a great sensation. They were imprisonedin a Jesuit college for a week, and then taken to the Governor,being treated with consistent goodwill; when,some time later, this official, a Chilean-born, made hisusual tour of the island he took his English prisonerswith him. During the second sojourn in Castro youngByron was offered the hand of the pretty and accomplishedniece of a rich priest; but excused himself, althoughsorely tempted by an offer of a piece of newlinen to be made up into clothes to replace his rags.On January 2, 1743, the party were embarked upon aSpanish vessel bound for Valparaiso; the ship wascountry-built, of 250 tons, and was 40 years old, carryinga Spanish captain and Indian seamen. At Valparaisothey were put into prison, and would havefared badly but for the native kindness of the Chileans,who brought them food and money, their jailer spendinghalf his own daily allowance to buy wine and fruitfor them.

95When the President of the Audience in Santiago,Don José Manso, sent for them to the capital, theywent with a mule-train over the beautiful hills andplains, and, arriving in the city, the four officers (CaptainCheap, Hamilton, Campbell and Byron) were permittedto live in the house of a Scots physician, PatrickGedd. Of the next twenty-four months Byron speakswith the appreciation of all travellers to whom Chileanshave opened their hearts. Nor, indeed, were the Spanishofficials unfriendly, for as it happened severalSpaniards who had been taken prisoner by Anson inthe Centurion, and set free, came to Santiago, and spokewarmly of the excellent treatment they had received.

Santiago, after the miseries of the Golfo de Peñas,appeared delightful to the young midshipman; hespeaks of tertullias and bull-fights, country excursions,the fine fruit and agreeable women, and altogether he96seems to have given and received such pleasant impressionsthat one must regard him as one of the firstBritish diplomatic agents to Chile. The fact that theWager had come on a hostile expedition, although thehostility was directed against Spain, perhaps added ashade of romance. When the party had been twoyears in Chile, the President gave them permission toembark in a French ship bound for Spain, and on December20, 1744, Byron, Hamilton and Captain Cheap(Campbell electing to remain in Chile) set sail in theLys frigate, the same vessel in which the distinguishedDon Jorje Juan also travelled. Calling in at Concepción,or rather the port Talcahuano, they joinedthree other French vessels, the Louis Erasme, Marquisd’Antin and the Delivrance. The Lys now sprung aleak, returned for repairs to Valparaiso, while the threeother vessels, proceeding, fell into the hands of Englishmen-of-war.

The Lys put to sea again on March 1, 1745, afterexperiencing an earthquake in Valparaiso Bay, androunded Cape Horn; was chased by English ships nearPorto Rico, but got away to Santo Domingo. Thencethey sailed again in August, sheltered by a Frenchnaval squadron of five ships, and finally reached Brestat the end of October. Here of course, with Franceand England now at war, the three Englishmen wereprisoners, but were shortly allowed to cross to Dover.Byron’s money only allowed him to hire a horse forthe London road; he had to ride hard through theturnpikes to escape payment and could afford no food.When he reached London the house of his family, ofwhom he had not heard a word for over five years,was shut, and it was only through remembering anearby linen-draper that he got the address of his sisterand hurried to her house in Soho Square, where the97porter tried to shut the door upon his “half-French,half-Spanish figure.”

The narrative published in London in 1743 by JohnBulkeley and John Cummins, respectively the gunnerand carpenter of the Wager, tells the story of the longboatand cutter and of the eighty men who went southin those two craft. Bulkeley and Cummins seem tohave been as bold and wordy a pair of sea-lawyers asever trod a deck, and one cannot but sympathise withthe lieutenant who represented them “in a very vilelight” on their return home; but the relation has itsplace in history, carefully doctored as the journal ofevents appears to be.

Setting out on the morning of October 14, 1741, thelongboat Speedwell carried fifty-nine men, the cuttertwelve and the barge ten; the latter returned northwardon the 22nd, and the cutter was destroyed among rocksearly in November, with the loss of a seaman. The Speedwellwas now alone, with seventy-two men in her, facingthe cruel gales and the cold south as she crept with sailand oar towards Cape Pillar. On November 8, elevenmen, exhausted with the struggle and seeing the boatoverloaded, were set ashore at their own request, afterBulkeley had made them sign one of the documentswhich no dangers nor trials made him omit. On the10th they believed that they identified the four Islandsof Direction spoken of in Narborough’s book, by whichthey sailed, but lost their way when within the channelsand suffered terribly from cold, rain and hunger,three men dying of starvation on November 30. Inorder to ascertain their true position they decided atlength to return west to Cape Pillar, found it on December5, and turned east once more. Now and againthey found Indians who traded dogs to the starvingcrew, who thought the flesh “equal to the best mutton”;98two more men died of want on the 8th and 9thand although droves of guanacos were sighted off theNarrows, they could not shoot any. A month laterthere were but fifteen men in reasonably good condition,but they had managed to row and sail the boatout of the Strait, were off the Patagonian coast,and were able to kill seals and get fresh water. OnJanuary 14 a party went ashore for food, and heavyseas drove the Speedwell from the coast, eight menbeing left behind; this was about 200 miles belowBuenos Aires. On the 20th they were seen and givenfood by cattlemen on the Uruguayan coast, and reachedRio Grande (do Sul, in South Brazil) on the 28th.Several other men had died on the northward journey,and the survivors were starving when the hospitablepeople of Rio Grande opened their houses to them.

Here they remained until March 28, when Bulkeley,Cummins, and eleven others got a passage to Rio,while Lieutenant Beans tarried with the rest of themen for the next north-bound ship. From Rio thefirst party got on board a ship bound for Bahia andLisbon, transhipping thence for England and arrivingat Spithead on January 1, 1743. Before then, however,the Lieutenant and his men had reached home,on board an English vessel, and the Lords of the Admiraltyawaited the sea-lawyers with a score of grimquestions as to mutiny, desertion, etc., and with littleregard for the romantic tale of the longboat. But asthe record of a journey made in an open boat amongstthe cruel rocks and currents of the Magellanic region,the story is probably unparalleled.

Juan and Ulloa

Amongst “Strangers on the Pacific Coast” duringthe eighteenth century should also be included the two99Spanish naval officers, Don Antonio Ulloa and DonJorje Juan, who left such valuable records in their“Voyage to South America” and in the highly illuminating“Secret Notices” presented to the King ofSpain which were not published until many years later.Their place here is due to the fact, as they emphasisedin the “Noticias Secretas,” that by this time Spainand her colonies had grown far apart in feeling. Anative-born white population of “creoles,” as well as alarge undercurrent of mestizos and some mulattos, hadgrown up, and the stream of Spanish-born who cameto the country were frequently out of sympathetictouch. Spain felt this, and the commission of inspectionand report which the King added to the two officers’original duties shows how far the West Coast wasstill an unknown country.

Ulloa and Juan’s visit (1735–1745) was the result ofthe determination of the French Academy to settle thequestion of the shape of the earth by measuring twoarcs, one upon the equator line and the other as farnorth as it was possible to travel. Asia and Africaoffering no safe or conveniently approached region nearthe equator, the Academy applied to Spain for leaveto enter the province of Ecuador for this object, whilea second party went to Lapland. Consent was given,but with the proviso that Spanish officials should accompanythe expedition, and eventually choice fellupon Captains Antonio Ulloa and Jorje Juan, navalofficers already distinguished for their mathematicalability.

La Condamine had not completed his laborious taskin the highlands of the equator when news of Anson’snaval plans reached Peru, and the Viceroy sent hastilyto Quito for the two Spanish captains to aid in thedefence of the coast. From late 1740 to December,1001743, these duties occupied Ulloa and Juan, when theyreturned to finish certain measurements above Quito.During the interval they travelled in Peru and Chile,and the observations they made shed much valuablelight upon colonial conditions.

With scientific work at an end in 1744, the two officersprepared for return, embarking at Callao in separateships—Juan in the Lys and Ulloa in the Delivrance—sothat the chances were increased of one ofthem reaching Spain safely, war having broken outbetween France and England as well as continuing betweenEngland and Spain. The Delivrance, however,was caught by English men-of-war when she sailed intoLouisburgh Bay, Canada, unaware that the port hadfallen. Sent prisoner to England, Captain Ulloa arrivedat the end of 1745, and in London received thegreatest marks of respect from scientific men of theday, including the President of the Royal Society, ofwhich body he was made a member.[3] He was assistedto recover his impounded notes and scientific papersand was then permitted to return to Spain, in July,1746. His brother officer had arrived, in the Lys, atthe end of 1745.

3. Fellowship of the Royal Society was also extended to Captain Juanand both were elected members of the French Academy.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, the timehad passed when Spain could continue to exclude foreignersfrom South America. She had given way todemands for strictly limited trading, and the doorcould not again be shut.

Since the colonies of Spain wanted the blood andtechnical skill of young Europe, and young Europe constantlyroamed the earth for wealth and adventure, noedicts or penalties could prevent a constant infiltration101of adventuring persons upon the West Coast. Likelyyoung white men have, indeed, seldom been denied awelcome in new countries and whatever the Spanishauthorities might say the growing native-born populationsof Chile continued to beckon.

Resident Foreigners

From time to time orders were issued that foreignersshould be turned out of Chile; for instance, in April,1769, the Town Council of La Serena (Coquimbo)promulgated a royal edict that foreigners were toleave the country within thirty days under penalty ofthe confiscation of their property. However, this appliedonly to persons engaged in trade, mining, or thelegal profession, and to travellers, while such useful individualsas locksmiths and blacksmiths, tailors, bakers,cooks, mechanics, physicians and surgeons, were permittedto remain. Two Englishmen, Murphy andDenton, were among the persons told to leave thetown, while a couple of Italians, a Frenchman andPortuguese also fell under the ban. It is doubtfulwhether the edicts were more than temporarily pressedor obeyed, for as a matter of fact many foreigners livedupon excellent terms with the local authorities, and,liking their surroundings, were equally well regarded.Thirty years before this particular edict was issued,and which applied to all important Chilean towns,there was living in Santiago a prosperous Scots physician,who was on sufficiently good terms with theGovernor of Chile to obtain the keeping of the threeEnglish prisoners from the Wager.

Anglo-Saxon names in Chile, as a glance at anyChilean town directory shows, are too many for a satisfactorysurvey of their origin to be made in a few102pages. But the result of this amicable invasion isstrongly witnessed by the characteristics and qualitiesof the modern Chileno.

Some of the families have immense ramifications,and there are so many interlockings that a member ofa good Anglo-Chilean family is likely to possess cousinsthroughout the republic, as well as in the United Kingdomand possibly also in North America. There are,for instance, the branches and connections of the Edwardsfamily, descendants of that George Edwardswho came to Coquimbo on a British ship in 1804, leftit, and married the Señorita Isabel Osandon, whosefather was of Irish descent. Agustin, one of the threesons of this marriage, founded the Banco de A. Edwards,whose original headoffices were in Copiapó, theonce-splendid copper mining centre. The same AgustinEdwards promoted the Copiapó railway, marriedinto the great Ross family, and was the father of thedistinguished Chilean Minister at the Court of St.James, Don Agustin Edwards.

By a royal edict of 1808 all foreigners in Chile werelisted, the count resulting in a total of 79, among whomwere 16 Britons and 9 North Americans. This numberis probably far below the correct figures, the presenceof such persons being still illegal according toSpain. It was not until 1811 that permission was givenfor the brig Fly to bring a cargo of merchandise toChilean ports—similar permits having previously beengiven only to the French, when politically associatedwith Spain. John and Joseph Crosbie were the chiefadventurers of this shipload, and the bales of cottonand woollen cloth, the hardware and tools of Britishmake, were sold at such good prices that the supercargo,John James Barnard, presently returned withthe Dart, equally laden. On board was Andrew Blest103of Sligo, and both he and Barnard remained and marriedin the country.

Strangers and Independence

With the first dawn of the struggle for independencein the Spanish colonies of the New World, help camepromptly from across the Atlantic. The political aspect,promising a definite cessation of the anxieties andrestrictions that harassed Europe and offering the counterbalanceto which Canning trusted, was a matter forstatesmen; but it was the appeal to the spirit, the callfor help towards freedom, that touched popular imaginationand sent thousands of British volunteers acrossseas. Many of these men died; some returned home;and a large number remained in Latin America to formlinks that have proved invaluable on both sides of theworld.

The money sent to Spain’s lost colonies in early daysset the new-born countries upon their feet economically;the soldiers who flocked to Bolívar’s standard innorthern South America turned the scale of battle onmore than one occasion—the gallant Irish Legion isstill commemorated in Venezuela and Colombia; butit was to the Pacific that the largest number of volunteerswent, for not only were the armies of San Martínstrengthened by fighters, many of whom had seen usefulservice in Peninsular campaigns, but the effectamong seamen of the entry of Admiral Cochrane intothe conflict was that of a magnificent example to befollowed with enthusiasm. Cochrane created Chile’snavy; many of the British officers who followed himremained in Chilean naval service, the link betweenthe British and Chilean navies being sustained by thedescendants of these sailors as well as, officially, by104the instructors traditionally lent by the British Admiralty.

The first British naval officers to fight for Chile precededCochrane by some months. Actually the firstChilean fighting ship was the Aguila, captained byRaymond Morris in 1817; Captain O’Brien, commandingthe Lautaro, a converted East Indiaman, lost hislife in April, 1818, when the Spanish blockading ship,the Esmeralda, was driven from Valparaiso; CaptainWilkinson, who entered Valparaiso as master of anotherEast Indiaman, the Cumberland, loaded withcoal, sold her and entered the Chilean navy commandingthe vessel, renamed the San Martín.

Captain Morris commanded the Araucana when inOctober, 1818, Chile’s new little squadron went out toattack the big Spanish man-of-war, the Maria Isabella,lying with her transports in Talcahuano Bay, a brilliantlysuccessful exploit. A little later came the formerBritish brig Hecate, renamed the Galvarino andbrought by two British naval officers, Captains Spryand Guise, who also entered Chilean service. Aboutthis time also came a number of North Americans,chiefly those brought by José Miguel Carrera from theUnited States.

Miners, investors, buyers and sellers and shippingmen came in the wake of the fighters, and before 1850there was a strong foreign, and chiefly British, colonyat Valparaiso, with other groups at Santiago, Coquimbo,Copiapó and down south at Concepción. Thekindly Chilean character, the pleasant climate andlovely scenery, held the hearts of the strangers, a greatproportion remaining to identify themselves withChilean fortunes.

A stream of scientific men and travellers was directedto Chile in the early nineteenth century, performing105valuable work and leaving records; the listincludes the names of Poeppig, Darwin, de Bougainville,D’Orbigny, Mayen, the two Philippi’s, explorersof the Atacama desert, and Humboldt. There was alady, too, who has a place amongst travellers, artistsand writers of the first days of Independence, the gentleand acute Maria Graham, widow of one of Cochrane’sofficers, who eventually returned to England,became Lady Callcott and published a perenniallydelightful book of Chilean reminiscence.

Many explorers of the Chilean southerly regions didgood service, for here came the Challenger, with agroup of scientific men, and later the Adventure andthe Beagle, carrying King and Fitzroy and Darwin;these vessels and the succeeding Alert, with Coppinger,performed invaluable surveying work. Inland, a numberof such explorers as Musters, Viedma and Conway,preceded the official work of the Holdich Commission.Of recent years, no foreigner has owed more to Chilethan Shackleton; after the casting away of his shipand men upon Elephant Island in the Polar Seas, andthe failure of three attempts at rescue, it was the loanof the Chilean Government’s Yelcho that saved a scoreof gallant lives. But before the end of the nineteenthcentury the visitor to the Pacific Coast had ceased tobe a stranger, and in Chile the newcomer no longerfeels himself to be in a foreign land.

Escobar.—Aguirre.—Sarmiento.—European Corsairs.—Decayof Power

The history of the Tribunal of the Holy Office of theInquisition in Chile follows the familiar lines of thework in other countries, and is chiefly interesting inthe side-lights shed upon colonial life. The veil drawnover its acts during its period of activity was only liftedby the discovery, in the Archives of Simancas, of theInquisitors’ meticulously-kept records. The countsagainst the Tribunal do not include those of suppressingor distorting its own history.

The first great Inquisitor, Torquemada, died sixyears after the discovery of the West Indies by CristobalColón, and, under Pope Adrian VI, a branch wassoon established in the island of Española (Santo Domingo),with authority extended to Mexico as early as1524. It was not, however, until 1569 that the royalcedula of King Philip II opened all the Americas formallyto the Tribunal, although for many years previouslythe local dignitaries of various churches inSpanish America were delegates of the powerful functionsof the Inquisitors. As, for instance, when BishopLoaysa burnt the Flemish heretic Juan Millar at thestake in Lima in 1548; and as in the curious case ofAlonso de Escobar.

Escobar was a Spaniard of good family who came toPeru with the first conquistadores; he was a resident107of Cuzco when the two captains of Pedro de Valdivia,Monroy and Miranda, arrived, almost starving, fromthe camp of their leader to beg help, and he promptlylent 14,000 pesos to buy supplies and aided in raising anew force. He had been twenty-three years in theservice of the crown in the New World when somebodyhappened to hear him say, in the plaza of Santiago deChile in August, 1562, that he always listened whenFather Gil read the gospel, but shut his ears to themoral. Witnesses, old brothers-in-arms, admitted thathe said this, but a suggestion that it was a joke, andthat the listeners laughed heartily, was received coldly.Escobar added that the Father always abused the residentstoo much, and that he did not like the dictumthat Spaniards who killed Indians would go to hell.But the representatives of the Inquisition found thathe was guilty of Lutheranism, that his goods should beconfiscated, that he should suffer imprisonment, etc.Escobar protested, asked for a “lettered person” tohelp in his defence, and the end seemed to be reachedwhen the Fiscal reduced the sentence to the paymentof costs. But the militant Father Gil objected to aspersionsupon his loyalty made in the course of thetrial, and a series of quarrels followed, resulting in theexcommunication of the judge, another priest, and thelawyer Molina. When the scandal took, presently,the form of a contest between different ecclesiasticalOrders, we find a new list of twenty-five excommunicatedpersons, including the Lieutenant-Governor, abishop-elect, a number of friars, and a couple of Negros.When the monks set upon and beat a notary, thebrother of Molina assaulted a monastery, and laterMolina, imprisoned, escaped and fled to Concepción,while most of the other disputants carried their loudcomplaints to Lima.

108The case of Francisco de Aguirre is more tragic. Atrusted captain of Valdivia’s, he was the founder ofLa Serena (elder sister of Coquimbo) and was afterwardsin charge of the expedition sent across the Andesand into the present Argentina, by way of Tucumanand Santiago del Estero, the most cruel desert thateven these hardened explorers had encountered. Asthe wretched party made its way towards the Spanishsettlement already existing on the Atlantic border, atLa Plata, mutineers seized Aguirre one day, and, apparentlynot daring to kill him, pretended that theyacted for the Inquisition. To the Bishop of La Platathey presently handed him over, and as this worthythought that the newly discovered provinces might aswell be governed by a protégé of his own, he kept theconquistador in jail while formal charges were arranged.At the end of three years ninety countsagainst Aguirre’s Christianity had been made: amongstthem, the accusation that he had said that if he ruledover a republic where there lived a cleric and a blacksmith,and he was obliged to exile one of them, he wouldsend away the cleric. He had also said that little menmight fear excommunication, but he didn’t; and thathe was not convinced of the efficacy of prayer, becausehe once knew a man who prayed much and yet wentto the nether world. He was sentenced, in additionto the imprisonment, now declared just, to do penancein Tucuman church, and to pay a fine of 1500 pesosensayadas. Probably to save trouble, the old soldieragreed to confess his guilt and to do penance, and wasable to secure the privilege of performing it in LaPlata, instead of Tucuman, by the payment of another500 pesos. The authorities then wrote to the Kingan account of the case, and suggested that Aguirrewas no fit person to rule Tucuman. But before this109letter reached Spain a royal order had arrived in LaPlata, appointing Aguirre as Governor of the provinceshe had discovered, and as soon as he could equipa small expedition of 35 men who came to his bannerthe pioneer set out. He had not gone far when theBishop sent a priest after him, ordering him to returnto face new charges. Aguirre answered that now hewas in “tierra larga”—open country—and going upto the cleric and looking him straight in the face, heasked him, “If I killed a priest, what punishmentshould I get?” With blanched face and hurried feetthe cleric went back. But the troubles of Aguirrewere not over. The hand of the Inquisition was stillover him. He was eventually processed again, imprisonedfor five years, deprived of the remainder ofhis fortune and of his Governorship, and when releasedmade his way back to the beautiful bay where stoodLa Serena of his own foundation. He had lost threesons, a brother and three nephews, in the King’sservice, was a valiant and loyal pioneer, and died poorand lonely through the Tribunal’s enmity.

The continuous petty persecution of another greatpioneer, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, forms a curiouschapter in the story of the Inquisition, but in this casethe protection of the Viceroy Toledo, and the strongcharacter and invaluable services of the man attacked,outweighed the views of the Inquisitors. Sarmiento’shistorical studies, surveying and sea-discoveries inSouth Chile give him high rank among the Spaniardsin the New World, but his scientific bent was hereticalin the eyes of the Church. The event bringing Sarmientounder the suspicious eye of the Inquisitors wasthe death of the Viceroy, the Conde de Nieva, murderedin a street in Lima in February, 1564. His successorLope de Castro was active in the investigation of the110mysterious affair, and Sarmiento, who had been anintimate of the house, was presently accused, not ofcomplicity, but of knowledge of witchcraft. He hadtalked to a woman servant of the dead Count about amagic ink which made the writer of a letter beloved bythe recipient: he had two rings engraved with astrologicalcharacters. Sarmiento’s confessor had seen andguaranteed the harmlessness of the rings, but this didnot save him from a sentence of naked penance in Limacathedral, banishment from the Indies, and, until hisdeparture, imprisonment in a monastery. Sarmientocomplied with the penitential part of the decree, butappealed to the Pope and obtained a commutation ofthe banishment order. A few years later his discoveryof the Solomon Islands added so much to his renownthat upon the arrival of the new Viceroy, Francisco deToledo, in 1569, Sarmiento was received with greatdistinction, accompanying the ruler’s official visitthroughout Peru and subsequently writing a Historyof the Incas. In 1572 the Inquisition again accusedhim of black magic in connection with the two rings,pronounced him a dangerous person and re-ordainedhis banishment. At the moment he was fightingagainst Indian tribes of the Andean forests, and theViceroy told the Inquisitors that he required his services;but they came forward presently with an accusationthat he had foretold deaths by the lines on hishand. He was declared guilty, imprisoned in 1575, andonly released upon the insistence of the Viceroy. Sarmientowas no doubt chiefly suspect because he was ascientific man of penetrating mind, and, though his ownwritings show that he was a devout son of the Church,the fact that he was an author rendered him dangerous.Forty years previously a royal decree (August, 1534)had prohibited shipment to the Indies of any books111other than those dealing with the Christian religion andvirtue, so afraid was Spain of any ideas reaching theColonies. A letter from the King to the Casa da Contrataciónin Seville protested: “I have been informedthat many books of romances are sent to the Indies,profane and foolish histories like that of Amadis andkindred productions; this is a bad practice for theIndians, and the kind of thing which they should notread nor be occupied with.” It was with the sameperfectly genuine and logical desire to maintain a deadlevel of thought and conduct that, shortly after theabove decree was promulgated, a rule was enforced thatno sons or nephews of people who had been burnt aliveby sentence of the Inquisition, and no converted Jews,Moors, or other proscribed persons or “New Christians”should go to the Indies.

European Corsairs

The economical as well as intellectual fences putround the New World colonies of Spain were threatenedmost terrifyingly by the bold raids of corsairs. Preservationof these barriers demanded severe treatment of suchpersons as were caught in piratical attempts, the Inquisitionacting in full accord with the civil authoritieswhen, for instance, in the auto da fé held in Lima in1592, four English sailors captured after the wreck oftheir ship off the island of Puna (at the entrance toGuayaquil) were paraded. Walter and Edward Tillertwere imprisoned for five years before their execution;their companion Oxley was burnt alive after four yearsin the jails of the Holy Office; but the life of the eighteen-yearMorley was saved when he was permitted to be aconvert to Roman Catholicism—a grace denied hisolder associates, as the Inquisitors suspected the112genuineness of the change of heart experienced by menin the shadow of the torture chamber.

John Oxenham, friend of Drake, captured by a curiousaccident in Panama, was hanged in Lima withseveral of his sailors, their English heresy adding auseful weapon to the hand of the enemy.

A group of Dutch corsairs was brought before theInquisition in 1615. These men were taken at the portof Papudo, having arrived with the fleet of AdmiralSpilbergen, naval supporter of the Count Maurice ofNassau, whose wise rule was chiefly responsible for theDutch hold upon North Brazil enduring for thirtyyears. The Spilbergen voyage is part of the story ofHolland’s plans for overseas dominions in the Americas,and one of the strokes of fate by which outpostsof a nearly-won empire were successively lost.

Possession of the great territory of Brazil by thePortuguese across the Andes, and cheek by jowl withsome of the most cherished of the Jesuit Missions, wasanother thorn in the flesh of the Spanish and a constantcause of complaint by the Holy Office. Records of theInquisition complain that the Portuguese were responsiblefor the decay of religious feeling in the Indies: theywere tolerant to Jews, allowed many to enter Americanregions, and themselves took possession of the commerceof the Pacific coast. All the shops and businesseswere in the hands of Portuguese or Portuguese Jews,says one complaint, declaring that these shopkeepersrefused to sell goods on Saturdays. With all thistrouble on account of outsiders, the Inquisition had itshands full with native-born offenders, and did not sparethem. There is the case of Father Ulloa and his privatesect; and that of two sisters of Santiago who accusedtheir brother of Judaism, and ultimately, after a tremendousprocess, sent him to the stake. Vicuña113Mackenna relates another story of the debt owing toone Manuel Perez, also of Santiago. This Perez wasburnt alive at Lima in 1639, but before his death toldthe Inquisitors that Martinez Gago of Santiago, amerchant, owed him a few thousand pesos. The Inquisitorssent to demand the money, but, finding thatthe debtor was already dead, placed an embargo uponthe goods of his father-in-law and proceeded againstthat unlucky man. Then arose a score of other creditorsof Gago, among them many influential clergy, and thestory proceeds in a tangle of processes, demands by thehaughty Comisario of the Inquisition in Santiago anddeportations to Lima.

But by the end of the seventeenth century the powerand prestige of the Holy Office had begun to wane, adecay due partly to the increase in its ranks of thenumber of native-born or “creole” officials. Posts hadfor long been a matter of personal privilege or commerce;but when local men of ambition bought officesalmost openly and proceeded to use them as instrumentsfor amassing a fortune, the Inquisition was laid opennot only to hatred and contempt but to attack. JoséToribio Medina remarks in his Historia del Tribunal delSanto Oficio de la Inquisicion en Chile (Santiago, 1890)that as a result of the lowered prestige of the HolyOffice, its members began to show “moderation,” even“humility,” as when the Commissioner in Chile, 1797,humbly asked Governor O’Higgins to help him tosecure the person of an accused man, who, living inChiloé, might find friends to resist the Inquisition. Thecases brought before the Tribunal abated to merecharges of witchcraft, and although the Inquisitorsformally objected, in 1786, to the scandal of the teachingof jurisprudence, history and chronology by Dr.José Lasterria, they had not been able to prevent the114opening of a school of mathematics in Santiago, in1759.

The last Commissioner of the Inquisition in Chile wasDr. José Antonio de Errázuriz y Madariaga, a native ofSantiago; his Treasurer, Judás Tadeo de Reyes y Borda,was also a Santiaguino who held the additional postof Secretary to the Governor of Chile. The ground wascut from under their official feet when the Congress of1811 voted that the funds and income of the Inquisitionshould be used for “other pious purposes,” this orderbeing cemented, despite the energetic objection of theTreasurer, when the Spanish Cortes of 1813 abolishedthe Tribunal in Spain and her colonies. The estatesbelonging to the Inquisition in Chile were some of thefinest of the Central Valley, and were calculated at avalue of over one and a half millions of pesos.

Upon the restoration of that extraordinarily shortsightedmonarch, Ferdinand VII, the Inquisition wasre-erected in 1814, and under this authority Tadeo deReyes collected about 1500 pesos in imposts, in 1815.This was the last purse of Chilean money handed to theTribunal, whose final abolition by the Spanish Cortesof March, 1820, was the tombstone of a body that hadlong lacked any spark of real life.

The existence and acts of the Tribunal appear, in thelight of today, grotesque as well as sinister; but it iswell to remember that not only was the age in which itflourished a period when life was held cheap and religiouspassion ran high, but that even in the comparativelyemancipated atmosphere of South America theInquisition was not universally unpopular. On thecontrary, the citizens of the Colonies in more than oneregion appealed to Spain to set up a branch, with a viewto correction of the loose life of the ordinary clergy aswell as to punish heresy in an untutored pioneer community.115This work was undoubtedly performed withzeal: scores of the Chilean and Peruvian cases takenbefore the Tribunal had to do with the chastity of thepriesthood, and irregular and coarse living on the part ofresidents. It cannot be said that the work of the Inquisitionbanished licentiousness from the Colonies, butthe way of the sinner was made harder.

The First Navigators: Magellan, Sebastian del Cano,Loaysa, Alcazaba.—Sarmiento.—The City ofPhilip.—Cavendish.—Port Famine and PuntaArenas.

Thinking of Chile, one sees a picture of southernorchards and wheat fields, of cattle pastures, of pineforests; of copper mines in the inhospitable heights ofthe mountains; or perhaps of the great, burning nitratepampas of the north. Rarely is a thought givento the southernmost city in the world, Punta Arenas,with its tributary sheep-raising plains, its beech woodsand fisheries, coal and gold mines, and its extraordinaryrise from misery to immense wealth in the courseof a few years.

Nobody, probably, could have wrested wealth fromsuch a region but the people whose attention wasdrawn to it after the discovery that much-abused Patagoniawas a fine sheep-raising region. It was the hardyFalkland Islander, hailing from the islands north andwest of the Scottish coast, who made, and speculatedon, this chance, invading the plains and grassy hillseast of the Andes after he had staked out WesternPatagonia, and adding Tierra del Fuego presently tohis conquests. He was swiftly followed by energetictraders and by another sheep-herding mountaineer, theJugo-Slav; between them they have done what the117unfortunate Spanish settlers of Pedro de Sarmientocould not do: they have created a city in the wilderness,strongly-rooted, sturdy, with the spring of lifefrom within.

The tale of settlement of the Straits of Magellan,today an accepted achievement, is built upon gallantryand tragedy. The thriving regions of Patagonia andMagellan Territory have been erected upon the ashesof the most cruel suffering.

The efforts of the Spanish crown to find a way tothe golden East by way of the West which led to thediscovery of the Strait of Magellan were but extensionsof the hunt for Cathay that inspired the greedyfanatic Cristobal Colón. He died asseverating that hehad found the coast of the Indies, and although themore level-headed navigators knew better the eyes ofSpain continued to be fixed upon a route to the SpiceIsles rather than upon the Americas per se. Reachedfrom the west, Spain could lay an anti-Portugueseclaim by virtue of the famous Bull of Pope AlexanderVI of May 4, 1493, which, placing a line 100 mileswest of the Azores, acknowledged all discoveries eastwardas Portuguese and all westward as Spanish.

Fernão de Magalhães, as Captain-General, with EstevanGomez as Chief Pilot, sailed in the Trinidad, of110 tons, from San Lucar on September 12, 1519.Four other smaller vessels completed the expedition ofdiscovery—the San Antonio, the Victoria, the Santiago,and the Concepción. The latter was commandedby Gaspar de Mendoza, with, as master, Sebastian delCano, destined to be the first circumnavigator of theglobe. Magellan, Portuguese-born, shipped a largenumber of his countrymen in defiance of the orders ofthe King of Spain; Sebastian del Cano, a Basquehidalgo, took eight other Basques in the Concepción.118Quarrels quickly broke out, and an outbreak off thePatagonian coast resulted in the murder of Mendoza,the execution of Quesada, the marooning of anothercommander and a too-active priest. The Santiago hadbeen lost at the entrance of the Santa Cruz River, andwith the remaining personnel and vessels captained tohis own liking, Magellan proceeded south.

On October 21 he sighted and named the Cape ofEleven Thousand Virgins, at the opening of the Strait.Here Estevan Gomez, now on board the San Antonio,overpowered the captain and persuaded other menequally disapproving of Magellan’s actions to turnback; they sought, vainly, the men marooned at SanJulian, and sailed back to Spain. Meanwhile Magellannavigated the stormy waters of the Strait, emergedinto the boisterous Pacific, made for the Philippinesand there was killed in a native feud; the slaughter ofthirty-nine others of the expedition made it necessaryto get rid of another vessel, the Concepción, while thetwo remaining vessels made their way to the covetedSpice Islands. Here magnificent cargoes of spice werebartered from the Kings of Tidore and Gilolo, and,leaving the leaking Trinidad to be careened, Sebastiandel Cano after building storehouses for spices at Tidore,sailed on westward in the little Victoria andreached San Lucar as the first circumnavigator of theglobe.

Del Cano with thirty-five men were the chief survivors,for the Trinidad never returned, and only afew of her crew reached Spain years afterwards. Itwas to find her and rescue the members of the expeditionleft in Tidore that the second expedition to MagellanStraits was despatched. The great merits ofSebastian del Cano as organizer and navigator were,meanwhile, greatly applauded in Spain, and the coat119of arms granted bore a globe as crest, with the mottoPrimus circumdedisti me.

Portugal was roused by the exciting story of theVictoria’s feat and her return laden with cinnamon,cloves, nutmegs, mace and sandalwood. To understandthe feeling roused it is necessary to rememberthe extent to which mediæval Europe was dependentupon spices for rendering foods palatable. Sugar wasnot then in general use, and honey, scarce and expensive,was the chief sweetener. Meat was preservedwith salt, and its untempting quality was redeemed byEastern spices. Puddings were saturated with the sameheavy aromatics; wearing apparel and beds were perfumedwith them. It is a taste that has yielded beforethe skill of the distiller and the synthetic chemist, andthe general development of a “sweet tooth,” but itwas sufficiently enthusiastic during the Middle Agesto warrant international disputes.

Following Sebastian del Cano’s exploit, therefore,need for a decision as to the ownership of the Moluccasbecame acute: finally, the King of Portugal andCharles I of Spain arranged the Conference of Badajosto settle the matter, taking the evidence of the bestnavigators, cartographers and pilots. Meetings beganin early 1524, continued for five years without result,and were ended when Charles V sold his claim inApril, 1529, to the Portuguese for 350,000 ducats.This sale worked a hardship upon the plucky Spaniardsengaged in trying to uphold the Spanish flag inthe Islands, for meanwhile a new expedition under theComendador Garcia de Loaysa, with Sebastian delCano as second in command, was fitted out to followthe same course as Magellan’s to the Spice Isles and torescue the survivors of the Trinidad. They set sail120from Coruña in July, 1524, reached Cape Virgins inJanuary, encountered the usual terrible gales off theStrait, lost a ship, and saw tall Patagonians, dressedin guanaco skins, with headdresses of ostrich (rhea)plumes. They noted the laurel-like leaves of Winter’sBark, with its sweet scent. In bad condition, with thesmall boats destroyed, they went north to the SantaCruz River; repaired them, returned to the Strait,and finally got out into the Pacific in May, 1526. Besidesthe wreck of the Santi Spiritus they had nowbeen deserted by two other ships, so that only the flagshipVictoria, the caravels Lesmes and Parrel and thepinnace Pataca reached the South Sea. Of these, thePataca found her way to Mexico, and the Lesmes disappeared.

Broken down by hardships, Loaysa died at sea onJuly 30; and six days later the great navigator Sebastiandel Cano also died. When the survivors reachedthe Moluccas at the end of the year they had buried40 men in the Pacific since leaving the Strait, 105 remainingto carry on unsupported contest against thePortuguese in the islands. In 1532, when the abandonmentof the Spanish claims was definitely known,the Spaniards surrendered to their rivals and a fewsurvivors did eventually get back to Spain, includingthe able captain Andres de Urdaneta, whose carefulreport was made to the king.

The next expedition to the stormy Strait was thatof Simon de Alcazaba, a Portuguese navigator in theservice of Spain who asked for and obtained a grant ofland in what is today South Chile. The territory ofwhich he was nominally made Governor was to commenceimmediately south of the strip allotted to theAdelantado Diego de Almagro, Nueva Estramadura,121and to extend 300 leagues. Alcazaba’s grant includedthe present Argentine Patagonia, and was called NuevaLeon; the narrative of the Veedor Alonso has beenpreserved and tells of the misfortune, crime and sufferingthat seemed to pursue every expedition to thetroubled waterways.

With two ships, Alcazaba set sail from San Lucar inSeptember, 1534, reaching the entrance of the Straitfour months later; the weather was threatening, soafter stocking up with 300 penguins they sailed northto parallel 45, and anchored in the Puerto de Leones,which Alcazaba considered as in the middle of his landgrant, and from which he proposed to march overland.They started on March 9, marched some thirty-sixmiles in inhospitable country “desert and uninhabited,where we found neither roots nor herbs to use as food,nor fuel to make a fire, nor water to drink.” TheGovernor, stout and old, had to turn back with a captain,while the rest went on until having marched 300miles in twenty-two days, with nothing but desert stillin sight, they decided to return to the ships. They hadlived on the roots of big thistles, wild celery and fish.

During the return journey two captains, Arias andSotelo, mutinied, and the expedition straggled back indisorder, losing more than fifty men on the way. Ariasand his friends reached the coast first, swam to theflagship, murdered the Governor and pilot, then seizedthe second ship and robbed both. Quarrels broke outbetween the two ringleaders, Arias wishing to turn theflagship into a roving privateer while Sotelo[4] preferredto go north and join, at the Plata, the expedition ofthe Governor Pedro de Mendoza; the loyalists wereable to turn the tables on them, retake possession ofthe vessels, and to appoint new officials. The latter122tried and sentenced the mutineers; some were hangedat the yardarm, others thrown overboard with weightsround their necks, and others “banished on shore forten years.” At last, with provisions exhausted, theyset sail in July for Brazil, reached Bahia, where a shipwas wrecked and eighty men killed by the natives, thesurvivors reaching Santo Domingo in September, 1535.So ended the first Spanish official attempt to colonisethe extreme south of Chile.

4. Founder of the City of Buenos Aires, 1535.

With the Spice Isles definitely abandoned, the routeto the “South Seas” discovered by Magellan was stillvaluable as offering an all-sea route to the coast ofPeru, and the next expedition was sent from Spain atthe instance of the Viceroy of Mexico, Antonio deMendoza, in 1539. At this time, and for many yearsto come, the chief route to Lima was by the fever andpirate infested Isthmus of Panama, and the vesselsseen in the Pacific were brought in pieces and set up,or, later, built of native timber, chiefly at Guayaquil.

The new mission was headed by Captain Alonso deCamargo, who lost his flagship in the first narrows ofthe Strait; another vessel lost touch, wintered in a bayof Tierra del Fuego, and then sailed back to Spain;Camargo succeeded in getting the remaining vesselthrough the storms of the Strait, and reached the Bayof Valparaiso at the time when Captain Pedro de Valdiviawas pushing south against the Araucanians. Buthe did not return to Spain, was killed in the Almagro-Pizarrofeuds, and the chief result of his journey seemsto have been discouraging; for a long time no attemptwas made by Spain to use the Strait. Juan deLadrilleros, sent in 1557 from Chile to examine theStrait from the Pacific side, discovered Chiloé and theChonos Archipelago and surveyed as far as Cape Virgins.Including the leader, but three men returned to123Valdivia to report to the Governor, Don GarciaHurtado de Mendoza.

Sarmiento

In 1579 the West Coast was electrified with the appearanceof Francis Drake in the Golden Hind, andwhen it was said that he had entered the Pacific byway of Magellan Strait the Spanish determined to fortifyand close the passage to all foreign vessels. Itwas still believed that south of the strait lay a greatcontinent, divided from Patagonia only by narrowwaterways.

With a view to shutting the channel, the Viceroy ofPeru, Francisco de Toledo, equipped an expeditionunder the command of Captain Pedro de Sarmiento deGamboa, to survey the southerly regions and sailthrough the Strait to Spain. Sarmiento was a fine seaman,with the discovery of the Galapagos Islands alreadyto his credit, an acute observer, good historian,and a tireless and resourceful leader. He remarks, inthe beginning of his narrative, that it was then “heldto be almost impossible to discover” the entrance fromthe Pacific side, “owing to the innumerable openingsand channels which there are before arriving at it, wheremany discoverers have been lost who had been sent bythe Governors of Peru and Chile.” Even the peoplewho entered from the North Sea (Atlantic) “neversucceeded. Some were lost, and others returned, sotossed about by storms and uncertain of what could bediscovered, that there was a general dread of that navigation.”The viceroy’s object now was to dispel thatfear, and to find the best means of closing the Strait;Philip II’s suggestion of a stout chain was no doubtconsidered.

124Two ships were selected and fitted; the crew of 112was collected with difficulty, for “nobody wished toembark, and many ran away and hid themselves,” butthe expedition set sail on October 11, 1579, from Callao.By November 11 they had sailed 573 leagues, and wereoff Chiloé; ten days later Sarmiento formally took possessionof land off what is today called Wolsey Sound;and, climbing to the top of a very rugged mountain,often found it easier to “go along the tops of the trees,from branch to branch, like monkeys” until, reachingthe top, they counted 85 islands in the broken archipelagobelow. Deserted by the second ship, Sarmientofound, in the flagship, Nuestra Señora de Esperanza, hisway into the Strait on Feb. 2, 1580, after much experienceof bad weather when surveying the westerly channels,and next day made another formal landing andproclamation of possession. They got into touch withIndians, who told them by signs of the visit of otherbearded strangers, probably the men of Drake’s threeships; it was not until February 9 that they encounteredthe big Patagonians of the east, users of the bow. Onthe 13th they passed Cape Froward and the Bay ofthe Natives, “Bahia de la Gente,” where the little riverSan Juan was named, and where two years later theill-fated City of Philip was founded. Sarmiento tookpossession and set up a cross at this spot, leaving a letterwith orders for the missing ship, the Almirante, incase she came that way.

125Six days later they passed the Second Narrows, and theFirst Narrows on Feb. 23, coming out of the Straiton the next day; they reached Spain, after a numberof adventures, on August 15. Here Sarmientoreported to the King of Spain, and it was determinedthat a well-provisioned fleet should be sent to the Strait,with stores, building materials, guns, and 100 marriedand single colonists, the former taking their familieswith them. Two forts were to be constructed in theFirst Narrows, each garrisoned with 200 soldiers. Withthe expedition also went the new Governor of Chile,Alonso de Sotomayor, taking 600 married and singlemen as settlers. Twenty-three vessels, carrying 3000people, comprised the imposing fleet that sailed fromSan Lucar on Sept. 25, 1581. Sarmiento himself wentas Governor and Captain-general of the Strait, withcommand over the forts and settlements; but untilthey arrived the chief authority lay with Diego Floresde Valdes, commanding the fleet, an unfortunate choiceon the part of the Crown, for Flores would not workwith Sarmiento, and seems to have been a coward. Theruin of the expedition was certainly attributable in partto his actions.

Ill luck dogged them from the start. A storm assailedthe fleet outside San Lucar, and five ships, with 800men, were lost; of these, 171 were settlers, out of 357who set out for the Strait. Another frigate was lost asthey left Cadiz on December 9, and on the voyage to Riode Janeiro, where they were to winter, 150 people died.During the fleet’s stay in Rio, from March to November,1582, another 150 died, and others deserted; anunseaworthy ship had to be sunk here, 16 vessels eventuallysailing south, in poor condition. A few dayslater a large ship, the Arriola, sank with 350 people andquantities of stores, and the Santa Marta followed her;and from this time Diego Flores almost openly triedto impede a farther voyage southwards. He insisted onleaving three ships, with soldiers, settlers and stores,behind at Santa Catalina Island; another vessel waslost on leaving the port; and the next loss of help wasoccasioned by Alonso de Sotomayor’s decision to disembarkat the River Plate and march overland to Chile,126instead of aiding with erection of forts and settlementsin the Strait. He took three ships and many of thediminishing stores intended for the new colony; andwhen the Strait’s entrance was reached at last therewere left only five vessels of the twenty-three that sailedfrom San Lucar. When strong winds and currents wereencountered, Diego Flores put his ship about andfrankly fled, signalling to the other ships to follow himback to Brazil. Arrived in S. Vicente (Santos) theyfound two of the three ships that had been left at CatalinaIsland, the Begoña having been sunk by Englishpirates, while the officials were openly selling theStraits stores in the town and the wretched intendedsettlers were bartering their clothes for food. Sarmientosaved what he could, was rejoiced to find four vesselsfresh from Spain with new provisions for the Straits,and, after Diego Flores had definitely refused to gosouth again (sailing north with a large quantity of provisionsand all the men he could induce to desert),Sarmiento left Rio on Dec. 2, 1583, with five vessels,and again set his course for the Strait. He reached theentrance on Feb. 1, 1584, met with fierce winds andcurrents, lost anchors and many cables, and was drivenout of the Strait again. The Indians of the mainland“made such a smoke that it concealed sea and land.”Nothing daunted, Sarmiento went ashore as soon as hecould anchor under the low land of the Virgins Cape,on February 5, taking a cross which they planted on a“large plain clothed with odoriferous and consolingherbs.” Soldiers, settlers and stores were landed, tents setup, 300 people housed; five springs of water were foundthree-quarters of a mile away, and the colonists beganto search for food, having little but mandioca flourfrom Brazil and a small amount of biscuit. They found“roots sweet and well-tasting, like turnips” and others127as pleasant as conserved pine nuts; and quantities ofsmall black berries, probably the fruit of the berberry(Empetrum rubrum) or the myrtle (Myrtus nummularia)that still abound on the mainland and islands ofthe region. The ephemeral settlement was bravelynamed the “City of the Name of Jesus,” with dueceremonies of sod-turning, and the burial of coins andwitnessed documents; an altar was set up and the litanysung by a procession. Streets and plazas were markedout by Sarmiento, and huts of grass and poles, earth-covered,built; beans, vines, fruit trees and seeds fromSpain were planted near the sweet springs. Meanwhilethe settlers had to subsist partly on the inadequatefish they could catch. The ships lying at the mouth ofthe Strait were a constant anxiety, driven out repeatedlyby gales, and at last the Trinidad ran ashore and waslost. Alarmed, the admiral, Diego de la Ribera, tookthree of the remaining four vessels and fled north, carryingthe remainder of the provisions, and many settlers.Ribera made no farewells and did not wait for theformal despatches of Sarmiento for the King; it wasa mean desertion of gallant countrymen.

Sarmiento rescued the stores from the Trinidad, putthe colony into a fair state of defence, with a rampart,arquebuses and guns, against the audacious nativeswho frequently attacked with arrows, and then sentthe remaining ship, the Maria, into the Strait with instructionsto make for Cape Santa Ana, while he tooka part of 100 soldiers by land to the same spot in orderto found a second settlement.

They set out on March 4; two weeks later theirtrack was to be followed by a party of thirty or fortyothers. It was a hard journey through utter wilderness,and Sarmiento remarks that in forty leagues they sawneither a human being nor signs of fire, although when128he had traversed the Strait on his voyage from Peruthe plains were full of smoke. They saw deer, skunks,and vultures, found berries, and at the coast obtainedshell-fish and edible sea-weed, but were short of freshwater, as the streams flow under the sands when approachingthe Strait; at the First Narrow Sarmientofound a suitable spot for a fort, with nearby pastureland “very pleasant to behold, with grass suitable forsheep” an observation which was proved correct threehundred years later. They noticed whales’ bones in abay beyond the first Narrow, and quantities of large,nourishing mussels.

Tall natives, naked, armed with bows and arrows andaccompanied by fighting dogs, met them near GregoryCape, pretended friendship, but later tried to ambushthe Spaniards. Several Spaniards were wounded, andone killed, but Sarmiento killed the Chief with a swordthrust and the attackers fled. After seventy leagues’marching they reached the wooded country, where the“small people” lived. But the expedition sufferedfrom hunger and fatigue, and several men, discouraged,ran away to the woods and were never seen again. OnMarch 24 the limping, half-starved party reached SantaAna and met the Maria’s boat, sent to look for them.The ship’s company were camped in a nearby bay.Here they found large deer, plenty of shell-fish that theystewed with “wild cinnamon” (Winter’s Bark), andsaw flocks of green parroquets. It was decided tofound the second settlement at this spot, and on March25, 1584, the formalities were carried out, the “tree ofjustice” was erected and the municipality was tracedout, and named the City of the King Don Felipe. Achurch was built; next, the royal storehouse, largeenough to hold 500 men, and the precious provisionssecured; they had but 50 casks of flour, 12 of biscuit,1294 of beans, and a little salt meat, dried fish and bacon.At the end of April, clay-coated huts were ready forthe approaching storms of winter; vegetable seeds hadbeen planted, the city palisaded and defended by 6guns, mounted on platforms. On May 25 Sarmientoembarked in the Maria with thirty men, arrived outsidethe City of the Name of Jesus on the same night,sent to and received messengers from it, but was drivenout to sea by a furious twenty-day storm before whichhe was forced to run north. He could not return, andreached Santos on June 25, with all food long exhaustedand the starving men, some of whom were blind andfrostbitten, gnawing their sandals and the leather ofthe pumps.

He left for Rio on July 3, got help from GovernorSalvador Correa and sent a ship laden with flour tothe Strait; went to Pernambuco and Bahia, where hisship was wrecked and he got ashore on a couple ofplanks. The Governor received him kindly, gave hima ship of 160 tons, and a load of mandioca flour, clothand provisions for the settlement. With this ship hesailed to Espirito Santo (Victoria Port), got dried beefand cotton cloth, and proceeded south in mid-January,1585, to visit his settlements. But in 33 degrees ofsouth latitude a frightful gale burst upon them, mostof the sheep, flour, etc., had to be thrown overboard,and the battered vessel made her way back to Rioafter fifty-one ruinous days, finding here, as a finalblow, the ship despatched to the Strait with flour inDecember, put back on account of terrible weather.At the end of his resources, and unable to get furtherhelp from the well-disposed Portuguese Governor, Sarmientodetermined to go to Spain to report; but onhis way he was captured (August, 1586) by the littlefleet of Sir Richard Grenville returning from Virginia,130and taken to England. Here he was received byQueen Elizabeth, who conversed with him in Latinfor two hours and a half, with Lord Burleigh, and wasspecially well treated by Lord Howard and Sir WalterRaleigh, who gave the old sailor a present of 1000 escudosand helped him to obtain a passport. He was,in fact, used most kindly, and probably carried conciliatorymessages to Philip II. But his ill-luck followedhim relentlessly; while crossing France in December,1586, he was imprisoned, and a big ransomdemanded. Sarmiento was compelled to appeal to theKing of Spain, and when the 6000 ducats and fourselect horses had been provided he was released, inOctober, 1589, grey-haired and crippled, after nearlythree years’ confinement in fetid dungeons “in infernaldarkness, accompanied by the music of toads and rats.”His first act was to make his report to the Crown, beggingfor help to be sent to the settlements in the Strait.

The City of Philip

But, long before Sarmiento was released from theFrench prison, none but ghosts walked in the City ofPhilip. Their fate would be wrapped in darkness hadit not chanced that in the year 1586 an English captainnamed Thomas Cavendish threaded the Strait, washailed from the shore by a half-naked band of eighteenpeople, of whom three were women, and picked upone Tomé Hernandez. This man afterwards made adeposition before the Viceroy of Peru, but this did notoccur until the year 1620, when all chance of rescuehad long passed. The statement of Hernandez, thensixty-two years old, displays no feeling; it is a matter-of-factnarrative, and it is remarkable that none of theinterrogatories put to him denote the least concern regarding131the fate of the settlers, but bore solely upontopographical points, questions of winds and currents,products of the regions, etc. But reading between thelines of the declaration, the tale is heart-rending. Itwas made by order of Don Francisco de Borja, Princeof Esquilache, the son of a canonised father, and himselfa poet, scholar, and excellent Viceroy, the founderof a college for noble Indians.

Hernandez gave an ingenuous and straightforwardaccount, from the soldier’s viewpoint, of the objectsand fortunes of the expedition, of the founding of theCity of Philip and the departure of Sarmiento to fetchthe colonists of the first settlement, an attempt fromwhich, so far as the settlers of the second city wereconcerned, “he never more returned,” as Hernandezsimply said. Two months after Sarmiento had gone,the people from Nombre de Jesus came to join theCity of Philip. It was then August, and they told ofthe storm that blew Sarmiento’s ship out to sea. Andresde Viedma was now in charge, and he tried to providefor the hunger of the settlers by organising 200soldiers into a band of shell-fish-hunters.

During all the winter and the following summerthey waited, hoping for help, and with no food but thewild berries and such sea-food as they could secure.Then they built two boats, and the survivors, fifty menand five women, started out towards the eastern endof the Strait. But, no sailors, they could not navigatewell, and one boat ran ashore and was lost; the survivingboat could not carry all the people, so some returnedto the City of Philip and the rest scattered alongthe shore to pick up shell-fish to preserve their livesduring the winter.

When summer came, Viedma assembled the survivors,fifteen men, and, astonishing witness to mental and132physical endurance, three women. “All the rest haddied of hunger and sickness.” They agreed to returnto the first settlement, as nearer possible rescue, andbegan to make their way by land, finding many deadbodies of their comrades by the way. Twelve milesbeyond Cape Geronimo they saw four ships, whichthey thought were Spanish, but which were actuallythe boats of Cavendish. A boat came off to thebeach, and the settlers were told the nationality of theships and offered a passage to Peru; the men on shorereplied that they were afraid of being thrown overboard,getting the response that they might well embark,as those on the ships “were better Christiansthan we were.” After some parleying Hernandez wastaken aboard, to Cavendish himself, who, upon hearingthat these folk were survivors of the settlement, saidhe would take them all in his vessels. But this, in theend, he did not do, taking advantage of the rare goodweather in the Strait to go to Penguin Island for birds,which he salted down in casks. He sailed thence tothe abandoned City of Philip, stayed there four daystaking on wood and water, and brought away the sixpieces of artillery that Sarmiento had placed there forthe colony’s defence. Storms met the ships at thewestern end, Valparaiso was missed in the fog, andwhen a landing was made at the port of Quintero,the rescued Hernandez was sent ashore to pretendto the Spanish that the ships were from Spain.But Hernandez gave secret warning to his kinsfolk,and next day when the English went ashore theywere ambushed, some being killed and others takenprisoner. The latter were sent to Lima and therehanged.

Cavendish has been blamed for leaving the survivorsof Sarmiento’s ill-fated colony in the Strait, but if any133excuse were needed besides the fact that he did notknow their desperate plight, it exists in the ungratefulconduct of the one man he took away, whose thankstook the form of sending a number of his helpers to thescaffold.

Of the fate of these last members of the large bandof settlers who had set out from Spain with such highhopes, we know only that in 1590 one man signalledto the Delight of Bristol, was taken on board, and diedon the way to Europe, without leaving his name orstory. But whether they died of starvation or weretaken into the roving camps of Indians, their bloodwas lost, although traces may have been mingled withthat of the natives, who were not invariably hostile.Hernandez, answering his questioners in Lima, statedthat for three months a Spanish woman, captured onthe seashore by the Indians, was kept by them, butthat then she was sent back. Savage nomads, perpetuallyshort of food, the Indians of the Straits hadnothing with which to hold nor help the unfortunateEuropeans.

Port Famine and Punta Arenas

A brief side-light is thrown upon the settlement bythe records of Cavendish’s expedition. He was in“King Philip’s Citie” on January 9, 1586, and gave itthe name of “Port Famine” by which the spot wasever afterwards known. The town was full of deadpeople, the bodies lying clothed in the houses, and theexplorations of his sailors resulted in finding only “musklesand lympits” for food, with a few small deer. In1600 the Dutchman, Oliver Noort, came this way andsaw Port Famine, but Purchas’ account says that“heere they found no footprints of the late Philip-Citie,now liker a heap of stones.”

134Yet today, a few miles to the northward, stands theprosperous city of Punta Arenas. Its sturdy existencejustifies, after three and a half centuries, Sarmiento’sbelief that this stormy region was neither unhealthynor unproductive, and that a colony of white mencould live there securely were it properly supported.

The Storm Centre.—Indeterminate Position of Tacna.—Peruand Chile.—Boundary Problem.—Guanoand Nitrate.—The War of 1879.—Treaties.—Appealto the League of Nations.—Discussions at Washington.

Tacna is the political storm centre of the PacificCoast of South America. It is a little province consistingchiefly of sun-bleached desert scored by a fewextraordinarily fertile valleys, lying north of the greatnitrate area of Tarapacá. It is tilted to the sea, thecoast range diminishing to a tawny cliff’s edge, andrises to long interior plains that merge into Andeanspurs, with the Bolivian province of Oruro just acrossthe snow-crowned mountain wall. The area is 23,000square kilometres; the population was estimated in1919 at 40,000, and counted as a thousand less in 1920,a diminution probably due to the departure of Peruvians.

This territory’s fate has been indeterminate sincethe close of the War of the Pacific, 1879–83, and withits fertile causes for agitation has been the focus ofendless quantities of argument emanating mainly fromthe former owner, Peru, to whom no solution is declaredto be satisfactory but the unqualified restorationof the province. The interest of Bolivia in thematter is also recognised: she has brought her need136for a new outlet to the Pacific before the League ofNations, although without result; and while there isforce in the reminder of Chile that Bolivia was ableto make little or no use of the Antofagasta littoralwhile in her possession, and that her great prosperitydates from the time when she lost it and obtained asa kind of solatium an efficient railroad, national prideurges a political group of La Paz to make recoveryof a coastal strip one of the planks of the oratoricalplatform.

Between Bolivia and her two sister republics of thewest there is no ill-feeling. She trades freely withboth, and in particular has derived a great deal oftechnical and financial help from Chilean men of enterprisein developing important mining regions.Bolivia’s relations with Peru are equally friendly, althoughintellectual rather than economic; but thewriter’s experience of Bolivia has developed the opinionthat Bolivians are extremely unlikely to do whatis occasionally urged by the Peruvian press, to takeup arms with the object of regaining territory definitelyceded, without question or reservation, by theTreaty of 1904.

The dispute, actually, lies between Peru and Chile.It is utilised by adroit politicians in South America,and farther afield, to divert attention from other inconvenientproblems, and the recurrent flurry is acause of anxiety to the industrialist and investor,whether native-born or foreign, of the West Coast.It demands settlement, and probably could be settledas other territorial questions have been solved, by theexercise of goodwill and discretion and in the spiritof compromise. But the truth is that few public menare sufficiently courageous to adopt a moderateattitude on this subject; the bellicose attitude is137easier and more popular. Inflammatory newspaperarticles and speeches upon the subject are rarely ofChilean origin, it is but fair to say; but the situationis a standing invitation to the extremist andthe path of the mediator is not smoothed by longpostponement.

Arica port, a pretty little oasis in the desert, wasthe centuries-old outlet for Bolivian products; Potosí’ssilver came out in a rich stream during colonial days.Charcas Province, or Alto Peru, afterwards part ofthe Viceroyalty of Buenos Aires, had no other westernport. Forty miles inland lies the old city of Tacna,also succeeding an Inca settlement, and an ancientstopping-place on the highway to the Andes.

The desert, veiled by the strange mist of this region,the camanchaca, lies all about these little cities; theyare connected by an old strip of railway, and there areno other sizable towns. Tarata, in the spurs of themountains, is reached only by horseback, is chieflyimportant as head of the department of the samename, and is only a degree nearer modern life than thevillages of sturdy mountaineers that cling to the Andeanfolds above it. Here the llama is still the chiefmeans of transport.

Nitrate has not been found in workable quantitiesin Tacna province, nor any precious mineral depositsof consequence, although silver and copper are known.The value of the territory, politically unified by Chileas one province, Tacna, 23,000 square kilometresin area, with three departments, Tacna, Arica andTarata, and the city of Arica as the chief centre ofthe province, is thus not great, until irrigation permitsagricultural development upon a big scale.But strategically it acts as a buffer between Chile andPeru, and it was with the object of erecting such138a buffer that Chile refrained from doing what herdominant position after the War of the Pacific permitted,taking the little provinces finally, at the sametime that she secured Tarapacá, a region enormouslyrich in nitrate.

Peru was obliged to accept definitely the cession ofTarapacá: that loss is beyond discussion. But theindeterminate position of Tacna permits national feeling,irritation and sentiment full sway.

It is common to hear of the old unity of Peru andChile, of the mutual sacrifices during Independencestruggles, their like origin and present intertwined interests.Undoubtedly, the two states are commerciallynecessary one to the other; the traders of thecommunities are little disturbed by political aspectsand own a brotherly kinship so far as the Spanishlanguage, religion, and culture are concerned. Butthere are also marked divergences. There has beena much greater proportion of west European blood inChile than in Peru; the native races were of completelydifferent speech and customs; and climate hasdone its share in modifying the modern population ofeach country. It is a serious error to class any twoSouth American peoples together, and the characteristicsof Bolivian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian and Chilean arestrongly marked. Nor, between Peru and Chile, wascordiality invariably marked in colonial days, fromthe time when Almagro’s returned followers opposedthe Pizarros and were set apart as “Men of Chile.”The dominance, political and financial, of Lima duringthe three hundred succeeding years in legal, politicaland religious matters, the use made of Chile as adumping-ground, and at the same time the endlessand unproductive expense in blood and treasure of139the Araucanian wars, created irritation that was notall on one side.

Peru was rich and proud, Chile and Buenos Aireswere comparatively poor: yet from the two latter politicalindependence from Spain arrived, borne uponthe swords of San Martin’s army. An ocean of tacthas been needed to smooth similar situations in otherregions and times, and San Martin’s arbitrary conduct,although objectionable to Chileans and Peruvians alike,did not ease the situation. Later, when South America’sfreedom from Spain had become a fact accepted bythe world at large, a result due in great measure toCanning’s long vision, the eyes of the new countriesturned to their nebulous boundaries. Settlement ofthe exact frontiers has been so difficult that the disputesand efforts of a century have not, in some cases,yet decided the question. When all was Spain’s,the limits of separate provinces or viceroyaltieswas of secondary importance; the hinterlands werefrequently wooded, mountainous, or desert country,where none but Indians penetrated. It has only beensince forestal products such as quinine and rubberwere valorised, the worth of the commoner metalsenhanced by great industries, that great interior regionsof the southern continent have acquired interest,and the marking of boundaries has become a burningquestion.

In Chile’s case, her area as a province or “kingdom”during Spanish times included the present Argentineprovinces of Mendoza, San Luis and San Juan, and allPatagonia. The three first-named provinces went,with Charcas (part of the modern Bolivia), to BuenosAires when that Viceroyalty was erected in 1776, butthe possession of Patagonia and the islands below theStrait of Magellan remained a fertile source of disagreement140with Argentina, narrowly averting war, until1881. A treaty then made between the two countriesfixed a line in the Andes as the boundary, to follow thehighest peaks dividing the rivers, while all land southof the fifty-second degree of south latitude went toChile, except the eastern part of Tierra del Fuego.This agreement was found indefinite; the water-partingand the highest peaks were discovered to be frequentlyfar distant from each other, and the exact boundarywas only settled in 1902 when the award of KingEdward VII fixed a new line, by which 54,000square kilometres of the disputed area was assignedto Chile and 40,000 to Argentina. One small pointonly remains unsettled—the question as to the exactposition of the eastern entrance to Beagle Channel,involving possession of Picton, New and LennoxIslands. The senates of Chile and Argentina agreedin 1915 to abide by an award to be made by the BritishGovernment.

So much for the eastern boundary. North lay theDesert of Atacama, declared by Darwin to be a “barrierfar worse than the most turbulent ocean.” The desertwas known from early Spanish times as the boundaryof Chile, but while it remained apparently worthlessit was to no one’s interest to decide whether the north,centre, or south of the desert formed the line. Peru’ssouthern limit was fixed as far back as 1628 at 22° 33′south latitude, the border of Tarapacá, near the presentport of Tocopilla; between the parallels of twenty-twoand twenty-five was the old Province of Atacama,extending from Tocopilla southward, including thenbut one port, Cobija, and all the large northerly partof the Atacama Desert. In 1770 Dr. Cosme Bueno,the Chief Cosmographer of Peru, wrote in the valuableConocimientos de los Tiempos that “Peru extends141to 25° 10′ in the centre of the Atacama desert, and heretouches Chile”—Atacama then, as part of Charcas orAlto Peru being included in the Peruvian Viceroyalty—andin 1776 the northern edge of Chile seems to havebeen accepted as touching the little town of Paposo, inalmost the same latitude. But that there was hazinessregarding the precise border is indicated by the fact thatFitzroy’s map of 1836, and Ondanza’s of 1859, and thatof Pissis, 1860, all show differing boundary lines fornorthern Chile. Had the Paposo latitude been definitelyaccepted by Chile and her sisters, it is inconceivablethat Bolivia would have failed to denounce energeticallyin 1866 the Chilean claim to territory as farnorth as parallel 23.

By this time the South American countries wereprosperous in the huge development of commerce withthe world at large, and the West Coast had enteredupon a new era; there was an enormous extension ofcopper and silver mining, guano was feverishly exploitedby Peru with great profit from 1841, and there was adeveloping business in nitrate, shipped chiefly fromIquique and Pisagua, in Tarapacá. In the attack bySpain upon Peru the four countries of Ecuador, Peru,Bolivia and Chile were united in resistance, and causesfor trouble appeared remote. It was now that a glimpseof the hidden wealth of Atacama was revealed. Twoenterprising Chilean engineers, Ossa and Puelma, seekingcopper in the burning desert, obtained from PresidentMelgarejo of Bolivia a wide concession to operatein the territory, which was neither surveyed nor utilisedby Bolivians at that time, commerce to and from Boliviastill following the Arica, or Arequipa and Mollendo,route. With industrial development in sight the questionof boundaries became acute, and Chile laid a formalclaim to all land south of parallel 23.

142Bolivia admitted the prevailing lack of certainty concerninglimits by compromising; Chile’s boundary wasfixed at 24° s. l., while the two countries were to sharecustoms receipts from the belts 23° and 24°, and 24°and 25° s. l. The arrangement did not work well, andwas eventually revised in 1874 and a new arrangementmade by which Bolivia agreed not to levy taxes uponChilean industries, nor to impose new customs dues onexports for the next twenty-five years.

For meanwhile a great development was taking place.In 1870 the silver mines of Caracoles were discovered,a rush to the locality ensuing. With 4000 claimsrecorded and a tremendous stream of miners, transportwas needed, and a British-capitalised and operatedcompany registered in Chile, the Cia. de Salitres yFerrocarriles de Antofagasta, took over the rightsgranted originally to Ossa and Puelma, built a portat Antofagasta and a railway to the mines, andwas also presently working newly discovered fieldsof nitrate in the same once-despised territory. Itsconcession was extensive, covering all the great Salardel Carmen, and something like a boom in nitrate followed;engineers poured into Atacama, and in Tarapacáthe energies of foreign companies, chiefly Chilean andBritish, began to alarm Peruvians, who saw the supremacyof guano threatened. Peru and Bolivia formed asecret pact (1873), of defensive military alliance, andlater tried to legislate against the foreign companies.The Peruvian President, Dr. Pardo, decided to makenitrate a government monopoly, passed a law enforcingthe acquisition of all nitrate works and strictly limitingits output, while President Daza in Bolivia first rentedall the undeveloped nitrate deposits in Antofagasta toHenry Meiggs, an American railroad builder in Peru,and, disavowing the agreements made by Melgarejo,143decreed a duty of ten centavos per hundredweight onall nitrate exported. Both Bolivia and Peru were, it isfrequently contended, within their rights in makinglaws dealing with their own territory: the duty suggestedby Bolivia was, it is true, but a fraction of whatthe industry subsequently yielded. But the developingcompanies were exasperated at what they consideredattempts to revoke rights already conceded, and tostifle nitrate production in Antofagasta. The fact thatBolivia and Peru were financially embarrassed followingperiods of internal disturbance and large spendingdid not ease the situation.

Trouble might have been averted with mutual concessionshad it not been for the high-handed act ofBolivian officials who, in December, 1878, demandeda large sum in back taxes from the Antofagastacompany, and upon the refusal of the Englishmanager, ordered the seizure of the company’s property.The match had been set to the gunpowder.Chile immediately seized the ports of Antofagasta,Cobija and Tocopilla, and by February, 1879, all theBolivian coast was in Chilean hands militarily as,previous to that time, it had been in Chilean handseconomically.

Peru offered to mediate, suggesting neutralisation ofAntofagasta port under the triple guarantee of Bolivia,Chile, and Peru, and new disposition of the territorialrevenues; but Chile, aware of the secret treaty of 1873,demanded first the abrogation of that pact, and nextthe cessation of all warlike preparations by Peru and adeclaration of her neutrality. Peru declined, and warwas declared upon her in April, 1879.

At this time the population of Peru and Boliviajointly was double that of Chile, and she was comparativelya poor country, without either mineral or144great agricultural wealth. But the Chilean navy wasexcellent and her men were hardy campaigners andfighters, as Peru, aided by Chilean troops in the war ofindependence and at the time of the forcible seizureof Peruvian territory by Santa Cruz in 1837, well knew.

The course of the war was disastrous from the beginningto the two allied states. Bolivia was neverable to recover a foot of the coastal strip, and wasforced to confine her efforts to contributions of menand material in the series of battles in which Chileanarmies were almost invariably successful. When Chilehad broken the small naval power of Peru by the sinkingof the ironclad Independencia and the capture of theHuascar, the allies had but two wooden vessels, thePilcomayo and the Union, with which to defend thecoast. The former was taken late in 1879, the latterevaded seizure until the end of the war: but practicallythe sea-ways were in control of the Chilean navy,headed by the Blanco Encalada and the AlmiranteCochrane, two British-built ironclads, as well assix smaller armed vessels, six months after the warbegan.

Sea control rendered all the Chilean forces mobile.They were henceforth able to strike at any given spotwith speed and certainty, while the harassed allieswere obliged to transport troops across deserts to ascore of poorly supplied coastal points; they werefurther hampered in December, 1879, by the strangeflight of President Prado from Peru, and the BolivianRevolution which deposed President Daza. The newleaders in Peru and Bolivia, Pierola and Campero,could not stem the tide of disaster; by February, 1880,the Chileans held the littoral as far as Arica, and inApril began the nine-months’ blockade of Lima’s port,Callao, together with Ancon and Chancay. Inland the145allies held out, notably at Tacna, captured after a desperatestruggle at the end of May. Arica was finallytaken in June, the north coast held in submission, andthe blockade of the chief ports rigorously maintained.This war was the first in which torpedos and torpedo-boatswere actively employed, and while the new inventionsenabled Chile to carry out naval operationswith marked effect, Peru did her best to protect Callaoby mooring hundreds of torpedos in the bay, and succeededin blowing up two Chilean ships, the Covadongaand the Loa.

North American attempts at mediation resulted inOctober, 1880, in Chile stating her terms—the cessionby Peru of Tarapacá, the relinquishment by Boliviaof all claims upon the coast, and payment of an indemnity;and occupation by Chile of Tacna, Arica andMoquegua until the first-named conditions were carriedout. Years later, after much more bloodshed, ruin andmisery, the allies accepted terms practically similar;but they rejected them in 1880, and Chile organisedfor the taking of Lima. After a fierce battle in which theChileans are said to have lost 1300 and the Peruvians6000 dead, the capital was captured in January, 1881,and occupied by Chile until terms were arranged bythe Treaty of Ancon in 1883. This arrangement wasmade only between Chile and Peru, followed by a trucewith Bolivia in 1884 and a definite peace treaty signedin 1904.

Chile has been blamed for making hard terms withthe two sister states, but the fact is undeniable thatdespite the struggle made by the allies, to which Chileanhistorians have frequently given credit, they wereutterly out-fought. Chile was completely victoriouson sea and land, and she took the fruits of victory; shehad, she considered, been menaced, and she disposed146of future menace. If she was severe, she had manygreat examples to follow. It is at least a little curiousto find the United States, with the record of acquisitionsof Mexican territory, constantly raising a minatoryfinger to Chile. This finger appeared during theprogress of the War of the Pacific, and upon severalsubsequent occasions including a curious incident in1920, when a flutter of local feeling on the West Coastwas made the occasion of a tactless message from theState Department. These admonitions are resented byand are embarrassing to no one more than Americancomerciantes and miners operating in Chile. It is unfortunateboth for the United States and the peace ofthe West Coast that a non-comprehension of Chileanintentions and sentiment should not only add fuel tothe flame, but should keep alive ideas of forcible interventionin the minds of the losers in the war, encouragedto contemplate restoration of part of their formerterritory.

It is, however, not the finally ceded provinces, butthe uncertain status of Tacna, that causes the chiefheart-burning. The terms made with Bolivia gaveChile her present great province of Antofagasta, withits wealth in nitrate, silver and copper, but in order toconciliate Bolivian feeling and legitimate commercialambition, Chile agreed to build, and built, a railwayoutlet from La Paz to Arica, the Bolivian section ofwhich will become Bolivian property in 1928. Bolivianprosperity dates from the operation of this excellent line,and Chilean commercial and financial relations with Boliviahave been increasingly cordial. I have yet to seein any Chilean publication or to hear from any Chileanexpressions of other than the greatest goodwill toBolivia; it is almost equally the rule to encounter asincere desire for the amicable settlement of outstanding147questions with Peru, and the display of a frank andmoderate appreciation of Peruvian feeling. But whileBolivians in general have accepted their loss, for Peruthe war is not yet over. This is chiefly due to the Tacnabarrier.

Tarapacá, rich in nitrate and metals, was ceded toChile absolutely, but the little provinces of Tacna andArica went under Chilean control with the proviso thata plebiscite, to determine by popular vote the finalownership of the region, should be held after ten years—i.e.,after 1894; the gainer of the territory promisedto pay ten million pesos to the loser. This plebiscitehas never been held.

In 1894 the two countries mutually agreed to a postponement,and attempts to hold the plebiscite laterhave been frustrated by the difficulty of arrangingvoting conditions. Questions as to the nationalityof the persons permitted to vote, and of the constitutionof the tribunal of judges, have long awaited solution.Chile has repeatedly declared that the Chancelleryof the Moneda is ready to hold the plebiscite, andmeanwhile occupies and develops the territory, creatingirrigation systems and planning vast extensions of sugarand cotton production. Since there were in 1907 inTacna out of a total of 25,000 people only 4000 non-Chileans,it can scarcely be doubted that the result ofa plebiscite held, let us say, in 1923, would leave Tacnadefinitely under the Chilean flag.

In November, 1920, Peru and Bolivia asked theLeague of Nations assembled at Geneva to examine thetreaties signed with Chile in 1884 and 1904—with aview to obtaining international influence in the directionof modification of terms. Peru afterwards withdrewher request, while the commission appointed toconsider Bolivia’s case came unanimously to the conclusion148that no intervention was possible in the caseof a definitely signed treaty, handing down this decisionin November, 1921. But the Chilean delegate,Don Agustin Edwards, made it clear that Chile wasalways ready to discuss amicably with Bolivia any suggestionfor the economic improvement of Bolivia’s positioncompatible with Chilean interests, and the waywas paved for friendly discussions.

Shortly afterwards Chile made a direct offer to thePeruvian administration (in the absence of diplomaticrepresentatives) that the plebiscite should be held inaccord with the terms agreed upon during discussionsin 1912, when 1923 was fixed as the voting year. Perudid not find this suggestion acceptable, in view of thefact that Chileanisation of Tacna proceeds with suchrapidity that the Peruvian vote would be practicallynon-existent. All children born in the province since1883 are counted as Chilean citizens, and the exodusof adult Peruvians from this and other regions hasbeen marked since 1920, when a sudden access of localfriction brought about the mutual withdrawal of consularofficials.

At this moment, when it seemed unfortunately probablethat the new attempt at settlement would meetwith the fate of previous efforts, the United States interposedwith the suggestion that representatives ofPeru and Chile should meet for friendly discussions inWashington. This offer was accepted by both Lima andSantiago, and delegates were appointed in early 1922.

Peru wished to re-open the whole Treaty of Ancon,but Chile emphatically declared that only the termsof the Tacna plebiscite were matters for discussion; shealso declined Bolivia’s request to take part in the meetings,although reiterating her readiness to exchangeviews directly with Bolivia.

149Conversations between the able diplomats of the twocountries took place in Washington during May, 1922,but without a decisive result, the delegates announcingearly in June that no agreement concerning the holdingof the plebiscite in Tacna had been reached.

The break-up of the conference appeared to beinevitable when the United States Government, in theperson of Mr. Hughes, Secretary of State, offered toexchange its position of benevolent host of the delegatesto that of mediator. An interchange of suggestionstook place between Chile, Peru and the UnitedStates, ending in a hopeful agreement signed by thetwo former in July; this agreement terminated the firststage of the road to peace, and practically amounted tothe acceptance of arbitration.

The immediate question laid before the Americanarbitrators is whether or no the plebiscite should beheld, and, if so, upon what terms the voting should takeplace. But it was further agreed, Chile cheerfully acceptinga Peruvian suggestion, that if a decision shouldbe reached precluding a plebiscite, nevertheless negotiationsshould be continued under United States auspices,with a view to another form of settlement.

At the time of writing, a close study is being made inWashington of the historical, political and economicaspects of the situation, and an interval of some monthsmust take place before any decision is announced.But the outlook has undoubtedly been lightened by thevery fact of amicable discussions having taken placebetween the delegate of the two countries, and a newerand more friendly atmosphere promises the lifting ofthe forty years’ old shadow.

The Nitrate Industry.—Copper.—Iron.—Gold andSilver.—Coal.—Petroleum.—Borax, Sulphur,Manganese, etc.

International agriculturists did not begin to call fornitrate of soda until the scientific study of soils wasseriously attempted and experiments demonstratedthe value of this chemical as a crop fertiliser. Youngcountries may produce grain and fruits from soil thatis almost untended, but some soils of special characteristics,and old lands cultivated for two or three thousandyears, respond gratefully to the stimulus offeredby supplies of nitrogen, phosphate and potash. Fromthe time that this axiom was accepted, the West Coastof South America began to ship the product of herunique deposits overseas in big quantities.

But the nitrate pampas had been known for whatthey were for several hundred years before the industrialboom of the late nineteenth century; smallamounts were used throughout the Spanish colonialperiod. This employment was confined to the manufactureof fireworks and gunpowder, some of the depositsremaining in the hands of the Viceregal Governmentand others being operated by Jesuits and otherreligious orders. The Government chiefly used the“saltpetre” in making gunpowder for firearms, andfor blasting purposes in mines of precious metals; as,for example, in the silver mines of Huantajaya, some151fifteen miles inland from Iquique. Early voyagers uponthe coast noted that the gunpowder of Peru was betterthan that made in other parts of the colonies, and penaltieswere inflicted to prevent the illegal extraction ofnitrate by unauthorised persons. Juan and Ulloa,writing in 1741, speak of the contraband gunpowdermanufacture carried on near the salitre (nitrate of soda)field of Guancarama, and the efforts of the Lima treasuryto stop similar use being made of the beds nearZayla. The good fathers of the religious missions hadanother destination for the explosive; it was used tomake the immense quantity of fireworks burnt at timesof festival, a custom that is not yet extinct in SpanishAmerica.

A simple method of obtaining the nitrate of sodiumfrom the rocky beds of mixed composition (the caliche)was employed by these early manufacturers, who usedchiefly Indian workers. The whitish, hard substancewas broken up into small pieces and thrown into hugecopper cauldrons filled with boiling water. When thecaliche was dissolved the liquor was dipped off withenormous spoons into first one and then another vat,and there it crystallised.

Exactly the same principle is the basis of the modernmethod. The caliche yields to dynamite charges, successorof the pickaxe; is brought to the nitrate plant(oficina), in wagons instead of being laboriously carriedon the backs of Indians; the copper cauldron is replacedby a large tank, and coils containing steam at a hightemperature are passed through the water; the liquoris drawn off by pipes at a carefully considered moment,and the final drying process takes place upon preparedcement floors; coal or oil fuel is used instead of wood.There is less waste of material today and the quantitiesproduced are immense: but the ancient empirical nitrate152extractors were not very far wrong as regardssystem.

After independence from Spain, small sales of nitrateto foreign countries commenced, for the manufacture ofnitric acid; 800 tons were exported in 1830, but in thefour-year period between 1840 and 1844 an averageof 15,000 tons was maintained. Shipments rose steadilyafter the introduction of new methods in 1855, whensteam was first used in the dissolving process and theconstruction of vats was changed from the system of1812. By the year 1869 nitrate exports had risen toabout 115,000 tons a year; in 1873 the figures reachedover 285,000 tons; in 1876, to more than 320,000 tons.

After the War of the Pacific left Chile with theBolivian fields of Antofagasta and the Peruvian bedsof Tarapacá in her hands, a tremendous impetus wasgiven to the nitrate industry. Great amounts of foreigncapital were brought in, railways and ports constructed.Production rose steadily. In 1884 the export stood atsome 480,000 tons; in 1888, about 750,000, while themillion mark was passed two years later. The industrysuffered from uncertainties at the time of the Balmacedarevolution, when the insurgent leaders held the north,obtaining revenues and preparing armies upon thisvantage ground; but after the collapse of the Balmacedistasin 1891 foreign trade was revived, and at theend of the century nitrate shipments had reached about1,500,000 tons.

153In 1908 the export amounted to more than 2,000,000tons, increasing considerably after this time on accountof the heavy buying of the European Central Powers,Germany and Austria taking together an average of1,000,000 tons each year between 1909 and 1914. Theposition of nitrate in Chile’s economic life is illustratedby export figures for the last “normal” year, 1913.Total export values, 391,000,000 pesos: of this nitrateand iodine represented 311,000,000 pesos. Nitrate respondedto war demands, after the first paralysis ofshipping had passed, and in 1916 nearly 3,000,000 tonswere exported for munitions manufacture to the Alliesand the United States. The greatest purchasers ofChilean nitrate today are European and North Americanagricultural countries; Australia also finds thischemical of great value and, before the war, regularlyexchanged it for coal cargoes.

South America herself probably presents the mostextensive stretches of agricultural territory which makepractically no use of nitrate. In Chile its use is almostnon-existent, partly because the soil is too newlyopened and rich to need a stimulus as yet, and partlybecause the moist southerly regions are consideredunsuitable for the employment of the easily solublesalitre. Guano is the most popular fertiliser in Chile,especially in the north: its use follows old Inca custom,when such valleys as that of Arica were irrigated andfertilised to produce famous crops of maize, aji andcotton.

The Nitrate Pampas

No stranger country than that of the wide, golden-pinkpampas where nitrate lies is to be found in theAmericas. The circumstances that created the deposits,the rainless climate that preserved them for unknowncenturies, are unparalleled; the belt upon the ChileanWest Coast between 19° and 26° of south latitude containsthe world’s sole source of naturally producednitrate of soda. It is a unique region, and although thescience of production of atmospheric nitrate advancedduring the war, producers of the Chilean chemical donot view this competitor with alarm. Artificial processes154are expensive; Chile can, if necessary, lowernitrate prices to meet any rival.

The coastal border of the great nitrate belt is about450 miles in extent, its tawny dunes displaying no treenor smallest green thing except in such rare spots aswhere a thread of water survives the burning sunand sand, or where, at a port, an artificial garden hasbeen created with piped water. The generally waterlessstate of the region has long reduced it to sterility. Noneof the nitrate deposits lie upon the coast, or at a distanceof less than fifteen miles inland. The average distanceof the westerly margin of the deposits from the sea isabout 45 miles, a few of the beds, however, lying as faras 100 miles inland. Between the salitre fields and thePacific Ocean runs the diminished coastal range,dwindling here and there to nothing more than a stragglingseries of broken, rounded hillocks; to the east thedeposits are guarded by the backbone of the Andes.The general altitude of the beds above sea level is from2000 to 5000 feet.

The whole extent of the treeless and practically waterlesscountry of North Chile, presenting a broad andtawny face to the unchanging blue sky, is a vast seriesof mineral deposits, for not only nitrate of sodium butalso copper, borax, gypsum, cobalt, manganese, silver,and gold are spread through the great areas comprisingthe present provinces of Antofagasta, Tarapacá,Tacna and Atacama. Some of these minerals havebeen worked for centuries, but whatever small and moreor less isolated deposits of nitrate exist in the two last-namedregions remain unexploited: commercial productionof the mineral is confined to the two great richprovinces of Tarapacá and Antofagasta.

The salitre beds vary in thickness and are of capriciousdistribution: great areas within the rainless155region show no trace of these deposits, while in othersthe layers run twenty feet thick. The surveyed fieldscover at least 225,000 acres, contained chiefly in fivemajor districts. The most northerly, the Pampa ofTarapacá, ships its products from the ports of Iquique,Caleta Buena, Patillos, Junin and Pisagua, and isserved by three railways—the Nitrate Railways Company,the Agua Santa Nitrate and Railway Company,and the Junin Railway Company. Next comes thePampa of Toco, exporting through the coast town ofTocopilla, to which it is joined by the Anglo-ChileanNitrate and Railway Company. Farther south liesthe enormous Pampa of Antofagasta, with outlets atthe fine port town of Antofagasta and its older rival,Mejillones; the region is served by the main line andbranches of the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Company.The fourth field in order is the Aguas BlancasPampa, with a shipping point at Caleta Coloso, reachedby an arm of the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway;and the most southerly deposit of considerable size isthe Pampa of Taltal, shipping its product by the TaltalRailway to Taltal Port. A few isolated beds lie outsidethe areas of these five great deposits, as the Providenciaand Boquete beds of Antofagasta, but so far as presentsurveys have proved their existence, the great masses ofnitrate are definitely localised.

Tarapacá, with 76 oficinas equipped, normally producesabout 40 per cent of the total nitrate exportedfrom Chile; Antofagasta, with 30 oficinas, chiefly of amore modern type, produces about 35 per cent; Taltal,with 9 oficinas, ships usually some 10 per cent of thetotal; Tocopilla, with 7 oficinas, about 9 per cent; andAguas Blancas, with another 7 oficinas, is responsiblefor 6 per cent.

The total capital invested in nitrate lands and plantsis calculated at 400,000,000 Chilean gold pesos ofeighteen pence, or about £38,000,000 sterling. It isnot easy to state exactly what proportion of this totalshould be assigned to each of the different groups ofnationals owning these properties, since many firmsemploying foreign capital are registered as Chileancompanies, and both during and since the war a considerablenumber of oficinas have changed hands; butthe official statistics published by the Chilean Governmentgive the percentage of production ascribed to thevarious groups of owners, thus offering a useful guide.

The figures ascribe to Chilean owners, out of a total129 plants in operation in 1918, 60 oficinas, producing 50per cent of the nitrate total; to English companies, 43oficinas and 34 per cent of the production; to the Jugo-Slavs,with 7 oficinas, about 6 per cent of the production;Peruvians, 7 oficinas, 3 per cent of production;Spaniards, with 3 oficinas, less than 2 per cent of thetotal output; Americans, 2 oficinas, nearly 3 per cent;Germans, with 2 oficinas, less than 1 per cent of production—thisreduction from a larger pre-war productionbeing due to closure of several properties from 1914onwards.

The Chilean companies include the largest and mostheavily capitalised in the country, one of these, theCompañia de Salitres de Antofagasta, producing 10per cent of Chile’s total output. The firm owns sevenoficinas, employs 15,000 men, does a large generalimport and export business, owns its own fleet of bargesand tugs, and possesses a belt of nitrate lands on theAntofagasta Pampa twenty miles long. In 1918 thecompany, capitalised at 16,000,000 pesos (Chilean157paper), earned profits of over 22,000,000 pesos or over£1,000,000 sterling at the prevailing exchange, and wasthus able to set aside a substantial sum for rainy days.It is on account of earnings such as these, supplementedby the fantastically huge sums earned in the summer of1920 when the price of nitrate rose to seventeen shillingsper quintal, that the nitrate companies were able toobserve with a semblance of equanimity the subsequentand sustained fall in prices. The international merchantswere badly hit when the slump of 1921 came, butcompanies in Chile had made so much money that itwas preferable in many cases to shut down operationsrather than to continue the production of unwantedgoods.

Other big Chilean firms are the Cia. Salitrera “ElLoa,” operating seven works, all in Antofagasta Province;the Cia. Salitrera Lastenia, with three fineproperties upon the same pampa; and the Cia. deSalitres y Ferrocarril de Agua Santa, operating sixoficinas on the Tarapacá Pampa.

Of the English companies, the largest was the Alianza,operating three oficinas in Tarapacá, and exportingnormally about 150,000 tons annually, but this companyhas changed its domicile to Valparaiso and nowcounts with the Chilean group. The Anglo-ChileanCompany has three oficinas in the Tocopilla district;the Lautaro, three, on the Taltal Pampa; the LiverpoolNitrate Company, three, in Tarapacá; the Amelia,three, in Tarapacá and Antofagasta; the Fortuna,three, in Antofagasta; the Rosario, three in Tarapacá;the New Tamarugal, two, in Tarapacá, where the twonitrate works of the London Nitrate Company and theproperties of the Lagunas companies are also situated.

The German oficinas are twelve in number, operatedby four companies. Of these the most important is the158Cia. Salitrera de Tocopilla, formerly the CompañiaH. B. Sloman, with four properties on the Pampa ofToco. The Cia. Salitrera Alemana owns five oficinas, allsituated on the Taltal Pampa; Salpeterwerke GildemeisterA. G., has three works in Tarapacá, and theSalpeterwerke Augusta Victoria A. G., one oficina, inAntofagasta. The well-known Italian firm of PedroPerfetti owns five oficinas in Taltal.

The nationals who most notably increased theirinterest in nitrate properties during and immediatelyafter the war were the enterprising Jugo-Slavs whohave of late years taken a considerable part in Chileandevelopment work. The largest of the Jugo-Slav firmsis that of Baburizza Lukinovic, with five well-equippedoficinas in the Antofagasta district. Several otherEuropean-owned oficinas passed into Slavic hands beforethe stagnation of the market set in.

Two North American firms own nitrate oficinas. TheDupont Nitrate Company operates two properties inTaltal from which about 30,000 tons are annuallyshipped, but since all this product goes directly to theDupont explosives works in the United States, the marketis not interested in the output. W. R. Grace andCompany, doing a general export and import trade andemploying their own steamers, operate nitrate works inTarapacá, with a production of about 45,000 tons.

A few years ago pessimists prophesied that the Chileannitrate fields would be exhausted by the year 1923.Careful examinations carried out by the nationalauthorities as well as by individual companies havedefinitely allayed any fear of this kind. Surveys madeunder the auspices of the Chilean Government by thedistinguished engineer Francisco Castillo showed thatnitrate fields properly tested, owned and in operation,159cover some 2244 square miles, while outside that areathere are at least 75,000 square miles of undevelopednitrate-bearing lands—chiefly in the hands of theGovernment of Chile. With, thus, over 95 per cent ofthe deposits untouched it is reasonable to expect along life for this industry.

From the fields of Tarapacá and Antofagasta60,000,000 tons of the chemical have been taken sincethe beginning of overseas exports, and it is estimatedthat in the comparatively small surveyed and operatingarea there are about 240,000,000 tons in sight, a quantitysufficient to fill the world’s needs for at least anothercentury at the present rate of supply. This iswithout taking into consideration the huge body of lessreadily accessible nitrate lands referred to in Dr. Castillo’sconservative report, which included no depositscontaining less than 17 per cent of nitrate, nor layers ofless than twelve inches in thickness unless exceptionallyrich.

The Caliche

Into the highly controversial question of the originof the nitrate-bearing deposits it is unprofitable to godeeply, since, as in the case of petroleum, scientistshave not agreed upon a theory. Several have been putforward, and a good deal of study and research has beendevoted to the problem, but with no final result, adefinite objection tripping up even the most likely suggestions.The most generally supported theory is thatwhich was expounded in its original form by Darwin,postulating the long submergence of this part of theWest Coast under the sea, its gradual rise throughvolcanic action, and the slow drainage and drying ofmasses upheaved from the Pacific floor. Remains ofshell-fish are occasionally found imbedded in the caliche,160and the presence of iodine is also adduced as contributoryevidence; but bromine is curiously absent, and thequestion is complicated by other geological displays,some of which certainly seem to prove that before thesubsidence of this belt in the Pacific the land was highand dry, clothed with thick forests.

I listened once upon a burning afternoon in the nitratepampas to the seriously held theory that the calichedrained down, under the soil, from the mountains, andthat the particular beds upon which my good friend wasoperating owed their origin to Lake Poopó, a turquoisegem near the railway line leading to Bolivia; the beds,it was insisted, seeped slowly from the lake and werebeing pushed up from underneath by subterraneanpressure. Another theory credits the volcanos of theAndes with the production of sufficient ammoniatedsteam to create chemical changes upon the pampas;others suggest the union of oxygen and nitrogen in theair during electric storms, forming nitric acid which,in contact with lime, might produce nitrate of lime;this, if coming into touch with sulphate of soda, mightform nitrate of soda, releasing the sulphate of lime.

He who prefers a less technical theory may agree thatnitrogen deposits are derived from the guano of sea-birds,found along the Pacific coast.

The terminology of the nitrate pampas is a proof ofits old recognition. The chuca is the loose, often friable,decomposed top layer, from two to twelve inches thick.Below it comes the costra, a hard, rocky agglomerationof cemented clay, porphyry and feldspar amalgamatedwith sulphates of calcium, potash and soda, often alsocontaining traces of nitrate of soda and common salt.Third comes the tapa, the immediate shield of the nitrateof soda beds, composed of fragments of nitrate, ofsalt, sand and clay. These three layers form mattresses161from a few inches to three or even six feet indepth, and owing to the hardness of the costra must beblasted away from the precious fourth layer, thecaliche proper.

The caliche bed varies remarkably in thickness andin position, sometimes offering a thin, sand-mixed,layer of little value, and at other times revealing itselfas a beautiful shining snow-white bed several feet inthickness; its hue varies from pure white to grey,sandy, and even violet, and its consistency may besometimes loose and porous, while in other regions it isas hard as marble. The best caliche contains as muchas 70 per cent of nitrate, and by the present methods ofextraction it is not considered worth while to operatedeposits containing less than 14 to 15 per cent. Theaverage in Tarapacá and Antofagasta runs to about 20per cent. Below the caliche is the conjelo, anotherfairly loose layer of sand and clay, salts, selenite crystalsand traces of nitrate; still farther down is anotherplainly differentiated stratum, called the coba, with acomparatively high percentage of water, a heavy proportionof clay, calcium sulphate, and other minorcomponents. The nitrate is often carried through severalof the protecting layers, and foreign matter isfrequently found mixed with the caliche, yet the differentstrata almost invariably exist in readily distinguishableand undisturbed beds.

The process of preparation for the market is simple.The caliche, thoroughly crushed by heavy machinery,is tipped into immense tanks and covered with water:coils of pipes fixed in these vats heat the mass to a hightemperature and the nitrate of sodium, readily solublein boiling water, dissolves. The other ingredients ofthe caliche fortunately are not so easily dissolved, andsettle to the bottom of the tanks, so that when the162water is drawn off and cooled the nitrate crystallisesin a high grade of purity. There is a moment to bewatched for in drawing off the liquor, however; commonsalt (sodium chloride) is frequently present in thecaliche in unwanted quantities, dissolving with the samereadiness as the nitrate. But it begins to precipitatebefore the nitrate, and the right time for withdrawingthe liquor is when the salt has settled and the nitrateis immediately following it. The nitrate-charged watercrystallises on the floor and sides of the shallow bateas(vats, generally of wood) into which it is passed, theprocess of cooling and crystallisation taking from 20 to40 hours. The liquor is then pumped away, part beingused for the manufacture of iodine according to theamount permitted to the oficina by the central Association,while the nitrate crystals are gathered in largepans for a few days for draining, and afterwards spreadupon the cemented open planes, the canchas, for twoweeks until thoroughly dry; it is then ready for bagging.It is during the drying stage on the cancha that nitratein large quantities, all over the pampas, would bespoiled by dissolution if heavy rain should fall—aphenomenon of such rare and unlikely occurrence thatit is not taken into consideration. The belt is not absolutelyrainless, Iquique claiming a rainfall of half aninch per annum, while the Antofagasta Pampa hasreceived showers four times in the last fifteen years;heavy fogs, too, not infrequently invade the pampas.But it would take a series of terrific deluges for moistureto filter through the protecting crusts above the caliche,and this sometimes suggested danger is not in sight.

The “commercial standard” of purity which exportednitrate must attain for sales to agricultural regions is95 per cent, but 96 per cent and over is reached in shipmentsdestined to explosives factories. The cost of163production of necessity fluctuates with the prices paidfor wages, fuel and equipment, but was reckoned by Dr.Enrique Cuevas, in 1916, to work out at a minimum oftwo shillings, or fifty American cents, for each Spanishquintal of 101 pounds weight. During 1921 the costwas reckoned at double this amount. Expenses tendto increase year by year, with higher wages and costsof food and fuel, as well as new charges such as thatrecently added by the Employers’ Liability Laws ofChile. Antofagasta reckons that the cost of living increased300 per cent between the middle of 1914 andthe middle of 1921: it is certainly no less upon the inlandnitrate fields, where all merchandise has an extrarail journey, every gallon of water is piped long distancesfrom the mountains, and it is common to bringcattle for slaughter overland from northwest Argentina,the animals being shod for the three or four weeks’march over rough trails. The only method of reducingcosts is by improved scientific production, and to thisaim the work of the best companies is constantly andsuccessfully directed.

Iodine is extracted from the “mother liquor” thathas already deposited its burden of nitrate of soda andof common salt, and which is, after the extraction ofiodine, returned to the first lixiviation tanks to serveagain in dissolution of new loads of the raw caliche.The purple-black iodine crystals, of so pungent aquality that a whiff from the store-room is almost blinding,are packed into strong little wooden casks for export.A couple of big oficinas could, between them,manufacture enough iodine in a year to supply theworld’s needs, but to prevent glutting of the marketthere is an agreement with the Producers’ Associationby which the amount of this chemical made by eachnitrate plant is strictly regulated.

Before the realization of the properties of nitrate andits commercial exploitation upon a great scale, the burningpampas of Tarapacá and Antofagasta were solitudes,shunned by all animal life. This region, whose productswere destined to give new life to a million cultivatedfields, to bring orchards and groves all over the worldinto magnificent flower and fruit, lacked the ability toproduce so much as a blade of grass. Forming a continuousstretch of arid country with the long desertsnorth of Copiapó, the major part of this strip sheltersno life that has not been artificially introduced.

Yet today this region presents the liveliest scenes ofthe West Coast. Where a solitary waste lay under thesun, railways cross the desert with loads of heavy bagsof chemicals; tall chimneys rise into the quivering air,the grey tin roofs of the nitrate works dot the pampasthickly. Each nitrate plant is the centre of an artificialtown, to which every drop of water must be piped, everyarticle of clothing, food, every scrap of wood and metalneeded for dwellings and oficina must be carried. Theground is pitted with the marks of the tiros, the testblastings made in all directions to discover the qualityand position of the nitrate stratum; and one may standupon any small rise in the richest nitrate pampas andcount a dozen or more of the long flat “dumps” of wastematerial that denote the active working of an oficina.

The scene appears to have no elements of beauty, forthere is no hue but that of the sandy desert, the greyand black of the oficinas and the gleam of railwaytracks; the outlines of the scored and pitted ground,the railway cars, the smoking chimneys, are harsh. Yetthere is a sense of energy and prosperity, of intelligentactivity, and in the pure dry air of the pampa almost165everyone experiences a feeling of splendid health andwell-being.

Above the flat desert is an enormous bowl of clear,transparent sky and one looks far away to distancesthat seem endless. At sunrise and sunset the effects oflight upon the sky and pampa are of a beauty neverseen but in expanses such as these. I have watched thesky in an Antofagasta nitrate pampa when, as the sunfell swiftly, all the arch flushed with rose, and quicklyflooded with sheets of purest violet while the orangeand umber pampa took on deep amethyst shadows;before pastel or paint could record the sight, all the skywas transformed in a clear luminous lemon-yellow, uponwhose bright surface streams of translucent green presentlyran. The high peaks of far-distant Andes appearedas if floating, the snow-crowned heads of SanPedro and San Pablo alone visible against the changingsky, fading at last into the mantle of sapphire thatgradually shrouded pampa and heights, with nothingmoving but a host of brilliant stars, sparkling like diamondson a live hand.

In a few moments after sundown the scorching heathas given place to sharp cold, and he who rides by nightacross these deserts must carry a heavy woollen poncho;one sleeps indoors under blankets. Dawn is a miracleof pink and pearl, and in at the window comes the scentof the cherished flowers in the little garden, glisteningwith dew. The new day is of an indescribable freshnessand serenity. Long before noon the sun is pouringvertical floods of sunshine upon the desert, the very sandseems to quiver with heat, and a relentless scorchingbreath seems to fill the world. But to this all-the-year-roundheat the foreigner soon becomes accustomed—everyone,as a matter of fact, workers and officials alike,is a “foreigner” to this pampa; human life is imported166like every other commodity here. But the childrenborn of white parents in the nitrate fields are strong andsturdy, and it is not surprising that they who havelived for a year or two on the pampas find themselvesrestless in other places, suffer a feeling of constraint, alonging for these wide skies and far horizons.

The great development of the nitrate industry hascreated during the last forty years a series of ports alongthe Pacific, and brought to this once desolate coast,where there existed only a few fishing villages or outletsfor desultorily-worked mines, a population which todayexceeds 350,000. The workers directly engaged in theextraction, preparation and shipment of nitrate numberabout 70,000, about 50,000 of these being employedupon 173 oficinas, when all are in operation.

Nitrate During and After the War

When the writer last visited the Antofagasta Pampas,the nitrate business was just recovering after a periodof post-war depression and the series of big works weregetting back into the full swing of activity. The industryhad been enormously prosperous just before theoutbreak of war in 1914, but experienced very suddenreverses when the dislocation of shipping checked shipments.At the beginning of 1915 only 35 oficinas werein operation. A certain confusion was also occasionedby the fact that several big producers were German,but the accumulated stocks of these firms were eventuallytaken over and sold by the Chilean Government.At the time when the future looked gloomy, with oficinasidle and large stocks piled up in the warehousesof the nitrate ports, the great war call for nitrate in themanufacture of high explosives began, resulting in anew wave of prosperity. Shipping had to be found by167the Allies for the transport of the chemical, and theports of the pampa regions showed tremendous activity.But with the cessation of hostilities the urgent demandsof manufacturers of explosives in the United States andEurope came to an end and the pre-war market offeredby farmers did not immediately resume its calls. Shippinggradually returned to ordinary commercial channels,the scarcity of freight for normal commerce wasat once apparent, and the rates that consequently prevailedwere too high for profitable shipment of nitrateat the prices to which it fell. Many oficinas closeddown. But in early 1920 a healthy reaction set in.Agriculturists began buying again, and added to thischeerful effect the industry was reassured by the non-materialisationof many threatening prophesies of theserious nature of the competition to be offered by artificially-producednitrate.

The work of the active Asociación de Productoresde Salitre de Chile first made itself felt in 1920. Asits name implies, the group comprises firms engaged inChilean nitrate production, practically every companysubscribing with the exception of the two North Americanoperators and a few small oficinas. Formed by thesame energetic firms who previously organised, in 1889,the widely-spread Committee of Nitrate propaganda,the Asociación goes farther in that it controls the outputof nitrate of soda and of iodine, agrees upon a price,f.o.b. in Chile, for these products, and deals with internationaldistribution. Maintaining committees in Londonand Berlin, the Association has also openedbranches in France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Spain,Scandinavia, Egypt, Yugo-Slavia, India, South Africa,Japan, China, and all over North and South America,these delegations being added to wherever prospectsfor the consumption of nitrate are presented. The Association’s168main object is to obviate the violent fluctuationsof price that have threatened the industry fromtime to time; to watch markets closely and to avoidoverloading them by retaining a check upon output.The Association’s headquarters are in Valparaiso, inconstant cable communication with international centres.The effect of the work of this voluntary combine,upon which such other powerful groups as the Easternrubber planters look with something like envy, hasbeen undeniably beneficial although no efforts cancounteract the adverse results of slackened demand.

In 1913 the price per Spanish quintal was eight shillingsf.o.b. in Chile, or about $2 United States currency,while freight to British ports cost twenty-threeshillings per ton, New York charges running about $6.Nitrate is packed into bags of two quintals each, tenbags thus weighing a little more than an English ton.During the war the price rose to thirteen shillings perquintal, but fell to between nine and ten shillings in1919. Owing to a strong reawakened demand, plusthe work of the Association, the price rose in 1920until about the middle of the year it stood at seventeenshillings per quintal for deliveries in the spring of1921, and even with freights ranging from £5 to £12 aton to London, and $30 to $50 to New York, a handsomeprofit remained to producer and distributor. Thisprosperous period lasted until the general world paralyzationof markets was felt, and the big Governmentnitrate stocks of the United States and Europe werereleased. In 1921 the international dealers, with stocksof high-priced nitrate on their hands, faced the delayedpost-war slump, and formed a pool to maintain pricesat fourteen shillings per quintal. Sales were reducedto vanishing point, and the way was opened for moreextensive rivalry from the sulphate of ammonia trade;169eventually the pool agreed to lower prices upon an arrangementwith the Nitrate Producers’ Association,by which £1,500,000 was accepted as part compensation.This sum is collected by a small levy upon allnitrate exported. Prices were then reduced to elevenshillings per quintal up to December, 1921, and to10s. 3d. for deliveries in the spring of 1922. At theseprices trade revived appreciably, and the world’s needfor nitrogenous fertilisers set freights moving again.

Continuing for more than a year, the nitrate crisisaffected no one more acutely than the Government ofChile, for in addition to finding themselves suddenlydeprived of the most substantial part of their nationalrevenues, they were faced with a staggering amount ofunemployment. The oficinas, of which all but 45 wereforced to close as a result of the moribund market, dischargedsome 40,000 men. There is no work in theDesert of Atacama apart from nitrate and copper industries;the land produces no food and there is nowhere tolive. A stream of unemployed workers was almostimmediately directed southwards, and while a proportionwas absorbed by the farming and milling industriesof the agricultural zones, numbers remained in thevicinity of the capital, a source of considerable anxiety.At one time it was reported that 10,000 men werecamped out near Santiago, a charge upon the Government,and although the authorities were active inseeking to find employment on a series of public works,these plans were rendered difficult by the financialstraits of the nation. The administration of Sr. ArturoAlessandri went into office with many schemes for thebetterment of living conditions in the working classes,but has been seriously hampered by the economic trialsthat beset Chile within a few months of the change ofgovernment.

170It is scarcely to be expected that the Governmentshould see eye to eye with the nitrate producers in thequestion of sustained export at a time of market depression.The nitrate companies argue that it is useless toproduce and attempt to export a commodity for whichthere is no demand, with immense stocks already chokinginternational warehouses: that any such actionwould lower the price of nitrate to a level ruinous tothe holders of the existing stocks and be bound to reactdisastrously upon nitrate producers. The Governmentrejoins that they desire a general lowering of nitrateprices, so that the fertiliser should be bought in largerquantities; they want to see a continuation of largequantities produced and exported, in order that workmenshould not be, as during the 1921 crisis, thrownupon the country’s hands, and also in order that exportdues should continue to fill national coffers. To thisthe producers reply that there is one ready means oflowering nitrate prices, and that is to take off or to substantiallyreduce the Government export taxes, amountingto £2.11. 4. per ton. As a matter of fact, there hasbeen serious consideration of a governmental projectto purchase the nitrate output direct from producers,reselling it to world markets free of tax, or with a verylight duty. Here again plans are stultified first by lackof funds and secondly by lack of public enthusiasm fornationalisation of industries in the face of the world’sexperience during the last ten years. There is a widerecognition of the fact that the nitrate industry hasbeen built up by private enterprise of a kind invaluableto young countries.

He who tries to understand the nitrate situation ismuch hampered by different calculations of weights andcosts, and will sympathise with the complaint of DonAlejandro Bertrand, who remarks that in statistics171of the industry one finds “production and export ofnitrate expressed in Spanish quintals of forty-six kilograms;prices quoted in pounds sterling per Englishton of 1015 kilograms; while the British financialreviews vary, some giving the prices in shillings andpence per English hundredweight, while others quotepounds, shillings and pence per English ton. The Latincountries quote in francs, liras or pesetas, whose sterlingexchange value varies, while Hamburg quotes in marksper zentner of 50 kilos.” Quotations also vary, continuesthe Inspector for the Chilean Government ofNitrate Propaganda services, according to whether thechemical is sold in Chile, where prices are always “freeon board,” or free alongside vessel, or whether they aresold including ship freight to Europe or when placedin wagons at the port.

There are today 173 oficinas upon the pampas salitrerasof Chile. At the commencement of the commercialdevelopment of the fields, British capital andtechnique was foremost in the work, the efforts of thewell-known Colonel North contributing largely towardsthe active interest of British investors. Chileans themselveshave long been keen developers of nitrate propertiesand considerable investors; today their share ishigher than that of any other nationality—a situationunusual in Spanish American countries, where industriesare frequently left to foreign companies to a degreeunhealthy for everyone concerned. The Chilean’senterprise and business sense have indeed carried himfar afield, his interests in Bolivia covering 60 per centof the silver and tin mines.

The social system upon all oficinas is necessarily thesame: dwellings and food supplies for the workers mustbe the consideration of the company, and in consequencelarge camp stores (despachos) are always maintained172in which goods are sold to employés. Certainobjections to this system are always heard, but it ishere unavoidable; in all good and well-managed oficinasthese stores are stocked amply, prices being kept downto a limit at or just above cost price. There is always akeen demand for workers, and no nitrate camp wouldretain its employés if conditions were not those uniformlyregarded as just. The chief social difficulty ofthe oficinas is in keeping off company lands the enterprisingpiratical provision and liquor sellers who arelikely to demoralise and rob. The only remedy isenclosure of the properties and fencing is becoming moreusual. At one time the boundary of a nitrate grant wasfixed by a string and a heap of stones, but since theChilean Government has taken steps to regulariseestates there has been less of the happy-go-lucky systemof limits.

The acute interest of the authorities of Chile in thenitrate industry is due to the fact that it constitutesthe chief source of national income. Over 60 per centof Chilean revenues are derived from the export tax oftwo shillings and four pence per quintal, paid partlyin paper and partly in gold, the total sum amountingin prosperous years to £7,000,000 or £8,000,000 sterling,or between $35,000,000 and $40,000,000 UnitedStates currency.

The tax is a heavy one, and equally weighty impostsare placed upon iodine, also a product of the nitrateoficinas. The product of the wonderful borax lake, inupper Antofagasta, on the edge of the Bolivian boundary,pays a similar tax, yet the considerable export ofcopper from Chile goes free. This unequal treatmentof the different natural riches of the soil is frequentlyexplained by the fact that copper is mined in manyparts of the world and therefore the Chilean product173must meet competition, an impossible feat if its cost wereraised by the imposition of export dues. If, however, thecost of production of Chilean bar copper by the Guggenheimgroup is correctly estimated at eleven cents perpound, it is fairly plain that at the time during the warwhen Europe was paying twenty-six or twenty-sevencents per pound for this commodity it might haveyielded a return to the country of origin.

Of the nitrate ports, Antofagasta is today the mostlively and agreeable, although Iquique is still a rivalin quantities of the chemical exported. Just north ofAntofagasta lies Mejillones, the old port established incolonial days, but its equipment was found to beinadequate after the acquisition of this territory byChile, and the creation of modern facilities and amodern city was decided upon. People who live inAntofagasta are proud of the place with excellentreason. The approach by train from the south isthrough ramshackle, happy-go-lucky fringes that havetacked themselves on, but the city itself is wellequipped. Streets are wide, clean and well paved; shopsare filled with merchandise from London, Paris andNew York, and are not extravagant in price. Officebuildings, many of which house the representatives ofnitrate railways, nitrate and iodine companies, agenciesof copper and borax companies, of shipping lines,brokers and several foreign and native banks, arespacious and well equipped; the telephone servicecompares well with that of many cities of ten times thesize of Antofagasta, with its 70,000 inhabitants. Hotelsare comfortable, service courteous, and tariffs less thanone might expect in a city with not a single meadow ororchard within hundreds of miles, deriving all that itconsumes from the Chilean farming lands farther south,174from the packing-houses of Magellanes territory andwheat fields of the centre and south, or from the sugarand fruit regions of Peru or markets overseas.

The public park is an object of admiration of everyvisitor coming from the barren coast farther north orfrom the Atacama copper country to the south; it hasbeen sedulously nursed into greenness that is the moreremarkable since Antofagasta’s water supply is pipedfrom the foothills 200 miles away—through lands soarid that more than once a fox of the deserts, drivenwith thirst, has followed the pipe-line across the pampasright into the city. The great pride of hospitable andcheery Antofagasta is in the country club to which thevisitor is always motored along the sweep of the bay;here is a cool building with a fine dancing floor and agood cook. But its chief claim to admiration is thelittle garden, no more than a few feet square, tended sodevotedly that all the year round it glows with gayflowers.

All the chief towns of the nitrate pampas, besidespossessing rail transport to the Pacific, are connectedby the main line of the “Red Central Norte” to Santiago,and thence to the farming regions of the Chileansouth; there is through railway connection, thus, betweensuch towns as Iquique and Antofagasta and thenewly-operating packing-house of Puerto Montt. AgriculturalChile has no better markets than those offeredby the thronged and busy nitrate pampas and portsof her own north, and from Llanquihue to Coquimbo,the last outpost of farming country in northern Chile,foodstuffs are sent by rail or sea to supply the greatregion of desert camps.

The future of copper mining in Chile is wrapped inuncertainty. The industry has already undergone anot unfamiliar transformation, with a deeply markedeffect upon the Chilean population engaged in this work,for, commencing as a series of individual enterpriseson the part of the native-born, it has become a largescientifically organised business operated chiefly byforeigners,[5] with the Chileans reduced to the positionof wage-earners.

5. The most recent foreign entry into the Chilean copper field is that ofthe Japanese, with interests in three large deposits in Bio-Bio Province.

Under the old haphazard system, when a man wouldfrequently go out into the desert alone, or with a singlecompanion, hunting for rich veins of copper ore, a goodliving at least was the rule; when the discovery of aconsiderable deposit warranted the introduction ofsimple machinery, a few employés, transport animals,etc., many little and big fortunes were made. Thebuyers and smelters of last century also earned satisfactoryreturns. But, curiously enough, the hugeorganisations utilising immense masses of lower-gradeores, employing thousands of men and most modernmachinery, with smelters at the mining camp, are generallystated to be run at a loss. There are reasonswhy such statements should be accepted with reserve,but looking at the matter purely from a Chilean angleit is at least questionable whether an industry whichyields nothing to the national treasury in the way ofexport dues upon the mineral shipped out, and whichdraws many thousands of men from agricultural zonesto an isolated and entirely artificial life under conditionstending to lower the standard of citizenship, hasa sound raison d’être. Possession of the large Chilean176copper deposits, whether operated at all, or operatedwithout profit, does however enable a group of powerfulinterests controlling copper in North America to controlalso the copper markets of the world: for after NorthAmerica, Chile is the scene of the greatest identifiedcopper areas, the two series of mines together producingover 60 per cent of the total international output.

At the present time, that is to say, at the end of 1921,the situation in Chile with respect to copper is brieflythis: there still exists, throughout the copper-sownregions of Coquimbo and Atacama provinces, a diminishingnumber of small mines following rich veins of theore. Some of these are little more than holes in theground, others are worked by organised companies withgood machinery, housing several hundred workers andowning their own system of transport, as the Dulcineamine in Copiapó. But almost everywhere the rich lodes,containing anything from 8 per cent of copper upwards,are disappearing; they have been hunted for centuries,and although scientific examination of these immenseregions would no doubt reveal many unsuspected richdeposits, the accessible mines have been worked outto a considerable degree.

No more striking example of the rise and fall of acopper mining centre is to be seen in Chile than at thedeserted city of La Higuera. It lies just off the roadleading from La Serena (Coquimbo) to the iron mountainof El Tofo, upon a tiny thread of a stream tricklingfrom the steep and tumbled mountains. The city liesin the shallow cup of an immense hillside, a patch uponthe sandy and orange waste; numbers of black dumpsmark the sites of old copper mines, a score of chimneysstand among the silent machinery of abandoned mines.At least a thousand houses make, from a distance, abrave showing.

177But at the approach of the infrequent visitor in automobileor on horseback, the houses are seen to be windowless,empty; nothing moves in the sun but a straycur or two, until presently an old woman with a childat her skirts peeps from a makeshift shelter. The wholeplace is dead; not an engine is working, not a gang ofworkers moves upon the great spread of properties.The exhaustion of rich veins, difficulty of competitionwith metal produced at less expense in a fallen market,coupled with tangled litigation, has brought backsilence to this strange spot in the mineral-strewn mountainspurs that here crowd down almost to the sea.

The day of La Higuera is not long past; the mines ofthis extraordinarily rich region were actively productiveduring the present century. But a similar fatehas already closed down very many smaller groups ofmines, as it closed down smelters from Arauco toAntofagasta. In the prosperous days of the industrylast century, when Chile was the greatest copper-producingcountry in the world, a big fleet of sailing ships,copper-bottomed, fast, with a famous list of captains,voyaged constantly between Swansea and the Chileancoast by way of Cape Horn, bringing British coal andmerchandise and returning with bar copper or richores. A whole colony of Welsh set up the first scientificfurnaces in Herradura Bay, just outside CoquimboTown, and at a dozen points the little smelters ofCopiapó and Coquimbo were busy; simple methodswere used with profit, and many Chilean residents recallthe time when the stem and stalk of the cardónwere always used to obtain a fine clear fire when annealingcopper.

The most spectacular of the large copper mines inoperation today in Chile is that of El Teniente, situatedon the rim of an ancient crater of the Andes east ofRancagua, the nearest main line railway station.Sewell, the little town of mining employés, is connectedwith Rancagua by the private line of the Braden CopperCompany, 72 kilometres in length, climbing from Rancagua’saltitude of 513 metres, or about 1600 feet, tothe mining camp’s height above sea level of 2140metres, or some 7000 feet, on the side of a terrific gorgein a tangle of rocky mountain shoulders and peaks.The main ore bodies lie above the site of the town andplant at altitudes ranging from 9000 to 11,000 feet, onepeak, El Diablo, on the crater’s edge, rising to 13,000feet.

179The amount of copper ore found in masses on thecircular rim was calculated at the beginning of 1920 as174,500,000 tons of 2.45 per cent, with (probably) 92,000,000tons of 1.91 per cent ore in sight, with, in allprobability, other large deposits in the vicinity. Themain body now under exploitation yields a low-gradeore containing an average of 2½ per cent of copper inthe form of sulphides. The ore is brought down to theplant by a railway line protected by sheds from thedeep snow falling and standing for six months of theyear; is crushed very fine, treated by the oil flotationsystem about which so much litigation has raged, andsmelted by three processes during which the copper isfreed from sulphur and iron. A small quantity of goldand silver remains in the bars shipped to market.Crushing 5000 tons of ore per day, a production of 100tons of bar copper is at present possible; plans are alsounder way for new mills at a snow-free site on the railwayline to Rancagua, at a spot where the junction ofthe Coya and a canal from the Cachapoal River formsa waterfall of 422 feet, yielding hydraulic power sufficientfor the generation of 40,000 H.P. A new powerhouse recently completed, on the Pangal River, anothernearby Andean torrent joining the Cachapoaland Coya, adds to the equipment by which the BradenCompany contemplates 10,000 tons of daily crushing,operations which should result in the production ofover 70,000 tons of bar copper each year. Paralyzationof international markets has so far checked the materialisationof these plans, and during 1921 the plant wasoperated at no more than half its capacity. The mostprosperous year which the mine has had so far was thatof 1918, when El Teniente produced nearly 35,000metric tons of bar copper, out of the Chilean total productionof rather more than 102,200 tons: a year later,1919, the Braden Company sold and shipped only10,000 tons of bar copper.

Rancagua, a somnolent little town lying about 70miles from the Pacific, has no direct rail communicationwith the sea, and derives what liveliness it possessesfrom its position upon the main line to Santiago, itschief market, and as the terminus of the Braden Company’selectrically-operated line to El Teniente or ratherto Sewell—which has an older name, Machalí. Attimes the activity resulting from the mine’s access tothis town, and this town alone, is regarded without anypleasure by the townsfolk, for when strike trouble occursthere is likely to be a descent of discontentedworkmen and families. Such an occasion occurred atthe time of the disorders at the end of 1919, when anarmy of expelled men with their families walked downthe narrow track from Sewell to Rancagua, and althoughthe journey of 72 kilometres occupied some180three days, and the spirit of the strikers was reducedby their experiences, Rancagua was alarmed andembarrassed by their presence.

A curious mixture of workers finds its way to this andother mining camps of Chile. The bulk consists of thehardy Chilean himself, concerning whose good qualitiesno employer of intelligence and feeling has any doubts:he is strong, trustworthy, kindly—but can be rousedby drink or anger to violence. Treated well, he is thebest element among massed groups of workers. Butside by side with the genuine and sound Chilean is notonly the malcontent roaming from north to south, fromcamp to camp, according to his own will or the exigenciesof the Ley de Residencia, but the “hard case” fromhalf a score of different countries. The mines arerefuges for every variety of man who is down and out:they offer fertile ground for the sowing of Bolshevikpropaganda or the seed of the I. W. W. of California,whose flag has been seen more than once flaunted inChilean streets. The curious artificial life of the camps,with its poor rewards, the lack of healthy recreation,of the sight of the horizon, of birds and fields and flowers,of any interest at all but that of daily toil, lendsitself to the development of grievances.

From Rancagua to Coya the line is open to the public,the pleasant and famous Baths of Cauquenes lying inthe deep green gorge of the Cachapoal River followedby the track. Casual visitors to the camp at Sewellare however not encouraged: there is a wary eye keptupon possible purveyors of such forbidden joys as alcoholicliquors. El Teniente is as “dry” as managerialcare can make it, but the fact that 1200 to 2000 bottlesof whisky and brandy are seized every year by the campdetectives without putting any end to the attempts ofthe guachucheros (bootleggers) appears to prove that181enough liquor gets through to make the business pay.Despite this lack of welcome to the unintroducedstranger, however, Sewell is hospitable to the visitor,and any accredited person receives pleasant courtesies.

The rail automobile which takes such visitors fromRancagua to the camp offers by far the most agreeableform of travel; the bright green fields and sub-tropicalverdure of the sheltered plain country gives way to deepfolds of mountain spurs, and presently, rising intocolder air, vegetation is reduced to a few hardy shrubsand mosses, and the violet and tawny shoulders of theAndes rise from the banks of the racing river. When Ivisited El Teniente the mountains were bare; theirrocky sides, steep, incredibly scored and peaked, tookon at sunset and dawn brilliant hues of rose and flame;but before I left the first snow fell, transforming thewhole country in a single night. A thick blanket filledthe crevices of the sheer rocks, black ridges and pointsalone emerging; the piled tenements of the miners,clinging like birds’ nests on the face of a cliff, wereblanched, half-buried, pathless. Communication withthe outer world, by the single line down the ravine toRancagua, was actually not much more restricted, butwith the blocking of even the few mountain tracks openin summertime the isolation of the camp was emphasised.

There are about 2800 miners engaged at El Teniente,but the total population of the camp, including theworkmen’s families, the officials (chiefly North Americans),employés of railways, stores, etc., is usually over12,000. All this artificial town hangs precariously on asteep slope immediately opposite to the jagged craterwhere the huge copper deposits are embedded. Formerly,rows of camp buildings were built on the mine’slower slope, but avalanches of soil, rock and snow necessitated182the removal of dwellings to the present site, atthe 7000-foot level.

Scarcely a sign of mining operations is visible fromacross the mountain chasm, although work has beengoing on here for at least 200 years. Owing to thetreacherous nature of the country rock and dangerfrom snow slides during six months of each year, theore bodies are now attacked from below; entrances tothe intricate system of shafts and subterranean passagesare lost in the rugged crenellations of the oldvolcano. Yet the place is honeycombed: one tunnel,starting from the more recently approached Fortunaside, runs all round the three-quarter-mile-wide crater;there are innumerable hoists, ore-passes, shafts, galleriesand tunnels, that, with the railways and powerfulmachinery and gangs of workers, comprise an industrialtown hidden in the mountains.

The second large copper property operated by theGuggenheim interests in Chile is at Chuquicamata, inthe high deserts of the province of Antofagasta, at about11,000 feet above sea level. The region has long beenfamous for its copper-ore deposits, and small, richveins have been worked during and since colonial times.

Most of these high-grade ores have been exhaustednear the surface, whatever may lie hidden in the heartof the region: the principle adopted by the Chile CopperCompany, as that of the Braden, is to attack largebodies of low-grade ore upon a big scale and in a scientificmanner. But “Chuqui” is an open-air mine situatedon a tawny desert, in extraordinary contrast withEl Teniente, and the actual processes employed are differentbecause the two bodies of ores differ in composition.

183Chuquicamata is reached by way of the Antofagastaand Bolivia Railway. An all-day ride from AntofagastaPort takes the traveller across the flaming nitrate pampas,waterless, without a sign of green, winding upwardsuntil the air is chill and the wind bleak. At sundown,when the station of Calama is approached, the altitudeof nearly 8000 feet has been attained. In the distancethe lights of the mining camp flicker at a higher level;Calama itself shows a brilliant flare of green, for here isthe river Loa and a little modern town with fields andorchards superimposed upon very ancient remains.Gold, pottery, and textiles showing Inca influence havebeen found in the old cemeteries of Calama.

There is from Calama a small branch line of a fewmiles running to Punto de Rieles, and some use is madeof this to ship merchandise, etc., to and from the Chuquicamatacamp: but a private line is projected, anda number of company motor cars traverse the roadacross the saffron desert between the main line and themines, ignoring Punto de Rieles as much as possible.That ramshackle village is, indeed, little more than animpudent hanger-on of the big works; practically everylittle frowsy shack is a saloon or a gambling-den, morethan one of the most enterprising brothel-keepers beingwhite ex-employés of the camp. Even were any seriousattempt made to operate Chuquicamata as a “dry”camp, the existence of this terminus-village a mileaway would counteract these efforts.

The great ore bodies of Chuquicamata lie in a rangeof low, pale-hued hills rising gently from the shelving,wind-swept, dust-strewn plain; the chief mass of ore iseasily attacked by steam shovels placed upon four orfive different levels cut along the face of the most accessibleslope, a system of light railways carrying theblasted-out rock, often of the beautiful blue and greentints exhibited by copper sulphates, to the plant in ashallow saucer below. Here also are the residential184quarters of this isolated camp, where there is neithervegetation nor water, and a dust-laden wind prevailsover the cold, widespread territory, bordered only bythe snow-crowned peaks of such Andean giants as S.Pedro and S. Pablo.

The Chuquicamata ores are, chiefly, basic sulphatesof copper, yielding about 1.7 per cent of the mineral.The present plant has a crushing capacity of 15,000 tonsper day, which amount should produce 200 tons of barcopper. As work goes on all day and every day, thisproduction if sustained would produce in twelve monthsover 70,000 tons of electrolytic copper, a quantitywhich Chuquicamata has not yet recorded; the mine’sbest year so far was that of 1918, when a total of 101,134,000pounds of electrolytic copper was produced,or about 45,000 tons. The leaching or lixiviation processis employed here: the ores, crushed fairly fine, aresoaked in a solution of copper sulphate for 48 hours,during which period the copper in the introduced oreis drawn into the liquid. This, when chlorine has beenextracted, is poured into vats through which strongelectric currents are passed, causing the copper to bedeposited in metallic form upon the copper sheets suspendedtherein. The sheets and the deposited metalare melted and cast into bars, the process producing ahigh-grade electrolytic copper bringing top marketprices. Eight hundred million tons of low-grade oreare stated to be in sight at Chuquicamata, and a plantcapable of turning out 600 tons of bar copper daily istalked of.

Power for operating the Chuquicamata mine, worksand camp is derived from Tocopilla, 100 miles distanton the seacoast, where the company’s plant is situated.Transmission lines follow the course of one of the nitraterailways from the port to El Toco, thence running out185across the desert, where a highway also extends. Sinceno fuel exists in this northerly region, nor are therewater-falls available, the plant uses petroleum importedfrom North America to generate the power required.

Chuquicamata employs about 2000 Chilean orBolivian, with a small sprinkling of Peruvian, workers,housed under conditions which leave something to bedesired. Many of the huts are made of sheetiron, withpartitions dividing the rooms; the floors are of mud, andan opaque substitute for glass obscures the windowspace in too many cases. The better-class houses areinsufficient for all the native-born workers, and it is notsurprising that a degree of discontent has more thanonce been fomented in the camp. Daily wages runhigher here than at El Teniente, averaging over nineChilean pesos per day as against rather less than eightpesos, but this raised scale does not compensate for thegreater cost of living and other disadvantages. Fuelis one of the serious difficulties; coal is almost unknown,and the employé’s womenfolk are seen cooking over acharcoal brazier, or a fire made of an umbelliferousplant from the mountains (llareta), or a few pieces ofwood brought from long distances. A great deal issaid by the company of the Welfare Work Department:its most striking exemplification is in the bigclubhouse which, well equipped and decorated, is howeverused almost exclusively by the North Americanofficials and their families.

In addition to the two big mining plants at El Tenienteand Chuquicamata, the Guggenheim interests inChile include the old-established smelters at Carrizaland Caldera ports: the latter, in common with all thesmelters founded during the last century, took onlyhigh-grade ores, the average of the mineral acceptedhere working out at about 10½ per cent of copper.186These works turned out over 5000 tons of copper ingotsin 1918, but were closed in 1921, following theslump in prices.

Chuquicamata is operated by the Chile CopperCompany, a subsidiary of the Chile Exploration Company;El Teniente is operated by the Braden CopperCompany, which is owned by the Kennecott CopperCorporation, one of the Guggenheim creations alsocontrolling Alaskan and Utah copper properties. TheBraden Copper Company is stated to have shown adeficit of $1,500,000, United States, in 1919.

Pudahuel and Potrerillos

Geographically speaking, there lie between ElTeniente and Chuquicamata two other large copperdeposits acquired by North American interests sincethe European War. Between Santiago and the sea liethe Pudahuel mines, identified at least a hundred yearsago, worked for their rich surface veins, and now ownedby the Andes Copper Company, a subsidiary of theAnaconda interests. Immense masses of low-gradeores, rivalling those of the Guggenheim interests inextent, are said to be available, but although in 1920projects for a big plant were under active development,work was slackened by depressed markets and the operationof the deposits is not yet in sight.

A similar fate has befallen the widely heralded plansconnected with another Anaconda property, a hugedeposit of low-grade copper ores at Potrerillos, in theAndean spurs east of the railway junction at PuebloHundido in Atacama province. The main ore bodieslie in a ravine about 12,000 feet above sea level andconsist chiefly of sulphides and oxides. At the timewhen I visited the region in late 1920 the treatment of187these ores had not been decided upon, and no machineryinstalled, although an expensive housing scheme hadbeen carried out at the mine. A railway between thetiny village of Pueblo Hundido, a handful of houses inthe middle of an apricot-hued desert, and the high-placedmine were in operation; and a power plant,burning petroleum, had been set up at Barquito, onthe coast a few miles south of Chañaral, the transmissionlines running out across the sandy waste forsome 130 miles.

Work on the Potrerillos installation was suspendedabout the middle of 1921, before a single ounce of copperhad been produced. High above the copper depositsare extensive beds of sulphur, and upon the extractionof this mineral, needed in certain processes employedin treating low-grade ores, a certain amount of work hasbeen done.

There are 16,000 mines of copper registered in Chile,covering an area of 57,000 hectares upon which themining tax of ten pesos per hectare is paid. Of the producingestablishments, Chuquicamata and El Tenienteare by far the greatest, exporting in 1918 nearly eightyper cent of Chile’s total production. From the Calderasmelters was shipped a total of 5217 metric tons;Catemu produced 3790 tons; Gatico, 3708 tons;Naltagua, a French property, 3653 tons. Small quantitiescame also from El Volcán, El Hueso, and the Chañaralsmelters, also in French hands. For the last tenyears Chile’s output of copper in comparison with thetotal world supply has varied between 4 per cent in1911 and 1912, and 8 per cent in 1918. By far thegreatest producer of copper today is the United States,with a highest record of 880,000 metric tons in 1916,followed by Japan, shipping her highest recorded figurein 1917, when 124,000 tons was produced; Mexico,18875,000 tons; Canada, averaging 50,000 tons; and Peru,45,000.

Iron

The story of Chile’s iron deposits and works offers oneof the most curious chapters in her mining history.

The most important of the identified deposits liein the desert country north of Coquimbo, the fields atEl Algarrobo and Algarrobito in the Department ofVallenar, Atacama Province, having interested a Germanfirm some years before the war. No practicalresults were achieved, although the region recorded asmall export of manganese, from the Astillas beds, untileconomic conditions checked these shipments soon afterthe beginning of this century. Proximity of quantitiesof manganese ore to the iron fields, reported as being ofimmense extent, has raised repeated hopes for the foundationof a great industry, but the crux of the problemis the absence of adequate fuel or water supplies, andthe unproductivity of a sterile territory.

The only works so far established in connection withChilean iron ores depend upon what is the most remarkableferruginous deposit on the West Coast, paralleledonly by the Itabira peaks in Brazil and the iron mountainof Durango in Mexico. El Tofo, some forty milesnorth of Coquimbo town, and fifteen miles from thePacific, is a round hill practically composed of hematiteores running over 65 per cent pure, the quantity in sighttotalling at least 300,000,000 tons. The hill standsamong an imposing array of rolling mountains, andboth dwellings and mine workings are daily enshroudedin seas of white mist.

Early in the present century this huge deposit wasacquired by a French company, the Société Altos Hornosde Corral, which mined a quantity of the ores and189transported them by light railway to the little bay ofCruz Grande and thence to the south where, at the portof Corral in Valdivia province, a smelter was erected,the first experimental production of pig-iron takingplace in 1910.

The company was fortunate in obtaining from theChilean Government various privileges, including theconcession of 58,000 hectares, or about 145,000 acres,of southern forest land, estimated to be capable ofyielding 50,000,000 cubic metres of fuel wood. ThePrudhomme process is employed at Corral; wood fuelalone is required, and an important item in the calculatedincome from the operation of the plant is that ofthe sale of by-products (charcoal and alcohol) obtainedfrom the wood, in addition to the output of the blastfurnaces. The plant was built to produce 50,000 tonsof pig-iron annually, and would require for this purposenearly half a million cubic metres of fuel wood; theexpectations of the company have, however, not beenrealised, and when I saw the plant in 1920 it had beeninactive for several years. A week of trial under theauspices of Chilean Government engineers headed byDr. Manuel Prieto was undertaken in July of the sameyear, and an optimistic report issued: a few noteworthypoints are quoted below.

With regard to the cost of production, the reportstates that the iron ore costs at Cruz Grande nearly tenpesos per ton (the peso in mid-1920 being worth aboutone shilling): but the sea freight, unloading at Corral,and transport to the smelter cost 14 pesos per ton.Despite the high freight charge, the cost of producingthe 345 experimental tons worked out to only 152 pesosper ton, a quantity of the company’s ingots finding asale at 345 pesos per ton. If the calculation is correctthat, working sustainedly, the smelter could produce190pig-iron at all in costs of about 55 pesos per ton, theonly problem is that of finding sufficient local or otherSouth American markets prepared to take yearly 50,000tons.

To obtain this quantity, the engineers estimate theemployment of 70,000 tons of iron ores, purchased fromEl Tofo at 8.40 pesos per ton. The famous iron hill isno longer operated by the French Company, for duringthe war the deposits were leased to the Bethlehem SteelIron Mines Company, and an extensive establishmentcreated. A contract exists by which the Bethleheminterests guarantee to supply a maximum of 100,000tons of ore free on board at Cruz Grande to the SociétéAltos Hornos, for thirty years.

If the fate, so far, of the Prudhomme smelter atCorral is misty despite high promise, that of the biginstallation at El Tofo is no less clouded. As soon asthe Bethlehem Company took possession, large sumsof money were spent on an entirely new installation.Land was acquired at Cruz Grande, an oil-burningpower plant set up, the railway line rebuilt and electrified,and a loading basin for the Company’s special ore-carryingsteamers, each of 17,000 tons capacity, cutout of the solid rock. The basin is 500 feet long by40 feet wide, and on the dock side are 17 chutes eachwith a storage space for 20,000 tons of ore, operatingelectrically, and built to discharge their contents into17 hatches so that each ship would be loaded in fourhours’ time.

At El Tofo itself electric shovels attack the face ofthe hill on four or five levels; the crushing machinery is,like the ore-carrying outfit, the most modern that Bethlehem’sexperience has evolved; strings of dwellingsfor workmen and officials stand upon the spur leading to191the iron hillside. The Company’s intention, I wasinformed by the sole official left in the silent camp, isto ship the rich ores of El Tofo to Sparrows Point,Maryland, where special equipment has been built tounload the Cuban ores imported by the Bethlehem interests.The haul from Chile is however considerablylonger than from Cuba, and although transit by way ofthe Panama Canal has brought the Atlantic Coast ofNorth America into closer commercial touch with theWest Coast of South America, the cost of freight orother equally powerful reasons have prevented materialisationof the original plans. In more than oneinstance, wealthy firms making immense sums of moneyduring the great war appear to have placed capital ininvestments far afield from which a return was not desiredfor reasons having a certain relation to the taxcollector; and whether or no these considerations hadany bearing upon the acquisition of large copper, iron,tin and silver deposits in various parts of SouthAmerica by powerful companies, the fact remainsthat vast mineral resources have been added to theproperties of a comparatively small group, and thattheir active operation may in the future affect internationalmarkets.

Early in 1921 announcement was made to the effectthat a concession for thirty years of 140,000 hectaresof forestal land in Llanquihue Province had beengranted to a German firm, for the installation of largeiron works. At the same time the concessionaires, whowere stated to be engineers representing the Kruppfirm, secured an option upon the Pleito iron ore depositsin Coquimbo and another series of mines in Atacamaknown as the Zapallo fields. Several Chilean newspapers,including the energetic Mercurio, took exception192to the land grant, pointing out the possibility thatGermany was evading the spirit of the Treaty of Versailles,prohibiting her from manufacturing arms orguns within her own territory, by setting up big ironand steel factories upon foreign soil; it was also objectedthat the territory conceded includes a considerable partof the forestal reserves left in South Chile. A strip ofwoodland two kilometres wide had been reserved bythe Chilean Government between the concession andLake Todos los Santos, and with this exception theGerman grant extended from the lake to the foot ofCalbuco volcano, with water outlet to the Pacific byway of an arm of the Gulf of Reloncaví. The PetrohueRiver is said to offer power for large hydraulic installations,and two other and smaller streams also runthrough the grant.

Ore from the north would, according to the plan, betransported to wood-burning smelters in the south.But difficulties arising from the claims of property-ownersin the conceded tract of forest appear to havechecked the scheme; the concessionaires announcedtheir withdrawal in early 1922.

The attitude of the Chilean Government is, quitenaturally, that it is desirable for large industrial developmentwork to be promoted: and that the concessionof forestal land given to the German interests wouldhave been gladly granted to other nationals makingsimilar propositions.

Gold and Silver

In early colonial days there was a fair yield of goldfrom Chile, chiefly obtained from the sands of thesoutherly rivers and deposits, as those of Tiltil, situatedin the mountains between Valparaiso and Santiago,193and the shining sands of the river beds of Huasco. Itis estimated that from the days of the first settlementto the end of the fifteenth century Chile produced131,000,000 pesos’ worth of gold, 63,000,000 worth inthe sixteenth century and 167,000,000 in the seventeenth.[6]After Independence and the encouragementof foreign enterprise, production rose in less than fiftyyears (1801 to 1850) to 226,000,000 pesos (all these calculationsbeing reduced to pesos of eighteen pence forpurposes of comparison), but weakened abruptly whenthe deposits of alluvial gold, eagerly sought and worked,became exhausted by the end of the century. Thepresent yearly production of gold averages about2,000,000 pesos, chiefly from the Alhué mines nearRancagua.

6. Betagh, writing of conditions in 1720, says that there were gold minesat Copiapó, “just beyond the town and all about the country likewise, whichhave brought many purchasers and workmen thither, to the great damageof the Indians; for the Spanish magistrates take away not only their landsbut their horses, which they sell to the new proprietors, under pretence ofserving the king and improving the settlements.” He also noted the saltpetre,lying “an inch thick on the ground” in the north, and says that thecountry is full of all sorts of mines. About the year 1709 two lumps of goldfound near the Chilean frontier, one of which weighed 32 pounds, was broughtby the Viceroy of Peru, Count Monclove, and given to the King of Spain.In another washing place near Valparaiso belonging to priests gold nuggetsare found, he says, ranging from a few ounces to one and a half pounds inweight.

The present production of silver is also a shadow ofits former record. Once upon a time rich silver mineswere worked at Uspallata, near the Pass; these werealready abandoned in 1820, when Peter Schmidtmeyermade his journey. Chile never rivalled Potosí, wheretravellers of the early sixteenth century (before theamalgam process was introduced in 1571) might see6000 furnaces shining together at night upon the famoushill; but her mines recorded a splendid total inone quarter-century, 1876 to 1900, when 432,000,000pesos’ worth of silver was produced. Lowered international194prices and the exhaustion of rich veins so reducedthe industry that in 1915 only 1,000,000 pesos’worth was produced, and although later years havereached values of over 3,000,000 pesos, future greatproduction depends upon new discoveries and scientificoperation. The mining engineer still has muchwork to do in the deep folds of the Chilean Andes,while the sands of the islands south of the Strait ofMagellan have yielded, and are likely to yield againunder good management, rich harvests of gold.

Coal

The coal industry of South Chile owes its greatestimpetus to the energy of Matias Cousiño, who organiseddevelopment dating from 1852; but mining for commercialpurposes began as far back as 1840, when afield near Talcahuano began to supply the needs ofChile’s first steamship line, forerunner of the presentPacific Steam Navigation Company.

The entire region of Chile from Concepción southwardsto the Territory of Magellanes is dowered withcoal deposits, but the richest region is a series of minesstrewn for one hundred miles along the coasts of theprovinces of Concepción and Arauco. Wealth in coalhas brought a large number of factories and mills to theprosperous city of Concepción, was a factor in the establishmentof the chief naval station of Chile in thefine bay of Talcahuano—the best-sheltered port ofChile—and developed smelting and metal-refiningworks at Tomé, to the north of Talcahuano, and inCoronel and Lota, farther south.

Many coal beds known to exist in the Chilean southare unworked as yet owing to lack of transport in undevelopedregions, but in addition to the big mines in195operation in the rich regions of Arauco and Concepción,a deposit is being worked near Valdivia (the SociedadCarbonifera de Máfil) while the Loreto beds arealso under exploitation in Magellanes Territory, nearPunta Arenas. The product of some of the Chileanmines is of excellent quality, but the product was, beforethe war, insufficient in quantity and not of a graderendering it suitable for all railway and steamship uses.It was therefore supplemented by hard steam coal importedfrom foreign countries; before the outbreak ofwar in 1914 British mines were shipping about 1,000,000tons per year to Chile, Australia sent about 450,000tons, and the United States sent small quantities thatvaried between 3000 and 100,000 tons. The supplyfrom Welsh and Australian mines was, during the war,diminished almost to vanishing point, and at the sametime imports from North America rose to three or fourhundred thousand tons, and the Chilean home productionwas immensely stimulated.

Chile’s producing mines are fourteen in number,twelve of these lying in the Arauco region; in 1909 productionamounted to less than 900,000 tons, but hadrisen to over 1,500,000 in 1918 and 1919. Eleven totwelve thousand men were then employed, as against9000 in 1911. The most important operators are theCompañia de Lota, Coronel y Arauco, a combinationowning four mines and tributary railways, employing3670 workers, and producing more than half a milliontons of coal yearly. Next comes the Cia. Carboniferay de Fundición Schwager, also situated at Coronel,employing 2800 men and producing over 400,000 tons;the only other company with an output of over 200,000tons annually is that of Cia. Carbonifera Los Rios deCuranilahue, employing 1500 men. Both here and inthe Lota mines the plant is operated by hydro-electric196power, and throughout the Chilean fields the standardof machinery and equipment is high. The generalwidth of coal seams operated in Chile is from fifty tosixty inches.

The wages paid are about the same as for othermining and industrial work in Chile, ranging from fiveto seven pesos (paper) per day. The Coronel mines,many of which are deep-seated and run under the sea,pay at a higher rate, averaging eight and a half pesos,but the Loreto mine in Punta Arenas, where workersare scarce, pays its employés nearly twelve pesosa day.

Chilean coal miners work only 280 days in the year,but conditions are not always acceptable and there havebeen from time to time serious strikes; the last, occurringat the beginning of 1922, was said to be mainlyfomented by the considerable foreign element.

Among the remaining coal companies of importanceare the Cia. Carbonifera de Lirquen (Penco); the Cia.El Rosal (Concepción); and the Cia. Carbonifera deLebu, owning three mines and a railway.

The price of Chilean coal responded to war conditions.In 1914 it stood at about 13 paper pesos per ton; in1915 it rose to 25 pesos, and thence steadily climbed to57 pesos in 1917, to 70 in the following year, and to85 pesos in 1919. With the cessation of hostilitiesthese prices, which were comparable with those offoreign imported coal, dropped; at the same time demandfell, fewer vessels requiring bunkering, not onlybecause older fuel depôts became again available butbecause the extended use of the Panama Canal by internationalvessels is making itself felt more keenly.South Chile found its ports recording many fewerforeign vessels in 1919 and 1920 than in former years.

197In the Lonquimay region, along the valley of theupper Bio-Bio, are deposits of petroliferous shales,upon which a big industry will some day be founded.The most hopeful reports suggest the presence of a greatoil-bed, but it is undisputed that the superficial layersor capas yield 5 to 6 per cent of petroleum, the lowerpart of the bed yielding 12 per cent. In Scotland apercentage of 5 per cent is considered good enough, andthe development of the prosperous North British industrycould no doubt be duplicated in Chile—withadequate transport facilities. Manifestations of petroleumhave been also identified farther south. DonSalustio Valdes, an enthusiastic Chilean mining engineer,considers that the most promising deposits arein the Province of Llanquihue, at Carelmapu, wherethe Cia. Petroléos del Pacifico has acquired territory;in Magellanes Territory, near Punta Arenas, where theSindicato de Petroléo de Agua Fresca is operating; andon Tierra del Fuego, upon the north shore of UselessBay. Natural gas escapes in considerable quantitiesin all these regions.

Borax is produced by a British company from awonderful and beautiful lake-like deposit at Ascotan,on the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway almost at theBolivian frontier. Nearly half the world’s supplycomes from Ascotan, the pre-war export of BoraxConsolidated averaging 40,000 tons, a quantity subsequentlyreduced owing to the imposition of a heavyexport tax and high freight rates. The deposit lies atan altitude of over 12,400 feet with temperature rangingfrom 24 degrees below zero (Centigrade) and 32degrees above, so that this well-organised companyworks under climatic difficulties accentuated by highwinds, rain and snow.

Sulphur is abundant in Chilean mountains fromnorth to south, a few thousand tons being annually198produced, chiefly for the use of the copper mines; lead,cobalt, nickel, aluminium, graphite and bismuth alsoexist in the highly mineralised north; deposits of manganeseare worked on a small scale near Merceditas inthe interior of the Province of Atacama.

Area under Cultivation.—Oases in the Desert.—Farmingin Central Chile.—Vineyards.—Wheatfields, Orchardsand Sheep Farms.—Irrigation Canals.

“Agriculture in Chile and Buenos Aires has formedtheir population, while the mines of Peru have extinguishedalmost all the Empire of the Incas.” Sowrote David Barry in his preface to the NoticiasSecretas in 1826.

I think that no one who knows Chile today willdispute the suggestion that her fertile soil has chieflycontributed to her social well-being. It has broughtwhite European settlers, able to rear families in a magnificenttemperate climate; it has offered permanenthomes and not a temporary field for the fortune-hunter.There is a spring of life about the farmingregion of Chile, a sense of energy, health and freshnessthat is extraordinarily exhilarating. Much of this landis still but newly opened: one may pass through hundredsof miles of land where the tree-stumps of theprimeval forest still stand among the vigorous corn,where the farmhouse is but an impermanent thatchedhut. But the dark rich earth, the lusty crops, theblossoming orchards and hedges, the green pastureswith their sleek cattle, create a scene of genuine content.The holdings may be new, yet they are plainly homes.Chile possesses mines, but they drain rather than createpopulations; growing industries—weaving factories,200grain mills, and a score of new employments which tendto concentrate wealth and culture; but it is in herfarming lands that the truest cradle of the race, thefrankest and strongest people, the most cheerfulspirit, is found.

In actual figures the amount of land under cultivationin Chile is not immense, yet the farmlands producenot only sufficient grain and fruits to serve the needs ofthe inhabitants of both fertile and arid regions but alsoship a surplus to the exterior markets of Peru, Ecuadorand Bolivia.

Government statistics add up the total of land assignedto “agricultural properties” or farms to 18,000,000hectares, or about 45,000,000 acres. But not allthis land is under cultivation. The area devoted tocereals, beans and peas, potatoes and vegetables, isreckoned as about 4½ per cent of all Chilean territory,or 750,000 hectares, equal to two and a half times asmany acres; vines and orchards, 111,000 hectares;planted woodland, 32,000 hectares. The cultivatedpastures (grass, alfalfa, clover, etc.) attain the figureof about 520,000 hectares; while there are nearly7,000,000 hectares of natural pastures. Twenty-twoper cent of all national territory is ascribed to forestand woodland, much of it either utilisable for industryor at least covering the ground with a rich vegetabledetritus of great future value to the farmer. Twenty-nineper cent of Chilean land areas is regarded as completelysterile, or at least negligible under present conditions.

This proportion of uncultivated or barren countryappears high at first sight, but three great areas mustbe practically excluded from possible cultivation,although unlikely and long-neglected regions have oflate triumphantly proved their worth as sheep pastures.201The great, diversified and topographically fantasticTerritory of Magellanes, comprising 71,000 squaremiles, has little to offer to the agriculturist.

Sheltered country as that in the vicinity of PuntaArenas produces certain field crops, while the limit ofcultivable land both in Eastern Patagonia and uponthe islands of Tierra del Fuego, Navarin, Brunswick,and other smaller groups, has not been reached with theestablishment of sheep farms; but the barren and rockylands on the borders of many channels, where blueglaciers creep to the edge of the water, and that part ofthe Strait region where the freezing gusts of the “williwaws”bend the heads of the drenched forests, is outsideconsideration until the climate changes.

Also beyond the vision of the farmer are the widespread,sun-scorched and waterless districts of the threenortherly provinces of Atacama, Antofagasta and Tarapacá,covering more than 95,000 square miles of land:as well as most of the 9000 square miles of Tacna, whosefinal ownership is still undetermined. The third considerableregion which is apparently destined to remainuncultivable is that of the rugged and broken foothillsand heights of the Andean slopes of eastern Chile,where nothing lives but wild mountain birds and thehardy guanaco.

Reckoning in hectares, Magellanes counts an area of3,214,000 hectares, or about 8,000,000 acres: yet only133 hectares were under crops in 1919. At the sametime the Island of Chiloé, with a surface of about 8600square miles, had only 75 hectares in cultivation. Asbetween the too-dry lands of the north and the too-rainycountry of the south, agricultural advantages liewith the former, for wherever irrigation is possible thenatural disabilities are at once overcome, and the rainlessbelt becomes magnificently fertile. The agriculturist202of the Chilean lands below Puerto Montt is seldomable to risk planting a cereal crop, for even shouldthe heavy rains not affect the fields adversely, thegrain must be gathered green lest wind-storms shouldblow the ripened seed away. However, the discoveryof the last few years that certain types of sheep (usuallycross-bred Romney Marsh varieties similar to thosereared in the Falklands) thrive in Chilean Patagonia,Tierra del Fuego and other once-despised Magellaniclands, has brought about an agreeable transformationin the agricultural industries, as in the revenue andpopulation of the far south.

Oases in the Desert

Perhaps it is partly because they stand out in suchsharp contrast with a barren background that suchnorthern valleys as that of the Lluta, with pretty Aricatown at its mouth, appear to be of such enchantingloveliness. In other regions, burning ochre desertsstretch away in dazzling sunlight, and suddenly onecomes upon the tender lime-green fields of the CopiapóRiver; the emerald maize and alfalfa of the Loa; thePica Vale, a strip of deepest green studded with millionsof the golden globes of ripe oranges; or the exquisiteElqui and Huasco in the month when loads uponloads of grapes, peaches and figs are ripe. In every dipof the land where a stream flows down from the Andes,gardens and orchards bloom; careful intensive cultivationis the rule in north Chile, where the farming industryhas received an impetus since the nitrate fieldsswarmed with industrial camps, ready to pay big pricesfor every pound of fresh fruit or vegetables.

This cultivation of orchards in the desert is revivingenthusiastically, but is no more than the restoration of203ancient arts; before the day of Spanish occupationirrigation was extensively practised, and we know fromthe large burial grounds discovered near what are todaysmall villages that certain parts of the arid countryformerly supported considerable populations—as atCalama, at Chiu-Chiu, or at Arica itself. The desolationof former cultivated districts is sometimesascribed to the war-expeditions of the Incas, sometimesto the destruction of irrigation works by the Spaniards,sometimes to the action of earthquakes which havediverted rivers from their original courses, and iscertainly to be attributed in many cases to the characterof the streams, rushing from mountain heights withtremendous force, washing away fields and defences,and leaving wide, stony and sterile beds to mark theirruinous course.

Tacna province, with Arica as the port and TacnaCity as the capital, is looked upon hopefully today as asource of supply of sugar and cotton for Chilean mills;both these commodities are now imported. With sufficientwater, this little province of 40,000 inhabitantscan produce also enough tobacco for Chile’s internalconsumption. The Sociedad Industrial Azucarera deTacna, formed at the end of 1920, hopes to plant 8000hectares in sugarcane, to obtain from the harvest ofeach hectare ten tons of sugar, and thus to fill theChilean demand for 80,000 tons of sugar per year.Apart from this enterprise, whose results are awaitedwith interest, a number of small landholders alreadyproduce a little sugar, and find a ready sale for thealmonds, olives, walnuts, peaches, figs, green fodderand vegetables cultivated. The splendid cotton ofTacna province is eagerly purchased by South Chile’smills, but the export is small as yet, amounting only toa few hundred tons annually; there is every inducement204to immense extension of the cultivation of thisfibre, and when present plans to canalise the waters ofthe Caplina River and of Lake Chuncara are completed,the little province will multiply its 230,000 hectaresnow under cultivation.

Tarapacá Province is curiously situated as regardscultivation; to the north a few rivers reach the sea, asin Arica, but from Pisagua southwards the great nitratebeds lie like an immense dry lake parallel with the coast,and a dozen little rivers flowing down from Andeanfoothills disappear in the desert sands long before theyreach the eastern edge of the nitrate pampas. But eachone of these rivers is a green ribbon of fertility, andTarapacá ships its luscious oranges to the nitratecamps, and by train all the way to Pueblo Hundidoin Atacama.

Antofagasta’s one considerable river is the Loa,subject to strong floods, but irrigating small fields allthe way. There are but 121 farmers in the wholeprovince of 46,000 square miles, cultivating less than3000 hectares. Sites of old pre-Spanish towns along theLoa’s banks are proof of centuries of utilisation of itswaters.

Copiapó possesses two charming oases in the desert.The first and most important is the ancient town ofCopiapó, long famous for its copper mines, but depressedby the drop in metal prices after the close ofthe European war. The second is Vallenar, whosebright setting of little fields, peach trees and vines, is ajoy to the eyes after a journey through the coppercountry. Neither region produces enough foodstuffsfor its own maintenance, and there is no agriculturalsurplus to sell. The whole province of over 30,000square miles has less than 20,000 hectares under irrigation.

205Coquimbo Province is generally regarded as thenorthern limit to general farming; it is a small province,including only 13,500 square miles, shouldered bythe Andes that here push down within eighty kilometresof the Pacific Ocean, but it is prosperous and enterprising.The population is about 250,000, of whom 4500are farmers; of the remainder the great bulk are interestedin mining small veins of copper, an industry whichhas been handed down for generations as a kind oftechnical inheritance in northern Chile. I know aCoquimbo farm, excellently managed, situated a fewmiles outside Coquimbo Port and its older sister, LaSerena, which is a revelation of what can be done underthe difficulties attendant upon almost constant drought—forthe rainfall does not usually attain two inchesin the year—and a temperature which remains steadilyat about 60° Fahrenheit. The livestock were, in theperiod of greatest heat, driven eastwards to the hills,many landowners upon the coast following the systemof buying supplementary land in the cordilleras in thehope of finding at every season a few patches of pasture.John McAuliffe is one of those Britons who identifytheir fortunes with those of Chile, and forty years’residence, with experience of shipbuilding, mining andfarming, has made the genial owner of San Martin aresourceful producer and distributor.

Coquimbo Province possesses 1,500,000 hectares ofland devoted to agriculture, of which 20,000 are irrigatedand about 25,000 are “artificial” pastures. Vineyardson a commercial scale, orchards of figs and othersub-tropical fruits, as well as fields of wheat, maize andbarley, produce a surplus exported from Coquimbo.

South of this province Central Chile begins. Aconcagua,Valparaiso, Santiago, O’Higgins, Colchagua andCuricó are among the most delightful regions in theworld, with a perfect climate, fertile land, access tomarkets, and employés who are not yet impressedwith the views of the I. W. W. which have troubled thewaters of Chilean industry so effectively during recentyears. It has been the writer’s good fortune to seesomething of the life upon several estates devoted togeneral farming and livestock, upon fruit and alfalfafarms, and upon one of the finest vine-growing and wine-makingproperties in Central Chile. I cannot imaginea more agreeable life than that upon these estates.

In the first example, the lands are situated upon theAconcagua River, extending from this barrier in a halfcircle enclosed by a horse-shoe of wooded hills. Theriver is a typical Chilean watercourse, widespread,turbulent, spreading into five or six branches on a wideand stony bed. When the snows melt and the streamcomes down with great force, it is almost impassable,although the sturdy Chilean horse, extremely intelligentand well trained, will always struggle across safelyso long as the reins are left loose. The farm includesabout 250 acres of irrigated land and about 2000 acresof hillside. The jealously-watched water rights areregulated by a set of special laws, and as there is justabout enough water for the service of the farms alongthe Aconcagua’s banks, with none to spare, water-stealingis a black crime. Quebrada Redonda is a mixedfarm, upon which a couple of hundred sheep, as well ascattle and horses, are fed: the fields are brilliant withlucerne, wheat, beans, barley and Indian corn. In thekitchen garden are peaches, walnuts, artichokes,207oranges, pears, plums, celery—in fact, all fruit andvegetables that grow in temperate or sub-tropical zones.The lawn edges are gay with roses and iris, chrysanthemumsand lupins. All the flat lands are fertile: nofertilisers are needed, but leguminous crops are grown inrotation with cereals. The milk of the Chilean cowsis first-class in quality and produces cheese—madedaily by the simplest process—that finds a ready salein local markets.

The hill lands, invaluable upon a Chilean farm, offerplenty of food for the young cattle in winter. Withina few days after the first heavy rains the brown slopesturn green, and the cattle are driven up to crop the newcarpet of young grass. The woodland yields sufficienttimber to supply the domestic needs of the patrón andthe inquilinos (farm hands working upon a specialsystem), but there is no growth of big trees. The graceful,evergreen quillay is the base of quite a considerableindustry, for the bark is highly saponaceous, and,stripped and dried, is sold in all the public markets inChile. The maitén, another thick little tree, is also cutfor firewood; the litre offers useful lumber when ofsufficient size. Down by the water stand rows of familiarwillows, their branches draped with the scarletflowers of the parasite quintral; and on the slopes arescores of bunches of blue-green dagger-shaped leavesenclosing a stalk crowned with a violet flower-head.This is the chagual, whose young stem is eaten in springtime,a lovely period when pink wild lilies clothe therocky slopes and a myriad flowering trees and shrubsscent the clear air. Many of the aromatic leaves andbarks for which Chile is famous are used to makemedicinal decoctions, beloved of the working classes.

Adjoining this property is another fine farm, alsooperated by an energetic country-loving Briton; here208lemons and other citrus fruits are grown in well-keptorchards and the fields are given over to alfalfa andhemp, grown in rotation with root crops. Chile has nowarmer advocates of her attractions than the ownersof Quebrada Redonda and its neighbour, but bothfarmers lay stress upon the need for personal attentionto every detail and constant residence upon the property,even with the best mayor-domo performing theduties of a farm bailiff or estate steward. It is alsoemphasised that Chilean lands are not for the workerwithout capital. In this coveted region, in fact, costsrun high, as the following data, owed to Mr. GeoffreyBushell, demonstrate.

The average cost of good irrigated land, near the railway,in the Central Valley (from Aconcagua to theMaule) is about 4000 paper pesos per cuadra of somefour acres: or say £50 per acre with exchange at twelvepence to the peso. To this should be added £50 percuadra for the purchase of horses, cattle and implements,and another £50 per cuadra should also beallowed for fencing, drains, repairing or putting upbuildings, expenses frequently renewed even when afarm is in good running order. Land in less accessibleregions is less costly, but transport in Chile dependsupon railroads, since the highways are out of action inthe rainy season, and it is worth while to avoid troubleby a greater initial outlay. No farm is cheap if itsproducts cannot be sent to market.

When the estate is in good running condition, returnscome quickly and markets are excellent; a profit of 12to 15 per cent upon invested capital is usually expected,but may rise to 20 per cent. Alfalfa can be cut at leastthree times a year, and always finds a ready sale: potatoes,wheat and barley, beans, hemp, aji (red pepper),all do well and are good selling crops. Potatoes, for209example, yield 300 bags (of 100 kilos each) to the cuadra,and bring fifteen to twenty pesos per bag in theValparaiso markets.

Animals can be kept out of doors all the year round,and the stock-fattening and dairy businesses are bothgood. Fruit cultivation, apart from such good carriersas lemons or oranges, is not recommended, since quickaccess to markets is lacking and selling organisationsdo not exist.

In order to buy, stock, equip and operate a farm andto wait a year for returns without inconvenience, afarmer taking up land in Central Chile should have£15,000 ($75,000 U. S. currency). He needs at leastfifty cuadras, or 200 acres, of irrigated land, as well assome wild bush, preferably hill country. Workers arenever abundant in South America, but the inquilinosystem retained in Chile tends to keep generation aftergeneration upon the soil, and no good farmer lackshelp in spite of the higher wages offered by the miningindustry. Attacks have been levelled against theinquilino system, yet it works well in practice whenestate owners are just and a personal interest taken inthe worker’s welfare. The men live upon the estatewith their families, are given a cottage rent free, a stripof land of generally one or two acres, and sometimesthe use of ploughs and other farm implements; a horseand a few domestic animals are usually owned. Onepound of bread and one pound of beans are given daily,cooked if so preferred, and one peso per day in cash. Onthe farms visited by the writer the houses of the farmhands were sound and clean, and the families appearedcheerful and content; I heard warm praises of theChilean worker from employers.

The life of a farmer in Chile, it was generally agreed,is pleasant; constant attention is required, but rewards210are sufficient and the delightful climate compensatesfor many difficulties. The open-air life, constant horsebackriding, and the sense of freedom in a country nottoo densely populated, attract many Europeans,lamenting nothing more than the absence of certainforms of sport. There is fair fishing, for instance, inthe fast streams from the Cordillera, but there are nosporting fish; no hunting, but good shooting in woodedor open country. The partridge and tortolita fly welland fast, and give almost as good sport as grouse; snipeand quail are also to be found in the central regions.

Vineyards

In this same region of the Aconcagua Valley are someof the best vineyards and wine-making estates in Chile.The great Panquehue property, one of the Errazurizestates, is a magnificent sight with its endless rows oftrained vines bearing white and black grapes, stretchingacross the rich brown lowlands to the foot of the Andeanspurs, where all cultivation ceases, and where valuablepeat has been identified in vast stretches. Here are2000 acres devoted to viniculture, and from the fruit ofthe low-trimmed branches is produced each year 2,000,000to 3,000,000 litres of wine, chicha and brandy. Chileanred and white wines are of sound and pleasant quality,superior to the Mendoza brands, owing to greatersuavity; some of the native-made “Sauternes” arepractically indistinguishable from the French original.It is astonishing to realise the simplicity of this ancientindustry of wine-making, for although Panquehue hastoday a machine crusher, and a mechanical press, anautomatic bottler, etc., there is something primitiveand ample in the process. The bodegas (cellar warehouses)of the estate are immense vistas of cool stillness,211the huge vats looming high in the semi-darkness beneatha succession of great arches. This estate, withits enormous and luxurious house of the owners, itssettled population of workers, its self-supporting cropsand fine livestock, has almost a feudal atmosphere.Altogether, Chile has 90,000 hectares, or say 225,000acres, under grape culture, about ten times as much asCalifornia in her pre-prohibition days.

While these vineyards of the central provinces are invery fine condition—extending west from Santiago towithin sight of the sea on the beautiful slopes towardsValparaiso—the real heart of the grape country isfarther south, where also lie the great food-producingregions of Chile. The great grape country is spreadover Curicó, Talca, Maule, Linares, Ñuble and Concepciónprovinces, while the wonderful valley of Lontuéis one great vineyard, with over 10,000 acres undercultivation. Estates follow in a long succession, someable to boast of model villages for workers and thoroughlyup-to-date methods of wine-making. Theproduct of Lontué is sold not only throughout Chile,but is shipped to Argentina, Peru and Colombia.“Dry” laws in Chile, advocated by Dr. Fernando Peña,do not seem likely to cause the extinction of viniculturehere, if only for the reason that the use of wine isscarcely ever excessive among the native workmen, orin the educated classes. The industry is extremelyimportant to Chile, is chiefly in the hands of Chileans-born,and represents a very large investment; theseconsiderations would not, however, preserve the vineyardsultimately if the effect of their existence werepernicious. The facts appear to be against any ideaof this kind.

South Americans in general inherit the temperatehabits of the Latin, and when strong liquors cause212trouble amongst such closely crowded groups of workersas one finds in the northern mines, badly made spiritsand not wine are to be blamed. Against the disembarcationof imported spirits the workers of the north rosein arms, in 1920, procedure echoed in Punta Arenas alittle later, and an investigator sent to the spot by theMercurio of Santiago reported that for every pint ofgood southern wine sold in Taltal, there were twentypints of noxious alcohol—much of it made on the spotin amateur stills.

Wheatfields, Orchards, and Sheepfarms

Cereal culture, whether of maize, wheat, barley orother grains, exists throughout Chile, but from Coquimboto Chiloé are the great fields of trigo blanco andtrigo candeal—the latter, hard wheat, grown chieflyupon 20,000 acres in the north of the Central Valley,and the former upon 1,000,000 acres, chiefly in theprovinces of Maule, Linares, Ñuble, Concepción, Bio-Bio,Malleco, Cautín, Valdivia and Llanquihue. Thetotal wheat crop is 5,500,000 metric quintales, worth16,000,000 pesos. It is in the great fertile region ofthe south that one finds the largest number of smallfarmers, for most of this agricultural country has beenopened during the last fifty or sixty years, and no greatancient estates exist. Valdivia and Llanquihue weredeveloped mainly by the efforts of settlers from CentralEurope in the middle of last century, while old Araucaniawas not finally opened to white settlers, whetherforeigners or Chileans, until the punitive expedition of1881 broke down the frontier for ever. Land was parcelledout in comparatively small estates, and as aresult Chile is fortunate in counting about 97,000 landproprietors; of these, 65,000 owners farm less than 50213acres each; 25,000 others farm holdings of less than 500acres; 5000 estates are between 500 and 2500 acres inextent; and only 465 proprietors are possessed of estatestotalling over 12,000 acres.

To create these southerly farm lands great forestalareas have been necessarily denuded, and a good dealof work is required to keep down the luxurious growthof creepers, wild bamboos, ferns and undergrowth.But the southern agriculturist is spared the constantpreoccupation of the northerner as regards watersupply. Chile has little marsh or swamp country today,although the presence of large peat beds is eloquent ofancient bogs, but the south is very well watered. Toowell watered, in fact, in some localities, Valdivia’s 115inches of annual rainfall being well outdistanced byChiloé’s 134 inches; the genial softness of the climatesaves these localities from the unusual unpleasanteffects of such heavy rainfalls, for if it is almost truethat in Valdivia it rains every day, it is also true thatthe sun shines every day.

Between the Maule River and Lake Llanquihue thewhole country of Chile is like familiar ground to thetraveller from well-tended countries of Western Europe,an impression specially keen in Chile’s autumn, Marchand April. Orderly apple and cherry orchards standbordered by hedges hung thick with ripening blackberries;long level fields show the tender green of clover.Beside the rose-clustered farmhouse are neatly builtstacks of wheat straw; in the meadows are fine sleekcattle and well-groomed horses. The fenced gardenis full of flowers, of vegetables and herbs, and behindthe house is a grove of walnuts and chestnuts. Thefarmer riding along a muddy road has the ruddy cheeksof the temperate zone, and the only strange note is214struck by his poncho and long jingling spurs. Rowsof tall poplars, burned golden, edge the fields. Asbackground to this ordered fertility there rise to theeast the shining, silver-white heads of volcanos—Llaima,Villarica, or Antuco, or, farther south, Osornoand Calbuco—and from the lines of dark forest thererun deep and silent rivers. The south is remarkable inpossessing three navigable rivers, the Toltén, Imperial,and Valdivia; the Bueno is also traversed by smallsteamers in part of its course from Lake Ranco and isa channel for farm produce.

Wheat is harvested in the south at the end of March,but in May apples and pears are still being gatheredand nuts are ripe. The big crops of strawberries, plums,and cherries are sent to jam and conserving factories,South Chile supplying the whole of the West Coast withcanned fruit, while the export of fresh fruit to New Yorkand London is a new industry with bright prospects.

South of Temuco the land is seen in three stages.Belts of primeval forests close down to the border ofrailway track or road, a green wall matted with the wildclimbing bamboo, the trails of scarlet and purplefuchsias, or the slender vines of copihue with its beautifulrosy bells. Native beech and lingue, their feet deepin ferns, stand as a solid barrier, feathering at the top intothickly leaved branches; the wild witch-hazel’s sweetlyscented, creamy flowers break from every thicket.

That is the first stage: the next is encountered wherea settler has recently broken ground, and corn springsbetween the blackened stumps of burned trees. A loghut, thatched, windowless, stands at the side of theclearing. In the third stage all signs of violence aregone; the forest is conquered, the cleared spacesmoothed and ploughed, the homestead enclosed with215a neat wooden fence. Rows of young fruit trees displayslim twigs beside the farmhouse, and this already hasits chicken-run, dove-cote, stable and pleasant meadowfor horses and cattle. A chain of sawmills is seen in thislately redeemed country with its thick reserve of forestlands.

Between Valdivia and Puerto Montt lies a greatpotato-raising country; the land flattens out fromOsorno to the edge of Llanquihue Lake, and herehundreds of well-managed farms flourish; a large proportionof the settlers possess German names, and theirforebears brought with them, seventy years ago, thecraft of the farmer. Today the population is Chilean.Farther south, upon the island of Chiloé, another groupof foreign origin operates farms beside the nativeChilotes: after the South African War ending in 1903a number of Boers came here and, in spite of the markeddifference between climate and conditions of the Transvaaland South Chile, remained and prosper.

Chile feeds about 5,000,000 sheep, of which number2,000,000 have been raised in the far south, in theTerritory of Magellanes; 2,250,000 head of cattle aredistributed throughout the country—Tarapacá andAntofagasta owning about 600 head between them,while Tacna has 2500—but by far the largest number,2,000,000, are grouped in the provinces below Valparaiso.The country supports also about 400,000horses, 55,000 mules, and 300,000 pigs. The wool clipof Chile averages 170,000 metric quintals, four-fifthsof the total coming from the Territory of Magellanes.

Among the small farming industries of Chile are beekeepingand flax-production; a little olive oil is made inthe more northerly provinces, and the dried raisins,peaches and apricots of Huasco have earned muchmore than local fame.

216The rise of sheep-farming and allied industries inMagellanes Territory is one of the great surprises ofthe century. Punta Arenas itself, founded on paper byPresident Bulnes in 1843, and tentatively settled in1851, was for a long time nothing but a penal settlement:but a rising of the convicts drew attention tothe region, the discovery of gold reefs and coal beds, aswell as petroliferous shales, brought a number of enterprisingpeople, and by 1897 the first flock of sheep,brought by the governor Dublé Almeida twenty yearspreviously, had multiplied so fast that the territorycounted 800,000 as the total flock. It was difficultto find a use for the sheep, and by way of solving thisproblem the first packing-house was established in 1905at Rio Seco, about ten miles from Punta Arenas.

Four frigorificos are now in operation, at San GregorioBay, at Puerto Bories (Ultima Esperanza) andat Tres Puentes, in addition to the first established.During the war the packing-houses exported meatproducts (frozen and conserved meat, fats, etc.) worth£1,000,000 sterling annually, and large fortunes werealso made by the sheep-raising farms when the price ofwool soared from sixpence per pound to twenty-twopence. The largest of the companies running sheepon a big scale is the Sociedad Explotadora de la Tierradel Fuego, which started operations in 1893, has acapital of £1,800,000, raised in London, and owns overa million sheep.

A fifth packing-house built at the close of the war andalready in operation is situated in Puerto Montt, isBritish-financed and equipped, and aims at helpingthe situation of this part of the south, possessing asurplus for northern markets but lacking sufficienttransportation for live animals.

Irrigation canals have been in use in Chile forhundreds of years, those constructed by private estateowners watering a total of over 3,000,000 acres. Severalof these are ambitious constructions, those divertedfrom such well-supplied rivers as the Maipo and Aconcaguaextending in certain instances for over one hundredmiles.

The great O’Higgins built a canal ensuring Santiago’swater supply 150 years ago: a continuance of this wisepolicy of Government direction in a matter of nationalimportance has been advised by many thinkers inChile, but it was not until the closure of nitrate enterprisesin 1914 forced the Government to find employmentfor surplus workers that irrigation laws wereadded to the Chilean code and bonds issued to financethe construction of four important canals. In early1915 the creation of a new section in the Public WorksDepartment inaugurated a period of great activity inthe work suggested, and by the beginning of 1921 theManco Canal drawing water from the Aconcagua wasalready completed, its forty-five miles of main lengthbringing water to nearly 8000 acres of land. The costof construction was 2,000,000 pesos paper.

At the same time work was begun on the MauleCanal, drawing water from the Maule River; it is 115miles long, irrigates 113,000 acres, and was built at acost of 8,500,000 pesos; its completion represents anengineering feat upon which Chilean engineers are tobe congratulated. A fall created by one of the branchesof this canal offers 20,000 h.p. to users of hydraulicforce in Chile.

The Laja Canal diverts water from the river of this218name, has a main length of 25 miles with distributioncanals of 240 miles, and is lined with concrete for tenmiles of its course where sandy soil is traversed. It iscalculated that this canal serves 110,000 acres of land.The Melado Canal, drawing water from the river ofthe same name, is fifteen miles long, and irrigates75,000 acres.

The Public Works Department also plans constructionof canals drawing water from the Culenar River,to irrigate 12,000 acres; from the Nilahue, to irrigate25,000 acres; and from the Colina, to irrigate 10,000acres, while businesslike schemes for damming andutilising the water of seven of Chile’s string of snow-fedmountain lakes in the south are also under way.All this work is due for completion by 1925, whilestudies of the strange rivers of the north that flowfrom the Andes and bury themselves in the sandydeserts long before the sea is approached have alsobeen energetically carried on, with a view to salvingthese much-needed waters. Don Carlos Hoerning,Chief Engineer of the Chilean Reclamation service,says that the wonderful northern climate and soilrespond to irrigation by producing crops five times asabundant as the normal rate in the south, justifyingthe expense of pumping and piping water.

Formerly, private enterprise was interested in irrigationcanals only in the central farming regions,while the more generously watered south ignored thequestion; but denudation of the southern forests hasbrought about a change in this rainy region while theneed for foodstuffs and the excellent rewards awaitingthe farmer have valorised every acre of good soil, andtoday a large proportion of the canalisation projectsof the Government refer to southerly regions. Withlittle public land to offer, the Chilean Government’s219new laws were drafted to reach the owner of largeareas of uncultivated—and, if without water, uncultivable—land.When the newly inaugurated systemis in full working order Chile should have at least100,000,000 acres under the plough.

Extent.—Beech, Conifer and Bamboo.—Trees inNorthern and Central Chile.—Plantations.

Chile’s heavily wooded country lies in the rainysouth, and stretches from the stormy islands aboutCape Horn through the long archipelagos and theprovinces of Llanquihue and Valdivia, the forestsgradually thinning out as they run northward throughthe old Araucanian country. The province of Cautínis the last stronghold of deep forest.

Altogether, the tree-covered area of Chile is estimatedat 15,000,000 hectares, or about 37,000,000 acres; butat least two-thirds of this quantity must be left outof consideration as regards opportunity for organizedcommercial effort such as paper-pulp making. Lackof large “social” woods, and thin or patchy distribution,is of course a bar to industrial effort on a greatscale, but there are immense stretches existing in certainregions, as in Valdivia, with nearly 2,000,000 acres ofcontinuous forest; Llanquihue, with 1,500,000 acres;and Chiloé, with rather more than 1,000,000 acres.

An impressive picture is created by the density andextent of the southern forests of Chile, among the lastof the great primeval tree-covered areas in the world.They are like immense green seas, filling mile after mileof basin-like valleys, running up the sides of the lowerAndean spurs, and in the archipelagos often closingdown to the sea’s edge so thickly that waves break between221the trunks. Up to the present the trees whichhave proved most useful are conifers, as the alerce,used for centuries by the native Indians for theircanoes; the “Chilean pine” (Araucaria chilensis),yielding a big cone-full of kernels not unlike chestnuts,which must not be confounded with its kin, Araucariaimbricata, the “Monkey-puzzle” tree; the tall lumo ofChiloé, used for shipbuilding, and exported to Liverpoolbefore the war; and two varieties of the native“roble,” which are not oaks, as this colloquial Spanishname suggests, but varieties of beech.

The evergreen beech (Fagus antarcticus) flourishes inMagellanic territory, and with its kin the deciduousFagus betuloides and the cypress (Libocedrus Tetragonus)stands along the borders of Magellan Strait and onthe glacier country of the deeply scored waterwaysextending northwards; its habitat does not extend northbeyond the Chonos Islands, or about 45° of southlatitude. All about Punta Arenas this beech is ofgreat service, is used for house construction and boatbuilding,and still exists in large stretches of woodland.The famous Winter’s Bark (Drimys Winterii), a beautifultree whose aromatic-scented bark was noted bythe earliest travellers, is also used locally. Many ofthe shouldering green heights that edge the Strait areclothed almost to the summit with trees that, changingto burning yellow and orange tints by the monthof April, glow from the mists, their lower trunks thickwith ferns.

Two wild bamboos of South Chile are common—thesmall climbing “quila,” and the “colihue,” sometimesgrowing thirty feet tall, and congregated in greatsocial tracts known as “colihuales.” Characteristicwoodland of the Valdivia region is tangled with thesebamboos, with thick ferns, and with such creepers as222the lovely Lapageria rosea, with its waxen pink orwhite flowers that retain the Indian name of copihue—thenational flower of Chile, and the no less beautifulPhilesia.

The handsome conifer called alerce (Fitzroya PatagonicaHook) grows in extensive woods or “alerzales”in the Llanquihue region, its base deep in ferns, thethickly-berried berberis (Empetrum rubrum) and otherfruit-bearing shrubs, as the Myrtus nummularia. Fromthese berries the native Indians made their fermenteddrink “chicha” in the time before Spanish soldiersand missionaries brought European fruit trees to SouthChile; today apples are chiefly used for the samepurpose.

The alerce frequently grows to a great size. Dr.M. R. Espinosa, visiting the regions of its greatest occurrencein 1917, measured conifers of this varietywhich reached 115 feet in height, with a trunk diameter,at three feet from the ground, of four and a half feet.Another big specimen measured twenty-seven feet incircumference, and he speaks of yet another giant,whose old trunk was still to be seen between PuertoVaras and Puerto Montt, with a girth at the base ofover forty-two feet. The alerce grows perfectly erect,providing splendid planks of such uniform quality thatup to comparatively recent times these “tablas” werethe recognised standard of barter in the Llanquihueand Chiloé regions, and were exchanged like cash forimported manufactures and foodstuffs. The wood isred in hue, resists exposure to water and air, and iseasily worked, light and resilient.

The coihue, another fine timber tree of the south,growing in “colonies,” runs the alerce a good second inheight, the two bearing the reputation of being thetallest trees found in Chile; the laurel, the lumo, and223the canelo are not equally social in habit, but grow inmixed woodland and are therefore not commerciallyavailable to a like extent. The latter tree, the “Chileancinnamon,” has a scented bark and is sacred to theAraucanians, whose main festivals and ceremonieswere traditionally held under the shade of the canelo’sbranches.

Forty per cent of the whole territory of Magellanesis estimated as forest: Llanquihue, Valdivia and Cautínpossess a smaller proportion, for much magnificentwoodland has already yielded to the axe of the settler,but there is still in all about 20,000,000 acres of timberedland south of the Bio-Bio River. Beyond Araucaniathe thick forest of the south gives place to lightwoods, with no large trees and none that are tall exceptthe imported poplar, commonly known as the “alamo.”All about Concepción the thickly leaved little boldo isseen, yielding only small timber but much prized forthe medicinal value of its leaves, from which “boldaina”is extracted; the thickets are full of the slimavellano, producing a nut closely resembling the hazel.

The wooded areas of the central region, especiallyin the well-watered parts of Aconcagua, O’Higgins,Valparaiso and Colchagua, are well supplied withlingue, maitén, litre and quillay. The bark of thelatter is highly saponaceous and is sold in every Chileanmarket, but few of these trees yield planks large enoughfor construction purposes, and are chiefly useful asfuel.

The northerly, more arid country above Illapel frequentlyshows nothing but a thorny scrub of the mimosafamily; one of these, the algarroba, is prized asa shade tree and for the green pods it produces, an excellentcattle food. When brown and dry, these podsyield a tannin used in curing skins, almost identical224with the divi-divi of Venezuela. Beyond Coquimboeven the thorny scrub and cactus disappear, and inthe Andean heights of Tacna the only fuel that offersis that strange growth, like a mammoth fungus, thellareta, that must be dried for over a year before it willburn.

It is thus plain that North and Central Chile, whereis the bulk of the population of the country, cannotsupply their own needs for lumber; it is from thegreat southerly habitat of the alerce, the coihue and theChilean pine that vast quantities of wood for industrialand domestic use must be sought. Sawmills begin todot the side of the railroad soon after the Bio-Bio iscrossed on a southerly journey, and immense piles offine planks and logs stand beside the line all the wayto Puerto Montt. Immense tracts of forest are stilluntouched for lack of adequate transport, although theconformation of Chile, and the large number ofsoutherly rivers and lakes, help to render the problemsoluble. Even without any great organisation, thesouth supplies lumber to the central and northernprovinces while filling its own requirements and exportinga varying quantity. It is difficult to estimatethe amount of Chilean timber exported, since statisticsof the number of pieces, or even of “bundles” ofplanks, are alone available; the value, in 1919, of unworkedtimber exported from the country is officiallygiven as 1,496,000 pesos of eighteen pence.

Forestal laws in Chile have been slow in applicationchiefly because for centuries a great deal more woodlandexisted than could be utilised; land was neededfor cultivation, and it was no crime to burn large tractsin order that farms should be created. I have heardit maintained in Chile that such forest destruction orat least the clearing of wide strips through the heart225of certain southerly areas has been beneficial to theclimate: that the Valdivia and Llanquihue region havebeen less lavishly endowed with rain and rendered moreagreeable for settlers in consequence.

A few enterprising land owners have begun to replantwoodland, growing plantations of spruce and eucalyptusfor preference; for Chile is a hospitable host to allplants and trees brought from temperate zones.

A great deal has been said concerning the suitabilityof the South Chilean forests for making paper pulp,but up to the middle of 1921 no manufacture has beencommenced. Expert opinion has proposed new plantationsof eucalyptus, etc., owing to the non-socialcharacter of Chilean timberlands. Were the Chileanconifers more closely grouped the problem might havebeen solved long ago. Suggestions for utilising extensivethickets of bamboo, the colihue, have also beenwithout result up to the present, but the recent carefulinvestigations of a Swedish firm will, it is hoped, bearfruit. The south has plenty of water-power and easyaccess to sea or rail, two important points to be consideredin connection with manufacturing industries.

Home Factories.—Chilean Market Needs.—Sales toForeign Countries.—Foreign Firms in Chile.—Trade-marks.

The position of commerce in Chile is better understoodwhen it is realised that the country has no tropicalproducts for sale. Apart from the extreme north, whererills of precious water redeem the preponderant desert,and where varying quantities of cotton, sugar andpeppers are grown, farming is on a par with the farmingof western or southwestern Europe, or the temperateregions of Mexico. Chile has a surplus of wheat, cattleand sheep; a large production of grapes and wine; and,in the mineral field, offers her unique supplies ofnitrate as well as about 6 per cent of the world’s supplyof copper. Timber from her southerly forests is chieflyused at home for house and ship building; Chilean coalfinds its market in the Chilean factory regions or bunkeringports. Whatever the country has to spare ofher cereals, fruit (fresh or canned) and other farm producefinds a ready sale in Peru and Bolivia; the copperis practically all ear-marked for the United States.Thus Chile’s offering to the world outside the Americasis not large aside from her immense and greatly neededoutput of nitrate of soda.

The establishment of four packing-houses (frigorificos)in Magellanic territory, with another recentlyconstructed at Puerto Montt, follows and encourages227the big development of the sheep-raising industry, witha view not only to supplying the non-pastoral north,but selling a surplus abroad. The wool produced, andformerly exported, is likely to be entirely absorbed byhome weaving factories, to which an important additionhas been recently made at Valparaiso.

Of great help in Chilean industrial development isthe Sociedad de Fomento Fabril, and the work of threeGovernment industrial schools, at Santiago, Chillan andTemuco, turning out electricians, chemists, blacksmiths,carpenters and other technically trained students.

A country with a temperate climate, hardy population,possessing plenty of fuel and offering securitiesto foreign capitalists and business firms, is likely toprove an inviting ground for the creation of factories;certain parts of Chile, in consequence, are developinghome industries in a manner comparable to that ofSouth Brazil.

A good start had been made before the EuropeanWar, but as in many other South American regions thepressure of necessity brought about a remarkable andspeedy industrial growth. Deprived of big quantitiesof manufactured goods, Chile increased or built nationalmills, and can today produce a remarkably longlist of the goods she needs. Home utilization of rawmaterials of course tends to limit Chile’s export listsand, diminishing her income from overseas, narrowsher capacity for purchases in foreign countries, renderingher still more dependent upon nitrate exports fornational revenues.

Chile’s beds of good coal, with the addition of immenseforestal areas offering lumber, and, also in thesouth, considerable water-power resources, form asound basis for manufacturing. Below the river Aconcaguafactories are thickly dotted, and south of the228Maule is a 600-mile stretch of country where new industrialtowns lie like beads on a string, following the railroadtrack. Altogether, the large and small factoriesof Chile number twenty-seven hundred, counting everyindustry from Tacna to the Straits of Magellan; thegroup of important establishments employs 70,000people, of whom 40,000 are men, over 17,000 arewomen, and over 5000 are children less than fourteenyears old. Another 8000 people are employed by littleindustries. The value of the merchandise produced bythese factories increased by nearly 50 per cent between1915 and 1919, the latter year registering the manufactureof goods worth more than 765,000,000 pesos,Chilean paper. At an exchange value of twelve pence,this is equal to over £38,000,000. Santiago provincetopped the list with manufactured produce worth280,000,000 pesos, Valparaiso following with 163,000,000and Concepción coming third with 68,000,000 pesos.

Included in this output are metal goods, furniture,dried and tinned fruit, wines, beer, mineral waters,butter and cheese, lard, candles, soap, boots and shoes,wheat flour, Quaker oats, woven woollen and cottoncloths, pottery, chemicals, brown paper, bottles andother glass utensils, sugar and tobacco. Factoriesmanipulating the two last-named commodities do notdraw supplies of raw materials from Chilean soil butdepend upon importations, chiefly from Peru. Thereare two sugar works, both Chilean-owned and operated;one is situated at Valparaiso and another at Penco(near Concepción City), where soft brown crystallisedsugar is brought in sacks, and, after undergoing a seriesof new processes, including bleaching, is distributedto local firms in the form of soft white or cube sugar.The Chilean market rejects all sugars presenting anyhue but that of pure white, I was informed when enquiringat Penco why at least a proportion of the excellentbrown sugar imported could not be distributedin that condition, and at considerably lower cost to theconsumer. When the refinery was erected it was hopedthat it could be exclusively supplied with raw materialfrom local sugar-beet farms, and the failure as yet toproduce these crops in quantity is emphasised by theretail price of sugar in Chile—fifteen pence per poundin 1920.

229Also near Concepción, a few miles eastward followingthe curving banks of the silver Bio-Bio River, is a British-ownedand operated cotton-cloth factory turning outan average of 1,000,000 yards yearly, and working 276looms. The machinery is British and yarns are importedfrom Manchester. All through the agriculturalsouth are flour mills, of which half a score are owned byBritish firms; some of these installations are small andantiquated, but sixteen or more are equipped with thebest modern machinery. As a result of this millingactivity, Chile imports but little wheat flour, and thischiefly from Argentina to serve as a blend, her homemills practically supplying the whole of the countryand leaving a surplus for export amounting to nearly24,000 metric tons annually. The best customers forChilean wheat flour are Bolivia (17,000 tons), Peru andEcuador.

Concepción with its coal mines is fortunately placedfor industrial development, and this with other similarlyendowed regions and well-wooded and watered partsof the populated south are fast building up a list ofmanufacturing enterprises, most of them based uponlocal products. They are rapidly meeting home demands.The foreign visitor in Santiago has frequentlyreceived a surprise when permitted to see the extremelyefficient Government munitions and instrument works,230realising that here is a South American state which isable to manufacture almost all the equipment neededfor its army, from cartridges and rifles to saddles andfield-glasses, the lenses of the latter being the only partimported.

When such a visitor has also seen tobacco and shoefactories, and the soap, candle and soda works of theLever firm at Valparaiso (supplying, with the sisterfactory at Concepción, one-third of Chile’s needs forthese goods), he will receive another lesson at the modelmatch factory at Talca, where the well-being of workersis exceptionally well studied and a crêche for the childrenof women workers is maintained. He shouldmake a point of visiting, at the rich agricultural centreof Traiguen, a factory where beautiful furniture ismade, and, following a sight of the sugar, flour, candleworks of Concepción, and fruit-canning establishmentsat Chillan, he will see at Valdivia the most ambitiousshipbuilding yards in Chile, turning out vessels of over3000 tons. Here is also an interesting factory makingtannin from the bark of lingue, a large boot and shoefactory, a cider works and several breweries and fruit-preservingfactories. Sawmills line the railway betweenTemuco and Valdivia, and thence to Puerto Montt,where the new frigorifico has been established, andan old lumbering commerce connects with the townof Castro, on Chiloé, where boats are built. BelowChiloé there is no industry until the extreme southis reached, and here in the vicinity of the Strait ofMagellan are four packing-houses serving the WestPatagonian sheep farms; at Punta Arenas are sawmills,and the headquarters of a number of gold-miningcompanies operating the alluvial deposits of thesoutherly islands, a brewery, candle factory, foundryand shipyard. Dawson Island possesses another shipbuilding231industry, constructing wooden vessels up to500 tons’ burden. A series of scientific chicken farmsalso flourishes at Punta Arenas; 30,000 hens at LeñaDura yield an average of 200 eggs each, annually: thefarm collects 5000 eggs per day, exporting them as faras Montevideo.

An immense impulse will be given to Chile’s manufacturingindustry when the hydro-electric developmentsplanned during the last few years, and organisedin 1921 by the Compañia Chilena de Electricidad, arecompleted. The creation of this new company is thework of S. Pearson & Son, Ltd., famous for brilliantwater-harnessing and engineering in many other regionsof Latin America. The Pearson firm initiatedits interest in Chile by the purchase of the Santiagotramways which had been in German hands prior tothe war, and were later operated by J. G. White & Co.,on behalf of the British Government.

Pearson’s decided to increase the power at the dispositionof the local service, obtained solely from fallsat La Florida, a few miles from Santiago, and effecteda combination with Chileans of enterprise and engineeringability already holding concessions for big newhydro-electric development, including the Cia. Generalde Electricidad and the Cia. Nacional de Fuerza Electrica.Work upon the latter’s plans was under way atMaitenes, inaugurated by the enthusiasm and skill ofDon Juan Tonkin. The Pearson company decided toform a new organisation with capital sufficient to enlargethe scope of the work and to take over, in addition,other hydro-electric plans upon the Maipo andColorado rivers. Proof of faith in Chile’s future wasgiven when Pearson’s decided to domicile the newcompany in Santiago and to add to its assets the propertiesof the Chilean Electric Tramway and Light Company,232as well as prestige and financial backing. Thenew company is the Cia. Chilena de Electricidad,capitalised at £8,250,000, with a debenture issue authorisedup to £5,000,000; Chilean capital is interestedto the extent of nearly three-quarters of a millionpounds sterling.

Under the enlarged project, the Maitenes plant willbe increased to develop 34,000 h.p.; the increase ofan existing steam-plant in Santiago will bring another27,000 h.p. into the market; and the development ofplans for the harnessing of the Maipo and its tributarythe Volcán at Puente del Cristo means the creation ofa large hydro-electric station, capable of producing65,000 h.p. When these installations are in workingorder, Central Chile will possess a force of 140,000 h.p.at the disposition of public services, domestic utilitiesand industry; the horizon thus opened is equal to thatof the biggest manufacturing region of South America,S. Paulo in Brazil, where in the city alone about 30,000h.p. is used to turn the wheels of industry.

The electrification of many Chilean railroads followsas a matter of course: no sooner was the new companyformed than the Chilean Government signed a contractfor the supply of electric power for the State lineconnecting Santiago and Valparaiso, and obtained aloan in New York for electric locomotive and otherequipment; similar improvement is planned to LosAndes and for the reorganised Transandine line. Transmissionlines, bringing power to Santiago from thegenerating plants, will carry force to Valparaiso byway of Llai-llai and Quillota, with substations at importantpoints such as Tiltil, whence the big cementworks of El Melon at Calera will obtain electric power,while Valparaiso’s industries will share in the new impetus.

Chile’s market needs are on a par with those of otherSouth American countries so far as manufacturedmetals, especially machinery, mining and railroadequipment are concerned: in common with her sisterstates, she is also a buyer of such luxuries as fine textilesof wool, silk, and linen, perfumery and other toiletspecialties, fine wines and spirits; also many utilitieswhich she cannot produce, as print and writing papers,high-grade glass and ceramic ware, inks, paints andvarnishes, cement, and sheet glass.

The best grades of cotton cloth are also imported,for the existing Chilean factories are limited in class ofoutput; there is a considerable import of ready-madeclothes, and of fine footwear, although it is but fair toadd that Chile produces the best shoes made in SouthAmerica and that her daintiest satin and kid footwearfor women compare well with the output of the greatmakers overseas; Chilean red and white wines alsooutclass the vintages of sister states, but while thewealthy resident has plenty of money in his pocketthere will always be a certain import of Europeanchampagnes and liqueurs, spirits and high-class wines.

Chile’s purchasing power varies a good deal, fluctuatingwith the fortunes of nitrate. The value ofimports during the last few years has swung from 153,000,000pesos in 1915 to the high-water mark of 436,000,000in 1918, after which a decline was experienced to401,000,000 in 1919 and 350,000,000 in 1920. Certaincommodities, with coal as the striking example, werealmost blotted from the import lists during the Europeanwar, and with the encouraging development ofthe national mines in response to necessity, plus agreatly extended use of petroleum as fuel for industrial234purposes, its pre-war place is unlikely to berecovered.

Looking down the lists of Chilean imports, the tendencytowards importing materials in the crude stateor simply prepared, for working-up in national factories,shows an immense increase since 1914; dependenceupon national supplies also increases markedly. Metalsin bars or pig, worth less than 400,000 pesos in 1914,were imported to the value of nearly 5,000,000 pesos in1919; at the same time the value of imported lumberdropped from nearly 3,000,000 pesos to 1,250,000. Thevalue of live animals imported—chiefly pedigreehorses and cattle from the United Kingdom and NorthAmerica, to improve the already excellent livestock ofthe Chilean farms—went up with a bound at the endof the war, totalling 12,000,000 pesos in 1918; the importationboth of leaf and prepared tobacco shows systematicgrowth; but purchases of foreign meats, butterand cheese, show consistent falls.

The value of sugar imported rose between 1914 and1920 from 9,000,000 to 25,000,000 pesos, but this movementindicates soaring prices rather than increasedChilean consumption. Purchases of yarns for weaving,of textiles, bags and sacks, and ready-made clothes, alldisplayed rises in the same period from 48,000,000 to123,000,000 pesos; so also did crude chemicals, particularlyessences for nationally elaborated and bottledperfumes. Imports of machinery, checked during thewar period, followed the same curve as electrical goods,doubling their values in 1919 as compared with 1914.

Chilean purchases of tools and implements have shownsteady increases, but the whole group of machinery formining, agriculture and industry, including motors,boilers and electrical goods, does not far exceed 38,000,000pesos (less than £2,000,000 at 20 pesos to the235pound sterling), while material for railways and othertransport services costs some 20,000,000 pesos, orabout £1,000,000 sterling annually. A fair averagefor Chilean purchases abroad may be calculated at£20,000,000 or inside $100,000,000 U. S. currency, atnormal exchange.

Sales to Foreign Countries

When one turns to the other side of the ledger, to seewhat Chilean merchandise is exchanged for these imports,the dangerously dominant position of nitratebecomes evident. The total exports rose from 300,000,000pesos in 1914 progressively to nearly 764,000,000 in1918 (subsequently suffering violent fluctuations) andof the latter amount nitrate and iodine accounted forover 532,000,000, with another 109,000,000 placed tothe credit of “minerales metálicos en bruto,” of whichthe chief if not the sole representative was copper.

Products of livestock farming, chiefly hides and wool,have risen in export value during the last few years,and may be reckoned as worth an average of 35,000,000pesos; vegetable products shipped out, with cerealspredominating, have varied lately between 14,000,000and 42,000,000 pesos; manufactured foodstuffs (driedor frozen meat, sugar, cheese, flour) have grown invalue since 1914 from 7,000,000 to nearly 24,000,000pesos; 1,000,000 pesos’ worth of wine is exported; somepottery, glass and leather; and an increasing quantityof unworked lumber. But none of the farming, metallic,forestal or manufactured merchandise groups showsigns of growing ability to equal nitrate in exportvalues. Fortunately, the world needs Chilean nitrate,and there is no prospect of the rise of a rival which couldmeet the naturally produced chemical in price if drasticand feasible cuts were made in export taxes.

236Disorganization of world markets since 1914 hasaffected the imports of Chile not only as regards bulkbut also origin of supplies. It will probably not bepossible for a judgment to be formed concerning thetrend of trade until after 1922, when the flow of commercemay have resettled into regular channels. Thegeneral effect of the war years was to send merchandisenorth and south instead of east and west: a big increaseoccurred in the trade relations between North andSouth America, while the stride in commerce betweenthe different South American nations was perhaps evenmore remarkable.

Intercourse amongst the sister nations has been delayedin the past by lack of coastal shipping and internationalrailways as much as by laws of supply anddemand. It has been frequently said that the differentLatin-American states have nothing to sell to eachother because they all produce the same class of goods,needing similar commodities only to be obtained fromthe advanced manufacturing countries. The latterpart of the contention has a great deal more force thanthe first; South America must buy certain classes ofgoods afield, but a careful scrutiny of production listsbrought to light, after 1914, many prime materials thatcould be exchanged, the impetus given to a coastwisetraffic (cabotaje) along both Atlantic and PacificCoasts proving the success of the new efforts. SeveralLatin-American states own maritime lines, but Chileand Brazil in particular aid the new inter-Americantrade development with excellent steamship and sailservices under national flags.

Brazil doubled her sales to Chile between 1914 and1919; Argentina increased the value of her shipmentsfrom under 6,000,000 pesos (Chilean gold, of eighteenpence each) in 1914 to 31,000,000 four years later;237Colombia and Costa Rica increased their sales of finecoffee (via Panama); Ecuador sent more cocoa and Perumore fruit and sugar—Peru’s sales, worth 14,000,000pesos in pre-war years rising to over 32,000,000 in 1919.Mexico’s sales to Chile rose from a few thousand pesosin value to over 7,000,000, during the last six years.

Chile at the same time made big increases in her ownshipments to Latin-American countries. Her salesto Argentina rose from 4,500,000 to 26,000,000 pesos ateighteen pence; to Bolivia, from 4,000,000 to 8,000,000;to Peru, from 3,000,000 to 18,000,000; to Mexico saleswere doubled during war years. In some cases, as thoseof Uruguay and Brazil, there have been fluctuations somarked that no conclusions can be drawn: but on thewhole the stimulus to inter-American trade has beenwell sustained.

With the United States a tremendous development oftraffic took place. Exports from Chile rose from86,000,000 pesos in 1914 to 489,000,000 in 1918; at thesame time Chile’s purchases from the United States,totalling about 55,000,000 pesos in 1914, soared to morethan 203,000,000 four years later. In the case of bothexports and imports, values were inflated and have notbeen sustained, although the development of the NorthAmerican mercantile marine since 1914 is likely topromote a greater share of commerce with SouthAmerica than was normal before the conflict. It isinteresting to note that despite the huge expansion ofNorth American trade with Latin America during waryears, inflation in all directions was so great that theproportion of business done by the United States withSouth America remained the same as it has been fora hundred years—5 per cent of the total exterior commerce.

A remarkable series of changes has been experienced238in the export lists of Chile during her economic life. Inearly days one of the most important exports appearedon shipping invoices as “Bezoar stones,” those curiousconcretions, forming in the bodies of certain vegetable-feedinganimals, which were considered medicinallypotent in the Middle Ages. Faith in the Bezoar stoneand supplies came from the East to Europe, but afterthe discovery of the Americas it was found that thellama and guanaco also formed the precious object,and trade grew brisk.

Once upon a time Chile shipped the bulk of her copperto India, taking Oriental cottons and other merchandisein exchange; this trade has long been discontinued,although Hindu as well as Japanese retailers are revivingbusiness with Chile. Up to 1887 Chile was stillexporting the skins of vicuña, now vanished from herconfines, and the beautiful chinchilla, also practicallyextinct in Chilean uplands.

The trade with the eastern side of the Andes in YerbaMaté received a blow when with Independence it waspossible for freer commerce to offer Indian and Chinateas to the former colonies of Spain; but the peasantclasses of Chile are still faithful to the maté and thebombilla, and a decreased but steady import continues.

Foreign Firms in Chile

Commercial conditions upon the West Coast of SouthAmerica are sharply distinguished from those of theAtlantic and the Caribbean by the establishment of anumber of powerful firms doing both import and exportbusinesses, owning and operating factories, and possessingwidely extended branches.

Several of these houses are British, their foundationdating back to the early days of Chilean independence239more than a hundred years ago; much of the mercantileenterprise, as well as the milling and nitrate refiningindustry, is indebted to these companies for capital andinspiration. With European alliances also is a strongNorth American firm, interested in general business,factory development and nitrate, and running a lineof steamers between North and South America, whilestill more recent newcomers are the important Jugo-Slavfirms operating all the way from Punta Arenasto Antofagasta, and rapidly increasing their interestsin nitrate and other extractive industries.

The largest of the British firms operates sixtybranches or agencies throughout Chile, and while importingmachinery, tools and agricultural implements,hardware, sacks, rice, coffee, etc., also buys and shipscountry produce. Another house deals largely in textiles,and a third is chiefly although not exclusivelyinterested in the nitrate country, where in addition torefining and exporting the salitre, the firm is a bigsupplier of machinery, foodstuffs, and all supplies forthe town-camps in the nitrate fields.

These large houses do not secure a monopoly of business;side by side are numbers of smaller local firms ofvarious nationalities: but their existence and systemof operation is a salient fact in the foreign trade of Chile.The repute of the majority of these strongly entrenchedhouses stands high; their representatives are men ofcharacter and ability, and the organizations have notonly created and built up Chilean commerce in thepast, but are of great value today. Their services arenever more strikingly proved than in such times of stressas those of 1921, when small and inexperienced firmsbroke under the storm that the big organizations wereable to meet with all the strength of long usage and widecredit.

240It is sometimes complained against this array of impregnablecommercial castles that their influence tendsto render the West Coast a territory offering but a coldwelcome to the newcomer in trade. I have heard theestablishment of the heavy tax upon commercialtravellers in Chile charged against the suggestion of thebig houses. But even if there is foundation for thesecomplaints, there is something to be said on the otherside—for instance, that the old-established firms,having sown for several generations, are not likely tobe enthusiastic when a brand-new reaping hook makesan appearance. Thinking of their long cultivation ofthe soil, big investment, and big overhead charges, theyare apt to regard the débutant travelling salesman as araider, and are not extraordinary in looking askanceat comprehensive plans launched during the last fewyears for direct selling to consumers by groups of homemanufacturers.

As a matter of fact Chile is not singular in levying aheavy tax upon the commercial traveller, and its assessmentmay be regarded as partly due to the pressing needof Latin America during recent years to discover newsources of revenue. Few American countries have evenattempted to face the difficulties of the direct tax, andwith their chief source of revenue derived from importand export dues, are affected immediately by everychange in the commercial barometer. In times of stressall possible founts are examined and in the course ofthis search the foreign commercial traveller himselfhas come to be regarded as amongst the imports. It istrue that he is still rather a necessity than an article ofluxury, and it is recognition of this fact that may help toaccount for the frequent evasion of payments of the tax.

Chilean law requires travellers representing foreignfirms to buy in each province visited a patente (licence)241costing 1000 pesos; with the paper peso at an exchangevalue of one shilling, this is equal to £50, so that in orderto traverse Chilean commercial towns from Valdivia toCoquimbo the traveller would have to spend £400 or£500 on licences. The consequence is that visits areeither confined to a strictly limited number of cities—perhaps,to Santiago and Valparaiso only—or anarrangement is made by which the trade representativecarries the business card of a local house, and is thusnot subject to taxation, or rents an office in Valparaiso,pays the normal trading tax imposed on all businesses,and operates freely from that central point. Chile doesnot trouble the temporary visitor with the host of smallcharges and restrictions that exhibit local ingenuityin many parts of South America during the last fewyears, and which include prohibitions against the entryof a typewriter except under a heavy tax; permits todepart from the police or port captains; demands fornew vaccination and other medical certificates; inspectionand re-stamping of passports; charges upon samplesand catalogues, and, worst trial of all, removal ofbaggage to customs houses for leisurely future inspection.In Chile one is as free of this bureaucracy as inEngland before the war.

From commercial rivalry, whether between differentgroups of foreigners or between foreigners and theChileans who have for the last twenty-five years takenso vivacious an interest in trade, Chile in general isbound to benefit. The effect of time tends to take retailbusiness more conspicuously than wholesale or big importand export trade from foreign hands and into Chilean,not only on account of ability but because a housebeginning life as an exotic has often become Chileanthrough the domestic ties of its founders. The childrenof an enterprising foreigner who marries, as so many242foreigners have done, a Chilean wife, are generallyChilean-born and educated, and cling in later life to thepleasant land of their birth; a rapid naturalization ofblood and of capital is one of the outstanding featuresof Chile’s economic history.

Trade-marks

The question of trade-marks in Chile is attended bythe same difficulties which merchants offering goodsfrom manufacturing countries encounter in many younglands where national rights in discoveries and inventionspresent few home problems. Broadly, Chileanlaw gives rights in a trade-mark to the first person registeringthe mark; and it is not unusual for a foreignmaker or agent, entering the country with some specialproduct for sale, to find that his emblem has beenalready registered by some enterprising and unscrupulousperson, who must be bought out if any businessis to be done by the original owner. Litigation hasraged about this matter, but the only safeguard consistsin speedy registration in Chile—and all otherparts of the Americas where no international conventionis in force—of the trade-marks of any articlewhich is likely to be sent here for sale.

Chile has had a patent law since 1840, but that inforce today was decreed by Barros Luco in 1911; it ismodelled upon similar laws in other lands, but there isa time limit of two years within which the patent mustbe “worked.” In practice, however, the patentee as arule obtains a ten-year extension of the term withinwhich his rights are not liable to forfeit in case noactive use is made of them.

Railroads.—The Transandine Line.—Sea Transport.—Riversand Lakes.—Roads.

Chile possesses 8600 kilometres or 5375 miles ofrailways, of state and private ownership that, runningthroughout her main territorial length north and south,and connected with the sea by a number of transverselines, serve her better than any other South Americancountry is served.

The rule all over the continent is that the seaportsare the chief points where population is grouped andthat from these ports railways have been driven inlandas pioneers opening new country. Many of the regionsthus served are immense, as a glance at the map shows;great fans of steel rails spread from Buenos Aires, S.Paulo and Montevideo, for example. But these lineswere built to serve, and do almost exclusively serve,the needs of special localities lying inland from a coastalpoint, and only in a few instances are these regionssystematically linked to the rest of the country.

The construction of Chile’s great longitudinalservices was forced upon her, luckily, by the peculiartopographical form of this part of South America. Allthe long folded ribbon of the Central Valley is a naturalhighroad, and the railways follow very ancient trails.

From Tacna, in 18° of south latitude, lines run almostcontinuously to Puerto Montt at the edge of the Gulfof Reloncaví in 41′ 50″ of south latitude, a distance of244about 1500 miles. From this great main artery oftraffic touching all the important producing regions ofthe Central Valley, branches run west from thirty differentpoints to the Pacific; the length of these connectinglinks is short, averaging 30 to 50 miles.

To the east a number of small lines extend to servemining or agricultural regions, and three long arms havebeen flung across the mountain barrier of the Andes.One of these, the Transandine line, forms the only existingrailway system connecting the Atlantic and PacificCoasts of South America, the distance from Valparaisoto Buenos Aires totalling 1444 kilometres, or 896 miles,the journey taking two days.

The second line climbing the Andes is that extendingfrom Antofagasta to La Paz in Bolivia, 863 kilometresor 518 miles. The third also runs to La Paz, from theformer Peruvian port of Arica, a distance of 433 kilometresor 260 miles.

The policy of the Chilean Government as regardsrailways had its beginning in 1852, when PresidentManual Montt inaugurated construction of a line tounite Santiago and Valparaiso, a cart road built byAmbrose O’Higgins then serving these two importantand growing cities. In a straight line the distance betweenSantiago and the port does not exceed 55 miles,but the coastal range rises in this region to unusualheights, and in order to negotiate the crest a curve wasmade northward passing by Limache, Quillota andLlai-Llai, the length totalling 187 kilometres, inclusiveof the section now forming a part of the great longitudinalsystem. The first part of the line completed, betweenValparaiso and Viña del Mar, was opened to traffic in1855; the extension to Limache, in 1856; to Quillota,in 1857; construction of the San Pedro tunnel, togetherwith delays resulting from the revolutionary troubles245of 1859, held back completion of the extension to Calerauntil 1861; Llai-Llai was reached in 1862, and the wholeline opened to traffic through from Valparaiso to Santiagoin September, 1863. A new line is now plannedto follow a shorter route via Casablanca.

At the same time that this sea-to-capital link wascommenced the Government authorised the constructionof a main line running south by a private company,the Ferrocarril del Sur, while in the north a number ofrailway enterprises were also undertaken by individualsor companies, chiefly with the object of serving mineralregions. The majority of these companies were capitalisedin London, although the concessions were in somecases obtained by American promoters such as HenryMeiggs, afterwards well known in connection withPeruvian railroad building, and the genial WilliamWheelwright. Hundreds of young British and Americanengineers entered Chile at this period of earlyconstruction, while native-born Chileans still lackedtechnical training, and scores of them remained in thecountry permanently, settling and founding families.It was a tremendous era of building which lackedcoherence but nevertheless was intelligent and forceful;every strip of line had its sound raison d’être, servedits immediate purpose, and not only marked an industrialmovement but remains today as a permanentcontribution to the transport needs of Chile.

Actually the first railway line to operate in Chile wasthe Copiapó line running from that celebrated and thenflourishing copper mining centre to the little port ofCaldera, 55 kilometres distant. Construction wasbegun in 1850 and the line was opened to traffic in1852, the Copiapó railway thus achieving its place as thesecond oldest railroad in South America. First placebelongs to the Demarara line in British Guiana.

246By the time that the Valparaiso-Santiago railwaywas completed the southerly trunk line had been pushedas far as San Fernando, with extensions surveyed toCuricó and Talca. Curicó was reached in 1867 and waspromptly sold by the private constructors to the Governmentof Chile, already marking out its continuedpolicy of state ownership of transportation systems.Until about 1870, when both imported and native coalbegan to come into use, the fuel burnt by the locomotivesof the central sections was Chilean wood, a circumstancewhich was material in helping to destroythe woodland of Central Chile.

To the north, Carrizal had a mule tramway runningthirty miles from the copper mines to the sea; it wassuperseded in 1863 by a steam line. The Coquimborailway was begun in 1856, afterwards taken into thestate system but originally a mining line; as also wasthe Chañaral strip, linking Pueblo Hundido, anotherof the early pioneers; the Tongoy railway, begun in1867, and running to Ovalle; the line connecting Vilosand Illapel, and that joining Huasco and Vallenar.

By the year 1885 the Chilean Government owned950 kilometres of railway, while private companiesowned 1254 kilometres. The result of the War of thePacific gave a spurt to extension of nitrate railways,several of which had been begun in the great salitreregions, while the developing industry brought publicrevenues to the Moneda, permitting the acquisition orextension of state lines. Twelve years later the ChileanGovernment was operating 2000 kilometres of railways,while private owners operated about 2300 kilometres.

In 1910 the Government had extended its lines toPuerto Montt in the south, and ran north to meet thenitrate railways, a gap remaining in the latter sectionbetween Cabildo and Pintados, where the lines serving247the Tarapacá fields reached their farthest southernpoint. An arrangement was reached for completionwith two British syndicates. The Government nowcontrols over 4600 kilometres of line, while privateowners control about 4000 kilometres.

The state lines provide comfortable and cheap passengertransport, carrying goods also at reasonablerates. Travel is an inexpensive pleasure, the service ispunctual, and equipment good. It is doubtful if moreexquisite scenery can be enjoyed anywhere in the worldat a like cost. But, like many richer and more experiencedgovernments, that of Chile consistently losesmoney on her national lines. Only during the busyyears of 1915, 1916 and 1917, when depleted steamshipservice sent more traffic to the railways, did the statelines show a profit. Since the Armistice, losses havebeen increased, 1919 ending with deficits variously computedat 14,000,000 and 40,000,000 pesos.

Previous to 1918 the private lines always earnedprofits, but disorganisation of the nitrate and copperindustries, together with the low rates sustained,caused considerable entries on the wrong side of theledger during 1918 and 1919.

With two exceptions the Government lines form ahomogeneous network extending north and south andflinging out arms to vital points. But there are twoisolated lines. One is the strip on the Island of Chiloé,connecting Ancud with Castro, 98 kilometres long; thesecond is the Arica to La Paz railway, 438 kilometresin length, joining this old Peruvian port to the capitalof Bolivia.

This line is of special political interest, besides presentinga fine engineering feat—for it reaches an altitudeof 13,000 feet above sea level. Forty kilometres248are on the rack system. The line was built in accordwith an agreement made with Bolivia after the Warof the Pacific, the same Treaty that deprived Boliviaof her coastal belt promising her a new outlet to thesea as a seal of peace. The Arica-La Paz railway cost£2,900,000, was opened to traffic in 1914, and the sectiontraversing Bolivian soil, 238 kilometres long, is tobecome the property of Bolivia in 1928.

The private lines represent an investment of 238,000,000pesos of eighteen pence, or £16,800,000, as againstthe State’s capital expenditure of 394,000,000 pesos, or£29,550,000. The most important group of privatelines are those serving the great nitrate pampas, andthe largest operators are the Antofagasta and BoliviaRailway Company. The lines of this English systemdate their inauguration from 1873, extend over 925kilometres, of which 482 lie within Bolivian territory,and carry traffic from Antofagasta to La Paz at thesame time serving a great nitrate area. Branches runto the salitre of Boquete, to Chuquicamata, to ConchiViejo and the Collahuasi mines, within Chilean confines.Equipment and management upon this line, with itsexcellent dining and sleeping cars, are of a high order;total capital invested, £8,550,000. In addition to thissystem, the company has since 1916 operated thenorthern section of the Government’s longitudinalrailway, about 800 kilometres long. Next in importanceof the private railways is a network connectingthe nitrate fields of Tarapacá with the ports of Iquiqueand Pisagua, owned and operated by the Nitrate RailwaysCompany Ltd. (London). The first concessionfor building the line was obtained in 1860, the totalinvestment amounts to over £2,000,000, and thecompany operates 578 miles of line, of 1.43 metresgauge. The services rendered by this well-equipped249line are best realised when the number of nitrate oficinasutilising the railroad are added up and found to totalsixty-nine.

The Taltal Railway Company, Ltd., is anotherBritish line, operates 298 kilometres of track of 1.06gauge, and links the salitre pampas of that part of theAtacama desert lying within Antofagasta province withthe port of Taltal. The investment totals £1,050,000.

Also British is the railway connecting a large groupof nitrate fields with the port of Caleta Coloso, the Cia.del Ferrocarril de Aguas Blancas, with 221 kilometresof track of 1 metre gauge; the network belonging tothe Compañia de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Junin, operating89 kilometres of 0.76 gauge track and servingoficinas near the coast of Tarapacá; the lines of the Cia.de Salitres y Ferrocarril de Agua Santa, uniting nitrateworks at Agua Santa, Negreiros and Huara with theport of Caleta Buena, 109 kilometres; and the Anglo-ChileanNitrate and Railway Company, Ltd., linking thenitrate pampas of Toco with the port of Tocopilla, 122kilometres in length.

Also of British construction, capitalisation and operationis a short line, dating from 1855, connecting thecity of Tacna with the port of Arica, 63 kilometres of1.43 metre gauge track; and formerly British, but soldin 1920 to the Lota Coal-mining Company is the railwayconnecting the city of Concepción with the portsof Coronel and Lota and with the flourishing coal mineof Curanilahue. The British owners were the AraucoCompany, Ltd., operating 103 kilometres of 1.68 metregauge track. The line from Los Sauces to Lebu, whoseconstruction was suspended during war years, is also aBritish enterprise.

Chilean capital and enterprise is responsible forseveral private lines, as the Ferrocarril de Copiapó,250whose first conception was due to Juan Mouat of Valparaiso,in 1845. The original line connected Copiapówith Caldera Port, 81 kilometres, but extensions wereafterwards added to Pabellón, and thence, after acquiringa mule tramway to the Chañarcillo mines, to Chañarcillo,another ramification running northeast towardsthe Argentine border but terminating at Puquios. Thegauge of the line is 1.43 metres, and the length 231kilometres. Also Chilean is the Ferrocarril de Carrizaly Cerro Blanco, uniting Carrizal Port to the coppermines of Cerro Blanco, due east, with a southerlybranch to manganese deposits near Chañar Quemadaand Astillas and another to the copper mines of Jarilla,the line terminating at Merceditas. The line with itsbranches has a gauge of 1.27 metres and a length of 184kilometres.

The Ferrocarril del Llano de Maipo, running betweenSantiago and Puente Alto, 22 kilometres, is Chilean;so also is the electric line between Santiago and SanBernardo, 15 kilometres, and a similar link betweenConcepción and Talcahuano, as well as the short railwayconnecting Concepción and Penco. A new Chileanrailway runs between Quintero Port and Cousiño, whilethe lines serving coal regions of the south are practicallyall Chilean today, but their length and direction issubject to change according to need.

The Ferrocarril Transandino por Antuco is the beginningof an ambitious Chilean project to cross theAndean barrier into Argentina at a low-level pass. Theline starts from the station of Monte Aguilar on thestate longitudinal railway, in the province of Concepción,runs almost due east towards the volcanoAntuco and Lake Laja, and has a present extension ofabout 85 kilometres. It has a metre gauge track, willhave a length of 129 kilometres when it reaches the251Argentine frontier, the mountain pass which it isplanned to traverse having a height of but 1862 metresabove sea level, or not much more than 3000 feet.Within sight of this pass the river Neuquen has its rise,and it has been contemplated to follow its valley southeastwardto connection with the line running fromBahia Blanca.

A Chilean trading and cattle company with headquartersin Valdivia is constructing a new southerlyline, running eastward from the longitudinal stationof Collilelfu, about forty miles from Valdivia, to LakeRiñihue: here a line of connecting steamers will carrypassengers farther to the east, and a second strip ofrailway will connect with the lake of Pirihuaico, whoseeasterly point almost touches the Argentine border.About 40 kilometres of this line is open to traffic.

Far south, running from Punta Arenas to the coalmines of Loreto, is another small Chilean line of ninekilometres.

Of North American construction and operation is a25 kilometre ore-carrying line between Caleta CruzGrande and the Tofo iron mines; a narrow-gaugeprivate line of 70 kilometres joining the copper mines ofEl Teniente (Braden Copper Co.) to Rancagua town;and a link between Pueblo Hundido and the copperbeds of Potrerillos. German interests (Gildemeister &Co.) constructed a small line, for the exclusive use of arelated copper mining company, from Challocollo toCerro Gordo, in Tarapacá, with an extension to LaGranja, in 1897, 36 miles of narrow-gauge track.

Investment in private lines (most of which are opento the public, but are distinguished from the state-ownedrailways) is reckoned at a total of 238,000,000Chilean pesos of eighteen pence, divided amongstBritish companies, 209,000,000 pesos; Chilean, 24,000,000;252and North American, 5,000,000. The Germaninvestment of two or three millions does not appear instatistics of Chile since 1916. The former German-operatedtramways of Santiago and Valparaiso havepassed into British hands and are now controlled byS. Pearson & Son, Ltd.

Three new Andes-crossing lines are contemplated inChile. Two are planned to the north of Santiago, thethird to the south. The latter is already in constructionas part of the state system, running from Cajónstation, just above Temuco, through Cautín provinceeastwards. The mountain barrier is here below 5000feet in height, and negotiation of the Andean section,plus extension to the Argentine line running west fromBahia Blanca, presents no difficulties beyond that offinding sufficient capital for construction. Chile’s eastwardextension will traverse the green fields of theLonquimay Valley, crossing by the Pass of MaullinChileno.

To the north, one project indicates a line extendingeast from Antofagasta through Boquete and Huitiquinaon the Argentine frontier, and joining withArgentine systems at Salta; another plans a railwayto continue the branch running out from Coquimboalong the Elqui Valley to Algarrobal and Rivadavia.Crossing the Andes by the Tortolas pass, the line wouldlink with the Argentine system of Rioja province. Regardingthe two first-named lines, the Argentine andChilean Governments have agreed upon a close mutualpolicy, and work upon unified plans is being rapidlyadvanced.

The Transandine Line

Railway lines crossing the South American continentare sometimes said to be of less pressing importance253since the opening of the Panama Canal rendered theWest Coast more readily accessible from the westernseaports of Europe and the eastern coasts of both Northand South America. It is true that certain overseascommerce is served by the Panama route, exactly asit was encouraged when steam navigation made itpossible for seamen to face the Magellanic Strait withoutmisgiving, yet no one with knowledge of the internalneeds of South America doubts the necessity forstrengthened transcontinental links. Canada, with8,000,000 inhabitants, built two transcontinental railroads:South America, with 75,000,000 people, has butone direct cross-country line completed.

This single railway from sea to sea—connectingSantiago de Chile with Buenos Aires by a two days’journey of 900 miles—is a remarkable piece of work,owing inspiration and accomplishment to the Anglo-Chileanengineer brothers, Juan and Mateo Clark. Ithas been open to international traffic as a throughline since 1910, its operation stimulating not only thecommerce of Western Europe and Chile, but aiding thedevelopment of brisk trade between Chile and Argentina.It was a reopening of ancient paths. Beforeand to a lessened extent during colonial times a scoreof passes over the Andes were in common use and theinterchange of persons and goods continuous. FollowingIndependence and the creation of sharp and sometimesjealous divisions between the republics, thecountries were separated as never previously; old transcontinentaltrails were neglected. This neglect wasincreased by the interest taken in South America bythe rich countries of Europe, the establishment of shippinglines to all the ports of the young communities,and the stream of gold and people directed towards thedevelopment of commerce and public services. For254a century each South American state turned its faceto the sea, economically and intellectually. The creationof the Transandine railway was the first deliberateconquest of the Andean barrier between eastern andwestern nations of the continent. A few miles of constructiononly are needed to connect up Bolivian railwayswith the northerly Argentine system. Ecuadoris planning a link with the Amazonian headwaters tocreate a route for merchandise similar to that of NorthBolivia, with outlet at Pará; but lack of populationand production through vast interior regions has actedas a deterrent against transcontinental plans even morethan engineering difficulties. These have been surmountedin South America in a number of instances,the mountain-climbing lines of Brazil on the east andof each of the four countries to the west offering famousinstances of response to industrial need. But withoutthe sound raison d’être of Mendoza’s flourishing existenceat the eastern foot of the Andes the presentTransandine line would have waited longer for its creation.

Juan and Mateo Clark, planning the line, obtaineda concession from the Argentine Government in 1872,and from the Chilean in 1874. Money was scarce andengineering problems many, so with a view to lighteningthe burden the route was divided into four sections,and construction performed by the group of correspondingcompanies. The longitudinal line built bythe Chilean Government already had run a branchfrom Llai-Llai in an easterly direction towards themountains, culminating in the station of Los Andes at2733 feet above sea level—the old Santa Rosa de losAndes. This railway followed the ancient mule roadtowards Juncal and the Uspallata pass en route forMendoza and Buenos Aires, and the eventual construction255of the Chilean Transandine practicallyadopted the same course from Los Andes to the Argentinefrontier in the heights. But this section, althoughbut 70 kilometres in length, presented the worst difficultiesand was the last completed.[7]

7. On the Chilean side a rack system is employed for 23 kilometres; themaximum grade is 8 per cent. On the Argentine Transandine the racksystem is employed for 14 kilometres, with grades nowhere reaching morethan 6½ per cent.

Three companies undertook construction of the stripbetween the Argentine frontier and Buenos Aires, 1373kilometres long. The mountain section to Mendoza(2481 feet altitude) was built by the Argentine TransandineCompany; Mendoza to Villa Mercedes (witha branch running north to San Juan, site of an ancientpost-house), by the Argentine Great Western Company;and Villa Mercedes to Buenos Aires by a companysubsequently called the Buenos Aires and PacificCompany. Money supplies came from London, wherethe companies are domiciled.

The Villa Mercedes-Mendoza link of 356 kilometreswas completed and opened in 1886; the pampas-crossingsection between Villa Mercedes and Buenos Aires,692 kilometres, in 1888. This was all plain sailing, butserious difficulties were encountered in the mountainsections. Work began on the Argentine side in 1887,and upon the Chilean in 1889; in the latter case theindefatigable Clark brothers gave not only devotedenergy but their own funds, suspending operations in1892, after 27 kilometres were built, when their capitalwas exhausted. A year later part of the ArgentineTransandine section was opened to traffic, but theoperation of completed lines on the east had the effectof diverting all traffic from Mendoza to Buenos Airesinstead of promoting international commerce as hadbeen contemplated.

256In 1904 a new firm, the Transandine ConstructionCompany, London domiciled and financed, took overthe Chilean section from the Clark brothers and theircreditors, and finally joined the Argentine Transandineat the frontier station of Las Cuevas in 1910.

The old cart and mule road crossing the Cumbre roseto an altitude of 14,500 feet, and was, during the periodof snow-storms, usually due between April and October,shut to all but the hardiest travellers. To obviate thisascent the builders of the Transandine drove a tunnelthrough the head of the Andean barrier, at an altitudeof 10,521 feet above sea level; the tunnel “de la Cumbre”traverses a length of more than 3000 metres, thetwo Transandine lines meeting within its length, at analtitude of 10,515 feet. With greater capital to spend,the Chilean Transandine constructors would havedriven the tunnel through the mountains at a levelabout 3000 feet lower to avoid the storms raging aboutthe higher regions, and ultimately this work will probablybe performed: but it entails construction of a tunnelfour times the length of that in existence.

Below the tunnel on the Chilean side the companyshields the line with strong snow sheds, but here againlack of sufficient capital prevents the additions necessaryif the line is to be safeguarded all the year round;at present there is danger of enforced stoppage as soonas the first heavy snows fall, blocking the line withtwenty or thirty feet of drift and avalanches. Morethan once traffic has been suspended for three or fourmonths.

257In spite of difficulties, however, the line has provedto be of immense value to international traffic, hasshortened the distance between West European portsand Valparaiso by over 2000 miles as compared withthe Magellanic route, and 500 miles as compared withthe Panama journey. With the operation of thePanama Canal the route between New York or Halifaxand Valparaiso was shortened so much that it is a savingof time for a traveller wishing to reach Buenos Airesfrom a North American point on the eastern side tojourney via the Canal and the Transandine. BuenosAires has also been brought into closer touch with theOrient and Australasia, while Chilean towns are inquick communication with the markets of Argentina,Uruguay and Brazil.

Brisker traffic in both passengers and merchandisewill be developed when unity in administration is inworking order. But this has been long delayed, owingto the troubles connected with construction days. In1894 the Argentine Transandine, observing with misgivingthe remote prospect of completion of the Chileanlink, formed an agreement by which the ArgentineGreat Western operated the section open to traffic, thisarrangement being renewed in 1901 and 1905. In 1907,after some skirmishing and the commencement of acompetitive line to Mendoza, the Buenos Aires andPacific Company obtained control of the ArgentineGreat Western, and at the same time of the agreementcontrolling the Argentine Transandine, which line itguarantees from losses threatened by blocking oftraffic through snow. Thus for many years the BuenosAires and Pacific held the reins of all rail operationsbetween the capital of the Argentine and the frontier ofChile, and was frequently charged with so arrangingfreight prices as to send all Mendoza traffic eastwards,while discouraging commercial interchange betweenChilean markets and the prosperous Mendoza vicinity.The Chilean Transandine constantly pressed for arevision of management, proposing that the ArgentineTransandine should be separated from the Buenos258Aires and Pacific and united with the Chilean mountain-climbinglink, so that a single administration shouldoperate the line between Los Andes and Mendoza, theterms of the lease held by the Buenos Aires & PacificLine allowing of cancellation at twelve months’ notice.

Chilean and Argentine public opinion agreed uponthe matter, the help of the two Governments was enlisted,special meetings held under the auspices of theSub-Committee on Railway Transport of the Pan-AmericanConference held in Buenos Aires in 1916, anInternational Commission appointed to arbitrate upongoods rates between the two countries, in 1917, and adraft proposition approved in early 1918 between thediplomatic representatives of Argentina and Chile inLondon, acting in consultation with the directoratesof the two Transandine companies. Chile agreed inAugust of 1918, and, in amicable agreement, the Governmentof Argentina, in December, 1919, acceptedthe proposal in principle; arrangements were made bywhich the new contracts with the Transandine linesshould be simultaneously discussed in the Congressesof both countries. In early 1922 agreements were complete,details of unification of the railways was decided,provision made for new financing of the improved system,and tentative arrangements outlined with a viewto new and liberal tariffs between the two countries,tending to encourage traffic not only via Mendoza, butalso between North Chile and the Salta region, as wellas between South Chile and Eastern Patagonia whenthe projected new Transandine links are completed.

Sea Transport

As regards sea transport Chile is in an enviable situationwith her immense coastline giving speedy access259to all inhabited parts of her territory. It is true thatwith a few exceptions, of which Talcahuano is the mostnotable, Chilean ports are little more than open roadsteads,exposed both to the southwesterly gales andto the dreaded “northers”; but modern engineeringis doing much to solve the problem of safe havenswhere visiting vessels may anchor in safety. The samedifficulty applies to almost the whole of the SouthAmerican West Coast, and for centuries sailing vesselsfeared the region; during Spanish colonial times it wasso common a thing for a ship to spend from six totwelve months on the passage between Callao andSouth Chile that when Captain Juan Fernández, runningout southwest for a thousand miles, and afterwardsturning almost due east for Chilean ports, managedto avoid the cruel coastal gales and made thepassage in thirty days, he was haled before the Inquisitionas a wizard. The Inquisitors, however, after carefulexamination of the captain’s papers, set him free,applauding his sagacity. From that day the group ofislands named to commemorate the navigator’s skillbecame the beacon for vessels sailing to Valparaisofrom the North, although ships returning to Peru stillhugged the coast.

It is not uncommon for sailing vessels to be wreckedoff the difficult southerly coast, with its innumerableindentations and furious storms, but the worst year ofthe present century was 1911, when 37 steamers aswell as, by a strange coincidence, an exactly equalnumber of sailing ships, were cast away off Chile.That was a year of exceptional storms, but out of 32years between 1887 and 1919, only seven passed withouta record of wrecks; it is to the credit of the excellentsurveying and charting work of the HydrographicDepartment of the Chilean Navy that the path of the260navigator has been rendered plainer, while the ChileanGovernment has in hand a series of plans for the betterprotection of ports—lacking only the financialsinews of war against wind and tide.

Of Chile’s fifty-four ports of major and minor importance,perhaps thirty are visited by internationalshipping. But of these only about fifteen display briskcommerce. Arica, visited by 400 foreign ships annuallyand over 300 Chilean vessels, connects directlywith Bolivia; Pisagua, Junin, Caleta Buena, Iquique,Tocopilla, Mejillones and its younger sister Antofagasta,Coloso and Taltal, are nitrate ports, bustlingwhen nitrate markets prosper and almost idle duringthe most depressed period of 1921. The copper portsof Chañaral, Caldera and Carrizal Bajo have sufferedmore than Coquimbo, with fruit and other farm exportsto add to her diminished list of minerals. Valparaiso,chief port of Chile, receives about one thousandnational and three hundred foreign ships yearly,one-third of the whole exports entering here, althoughAntofagasta and Iquique are the big exporters. Innormal years, Valparaiso receives 1,400,000 tons ofcargo, of which nearly half is coal. Farther south,Talcahuano, the chief naval base and the port for flourishingConcepción, receives about 400 vessels annually;Coronel, exporting and bunkering Chilean coal, receivesabout 700; Corral, the port for Valdivia, is visitedby some 200 ships yearly; and Punta Arenas inthe Strait of Magellan, does business with twelve hundredChilean and about one hundred and thirty foreignvessels each year.

261These ports will probably continue to be the greatoutlets for Chile’s most thriving regions, but they areinsufficient to serve the needs of a long list of growingdistricts, and in spite of much good planning are stillinadequately equipped for the increasing work required.A special Government Commission, latelyconsidering the question of more sea gateways, has decidedthat forty or so of the points along the Chileancoast should be improved for the reception of internationalshipping.

The Commission’s recommendations necessitate theexpenditure of at least six million pounds sterling, orlet us say the whole of the taxes upon nitrate exportsduring one prosperous year. The sum will in all probabilitybe raised, according to need, year by year, bymeans of exterior loans.

According to the projects, Valparaiso will be allotteda further million and a half pounds; Valdivia,Lebu, Talcahuano and Constitución, about one millioneach; Puerto Montt, a preliminary £150,000; Tomé(at the north of Concepción Bay) and Pichilemu, £40,000each; with smaller sums for Iquique and PuertoSaavedra (Imperial Bajo).

Valparaiso port works have been since 1912 in thehands of a British engineering firm, and have given agood deal of trouble, storms more than once undoingpart of the construction work; in the early months of1922 there were completed two quays totalling 840metres in length, a breakwater of 288 metres, and acoal wharf 200 metres long by 30 metres wide; workupon the mooring jetty, the extension of the old FiscalMole (dating from 1883, and the only means for transferringpassengers and cargo until the new quays wereconstructed), the Prat Quay, warehouses and railwayis also well advanced, in spite of long delays causedby the European War. There is plenty of water—infact, too much for facile construction of jetties orbreakwaters, the bottom shelving rapidly from 39 feetat the mooring jetty, and offering, less than 200 feet262from shore, nothing but mud as foundation. In consequence,the outer section of the breakwater cost £560per linear foot to build. Since 1906 Valparaiso hassuffered from no serious earthquake, but slight shocksare not infrequent and must be taken into considerationin the case of construction in the sea as well asupon the land. Rise and fall of the tide at Valparaisodoes not exceed three feet.

The Nitrate Ports have earned more money thanany other points of outflow for Chilean products, butsafe, adequate modern havens for shipping are not tobe created in a day or even in a decade; and the samedifficulties of the open roadstead and prevailing windshave delayed the completion of adequate facilities evenat that busy commercial stronghold, Antofagasta.Comprehensive plans are, however, in course of development,and work has only been delayed by the depressionof 1921.

Port improvements at Talcahuano are being carriedout by a French company, and the main work is unlikelyto be completed for a few years, although it hasbeen attacked. Talcahuano lies within the deeply indentedBay of Concepción, the best naturally-protectedhaven upon the West Coast, and is furthershielded from the effects of northerly winds by thepretty island of Quiriquina, once a rendezvous for pirates,and during the War the place of internment forseveral hundred Germans, including sailors from theDresden. Talcahuano possesses a floating dock andequipment as the first naval base of Chile, and whenthe present plans have been developed this port willbe one of the best in South America.

The creation of a secure port at the mouth of thefine river Imperial, Puerto Saavedra, will be comparativelyeasy when the projected cut is made from Budi263Bay through a sandy bank into the river, safe from allstorms. From this point the stream is to be dredgedfor 20 miles up to the town of Carahue, where a branchrailway connects with Temuco and the Longitudinalsystem. Another important dredging work is projectedalong the stream of the Valdivia from Corralport. This haven of old foundation, nestling under itscliffs, has been for centuries of necessity the stopping-placefor vessels with cargo and passengers for ValdiviaCity, twelve miles inland, all traffic being transshippedup river by small steamers, barges, etc. Bythe new plans a channel will be deepened to permit thepassage of ocean-going steamers to the beautifullyplaced riverine city, whence rail connection opens themost fertile agricultural country, immense forestalzones and a large coal-mining region.

At pretty Constitución, where the dangerous bar isso much dreaded that its condition is always signalledto vessels before they venture to approach, plans includethe dredging of a channel and construction ofbreakwaters to prevent silting-up.

Puerto Montt, at the end of the Longitudinal, andlying within the Gulf of Reloncaví, is a recent creationwhose equipment as a port receiving international vesselsis still only on paper; this Llanquihue region, withits lumber and sheep industries, is fast developing, andwill invite a great deal of tourist traffic when its transportfacilities are equal to its glorious scenery. Portconstruction problems are chiefly due to the 25-footrise and fall of the tide. At Punta Arenas, anothernew port of remarkably rapid and vigorous growth,vessels are still obliged to lie out in the Strait whilecargo and passengers are transferred by lighters andsmall boats, but the steady prosperity of this zone aswell as its position as a port of call for international264steamers render imperative the creation of modernport facilities.

Rivers and Lakes

Chile has one hundred and twenty rivers, but cancount no more than five hundred miles as navigable.This navigability is again limited to small vessels only,to which another five hundred miles of lake waterwaysare also open; motor boats and canoes are able totraverse another four hundred or so of rivers, but theseare frequently broken by cascades and falls.

In pre-Spanish times the lakes and rivers of Chileleading towards the Andes undoubtedly served aschannels for Indian traffic; the Rio Blanco, Juncal andAconcagua led towards the mountains into what is todayArgentine territory from the populous Central regionof Chile, while the lower passes were crossed tothe south by way of many river valleys and by suchlakes as Llanquihue and Todos los Santos, a shortstrip only intervening between the latter beautifulwater and the lovely Nahuel Huapi in East Patagonia.During colonial times, with the depopulation of thewilder country and the concentration of towns uponthe seaboard, this traffic diminished and commercialexchange was limited to ocean transport, with, however,an increasing intercourse with Argentina whenthe then Chilean provinces of Mendoza, San Luis andSan Juan developed trade with the new colonies ofBuenos Aires. But below Chiloé the territory remainedunknown, and it has only been within recentyears that the southern lakes have been visited andsurveyed.

265As to the rivers during colonial times, if they werenot treated with equal neglect, their capricious wayswere permitted to absolve them from any great usefulness,and it has only been within the last twenty yearsthat serious studies have been made with a view torestraining, preserving and freeing the torrential streamscharacteristic of the short, steep slope of Chile. AllChilean rivers are snow-fed, and are extraordinarilyand violently augmented when the Andean snowsmelt; the northern floods are more uncontrolled thanthose of the south, tearing down from greater heightsthrough open country where nothing but, eventually,heat and sand offer a check. Many disappear in thedesert while still far away from the sea. The southerlyrivers, flowing from lesser heights and passing throughlong forestal areas, are more constant in volume. Itis only below Lebu, in 38 degrees of south latitude,that any Chilean river becomes even nominally “navigable,”with the sole exception of a dozen miles of theRapel.

Nevertheless, the longest Chilean river is in thenorth, flowing across Chile’s widest province, Antofagasta;this is the Loa, fertilising oases in the desertand sheltering little groups of people today just as itoffered a livelihood to indigenous folk in pre-Spanishdays. The Loa, sometimes called the Calama, is threehundred miles long, but for half the year is not morethan a thread at the bottom of a wide gully. Its nearestnortherly rival is the Copiapó, about 170 miles,watering fruitful valleys like the capricious but equallyinvaluable streams the Huasco, Elqui, Hurtado, Limariand Petorca. A succession of rivers in the CentralRegion are untamed floods in the rainy season—theAconcagua, Juncal, Blanco, Volcán, Colorado,Maipo, Mapocho, Cachapoal and Rapel—nonemore than 125 miles long. Three or four of these riverswill be harnessed in the near future to yield hydro-electricforce. Below to the southward, the Mataquito,266the Maule of ancient fame, the Itata and theexquisite Bio-Bio are all outside the navigable list, andthe latter is distinguished by its exceptional length ofabout 200 miles as well as its beauty.

First among navigable rivers as one goes from northto south is the fine Imperial, with a watershed ofabout five thousand square miles, and a length of onehundred miles; it has a magnificent and constant flow,but only fifteen miles are navigable. The Toltén ownssix navigable miles; the Valdivia, 125 for small boatsand about 25 for larger craft; the Bueno is in a differentcategory, for, with a length of not much more thanone hundred miles, it has about 50 miles of navigablechannel. The Bueno, in fact, is the outflow of twolovely lakes, Ranco and Maihue, and discharges 600cubic metres of water per second, a flow second tonone among Chilean rivers.

Still farther southward, the Maullín has thirty navigablemiles; the Palena about twenty; the Aysen, nomore than twelve. And next comes that fine and little-knownriver the Baker, whose length is said to beequal to that of the Loa in the far north, about twohundred and eighty miles, of which nearly fifty are navigable.Outside that list are the Bravo, Pascua andSerrano, except for the canoes of the south-dwellingIndians.

Of Chilean lakes, Llanquihue is the largest, with asuperficial area of 1400 square miles; its great depth,averaging 360 feet near the shore, suggests that this isthe crater of an old volcano. Skirted by the south endof the Longitudinal railway, Llanquihue counts severalports, with Varas as the oldest-established and thelargest. This lake, with its near companion, Todos losSantos, is traversed by Chilean steamers; and there is267regular traffic upon Riñihue and Ranco. The formerlake is reached by rail to Los Lagos station, horsestaking travellers thence to the edge of Riñihue, about25 miles; a wild but glorious stretch of typical Chileanwoodland, clothing the sides of a lovely valley, lies betweenRiñihue and Ranco, with its brilliant turquoiseblue waters, and abrupt sides covered with ferns, foxgloves,fuchsias and a close growth of trees of brightgreen foliage. Small steamers cross the lake to Llifen,where there are famous curative sulphur baths.

From Puerto Montt southward is a long series offiords, islands, indentations and inland channels whoseintricacy and extent are unequalled even by the famousfiords of Norway. For natural beauty the Norwegiancomplex cannot compare with that of Chile, for nowoodland exists in Europe that rivals the pathless,luxuriant, flower-hung forests of Chiloé Island, theAndean spurs of Western Patagonia, the broken archipelagoof Chonos, and the noble mountains of theStrait of Magellan. Rich ferns and flowering shrubs,wild bamboo and pines and beeches, reach to thewater’s edge. Through the thousand miles of thiscomplicated chain of inlets and islands between PuertoMontt and Punta Arenas runs an almost continuouschannel, continuation of the long depression which createsthe deep fold of the great Chilean central valley.Steamers seeking sheltered waters from the Strait ofMagellan northward need not emerge into the openPacific, but turn north by Smyth Channel and run insidethe barrier formed by Hanover and WellingtonIslands. But at the Gulf of Peñas vessels are forcedout to the turbulent ocean, a thin strip of land barringthe way to the calmer waters of the Moraleda Canal.Chilean engineers have long projected a cut throughthis Ofqui bar, joining the mainland to Taitao peninsula;268for it is only 7000 feet wide; no doubt this necessaryhelp to navigation will be given before long.With this opening effected, small vessels will be ableto pass from Puerto Montt to Punta Arenas and Tierradel Fuego by a sheltered waterway, passing great forests,majestic glaciers, frowning snow-capped mountains,stark headlands and a thousand inlets andislands, a long panorama of splendid beauty.

Vessels of all nations visit Chile, Australasia andJapan sending regular lines to compete with the shippingof Europe, North America and Chile’s sisterSouth American republics, the total tonnage of visitingships amounting on an average to over twelve million,of which less than five hundred thousand tonsrepresent sailing vessels. Sea transport on the Chileancoast has undergone an immense transformation sinceCochrane brought the first steamer ever seen upon theWest Coast, the little Rising Star, in 1818. Trafficfrom North America and Europe comes today in aconsiderable proportion through the Panama Canal,but the next few years will probably witness a developmentof tourist traffic through the Magellanic waterwayand to such beautiful Chilean islands as JuanFernández, with its romantic history and wild beauty—undiminishedby the local lobster “factory” supplyingthe tables of Valparaiso and Santiago.

Chile herself performs a fair share of maritime service.About one hundred large and small steamers flythe Chilean flag, with about 35 sailing vessels chieflyengaged in fishing and the transport of coal and lumber,the total representing some 75,000 tons. Over 40per cent of “maritime movement” of Chilean ports isrecorded by Chilean vessels, and strong support of nationaltraffic was afforded in early 1922 by the passage269of a new law restricting coastwise trade to ships registeredin Chile.

The largest and most important of Chilean steamshipcompanies is the Compañia Sud Americana deVapores, Government-supported, with headoffices inValparaiso, operating a fine and excellently-equippedfleet of ten vessels serving Chilean and Peruvian ports,and, since the War, extending its international servicethrough the Panama Canal to New York and Europeanports. Two new vessels of 7000 tons each wereadded in 1922 to the company’s fleet: the Aconcaguaand her sister ship were built at Greenock, and bringthe Sud Americana’s first-class passenger service to ahigh standard.

Roads

Chilean highways, placed though they are in sceneryso lovely that the traveller’s eyes are directed tomountains and tall trees rather than to the morass athis feet, need the improvement projected by the RoadLaw of 1920, arranging for special taxes to be devotedto the construction and upkeep of first-class countryroads.

Reasons for the long neglect of this means of transportinclude the fact that farmers and countryfolk inChile commonly ride horseback—this is a land ofgood horsemen and well-trained animals—and thecondition of the surface if not a matter of indifferenceis of less concern than if vehicles were more common.Next, country produce has been in the past, and inmany regions is yet, brought from the farms by heavyox-carts, pulled by teams for whose convenience, again,a smooth surface is not considered a necessity. Thethird reason, which perhaps should have foremostplace, is the nature of a great part of the Chilean soil.

270As soon as one enters the Central Valley of Chile,one recognises a characteristic of the Pacific Coast, thefertile and extremely fine soil, as light as face-powder,with its slightly pungent scent. Much of this soil isvolcanic ash, with a mixture of vegetable detritus; itis extraordinarily fertile, with almost every virtue inthe eyes of the farmer, and undoubtedly this genialsoil produces the best food in the world. But it is difficultto reduce fine dust to the consistency of a roadwith a surface hard enough to resist the disintegratingeffects of an eight-months’ drought, followed by tremendousand violent rains.

Between the double row of blackberry hedges, backedby lines of poplars, a typical road of Central Chile is adeep trough of shifting, floating dust in the dry season,and a swamp after the rains set in. Once upon a dayin May the writer with a party of friends tried to reachLos Andes from Santiago in a motor-car: the Chileanchauffeur and the car both did their excellent best, buta mile or two outside the capital the highway becamea sea of mud, and we finally gave it up when the carskidded upon the top of the Chacabuco Pass. Duringthe fifty or sixty miles traversed before we reached arailway station, the only strip of really hard foundationfor the wheels was encountered when we ran inthe gravelly bed of a shallow stream.

This test, however, was not quite fair to Chileanroads; the season and the route were not chosen withdiscretion. For even in Central Chile there are well-made,wide roads, a few hundred miles in each province,over which motors may pass. The coming of theautomobile renders the creation of better highways anurgent necessity, in fact, the motor lorry promising ameans for getting farm produce to market that isbadly needed in the developing districts.

271Antofagasta, with its hard-surfaced nitrate fields,owns about six hundred miles of first-class roads; arecord equalled only by the big Territory of Magellanesin the far south, where the sheep-farmers of the newlydeveloped estates have made roads across WesternPatagonia. In each of these two regions the climate,although in the North almost unbrokenly dry and inthe South almost unbrokenly humid, is equable, lackingthe sharp and destructive changes of the Centralregion. It must be owned, however, that the proportionof roads to area in great southern territory is onemile in length to each fifty square miles of land.

Altogether, Chile is officially stated to have betweensix and seven thousand miles of highway in first-classcondition, with Coquimbo, Atacama, Aconcagua, Santiagoand Tarapacá following the two provinces namedabove in length of highways in good condition. Thenew law aims at putting another six thousand milesof road into the same category within the next fewyears, out of the total of all classes reaching a mileageof nearly twenty thousand.

Conversion Fund.—Currency.—Debts.—PublicRevenues.

When the war in Europe broke out Chile was onthe point of establishing a Conversion Office uponlines similar to those followed by Argentina and Brazil.The object was fixation of the exchange value of papercurrency by the creation of strong gold reserves, andunder normal circumstances Chile’s office would havebegun its work in 1915. It has not been possible, upto the end of 1922, to open the “Caja de Conversión,”although funds are maintained on deposit with thispurpose in view in Chile, England and, upon a muchsmaller scale, in the United States. Funds amountingto over 30,000,000 pesos of eighteen pence were alsolying in Germany when war broke out, but thesewere, by special arrangements with the Allies, withdrawnduring war years.

The total amount in the Conversion Fund in 1914was over 108,000,000 pesos of eighteen pence. Of thisless than 4,000,000 was held in Chile, and more than74,000,000 in the Bank of England, besides the depositin Germany. The reserve was increased duringthe following year, standing at 111,000,000 pesos atthe end of 1915, or about £8,300,000, but was reducedto 88,000,000 in the following year when the NationalCongress authorised the utilisation of £2,000,000.This money was drawn upon to pay off Treasury Bills273issued in conformity with the decree of January, 1914,for the purchase of vessels for the Chilean Navy andthe construction of port works, but has been graduallyreplaced until in 1919 the total Fund amounted toover 114,000,000 pesos, of which 67,000,000 werebanked in Chile and the remainder in England. Atthe beginning of 1921 Chile possessed £2,300,000 ondeposit in the Bank of England, or nearly 31,000,000pesos of eighteen pence; and to the credit of the ConversionFund in the Casa de Moneda in Santiago hadbar gold, $400,000 United States gold money, £78,845of English money, and other specie, amounting in allto nearly 84,000,000 of pesos.

The withdrawal of funds from the Conversion reservesfor special purposes was not unprecedented.Three years after the inauguration of the Fund in1899 (when it was hoped to begin conversion operationsin ten years’ time) 20,000,000 pesos were used formilitary expenditure, this sum being practically replacedin 1904 by proceeds of the sale of certain oldcruisers.

Gallant efforts made to bring up the Fund to a pointjustifying the opening of the Conversion Office havebeen rendered abortive by the hard times of late 1920continued throughout 1921, but the intention of Chile’sfinancial advisers is maintained and appears only toawait the accumulation of sufficient gold.

At the same time the fact that credit and not gold isthe true basis of economic prosperity has been forciblyimpressed upon South America since 1914. Countriespossessing big reserves of gold have been observed tosuffer from depreciation of their paper currency, and,what is worse than depreciation, from constant fluctuationin every economic breeze, despite all the effortsof experienced financial experts; and on the other hand274countries which were able to trade advantageouslyduring the war and thus to pile up immense stocks ofthe precious metal have been seen to experience ademoralising paralysis of their markets—to be chokedwith their own gold.

The fact that those countries whose fiduciary issueshave sunk to an apparently ruinous level are on thatvery account able to export their merchandise withprofit, taking payments in comparatively valuable currenciesand paying their way at home in depreciatedpaper, is illuminated by the lesson of the territorieswith currency maintained at a high exchange rate bygold backing, which are unable to find buyers of theirproducts because no outsider can afford to pay theexaggerated rates of exchange. However, exportersare not the only persons to be considered, and thegeneral uncertainty of commerce, together with thenatural timidity of foreign capital when invited tolands with persistently variable currencies, will undoubtedlyact as an incentive towards establishmentof the Conversion Office in Chile.

Currency

Exchange values of Chilean currency, as well asseveral other forms of financial statistics, are officiallygiven in sterling, the use of English monetary terms resultingfrom the establishment of financial and commercialrelations with the United Kingdom in theearliest days of Independence, and from the fact thatChile’s first exterior loan was obtained from London.The “gold peso” is fixed in exchange value at eighteenpence, while the paper peso reflects economic conditionsfrom day to day.

Since 1871 the average value of the Chilean peso in275comparison with sterling has fluctuated from just overforty-six pence in 1872 to seven pence in the worstdays of 1915 and a drop to nearly sixpence in theslump of 1921–2. For the last fifty years the exchangevalue has tended to decrease, due chiefly to repeatedissues of the paper money which replaced the gold andsilver coinage of the Spanish colonial régime, when apeso was worth (1800) the equivalent of four Englishshillings. The creation of paper money was, however,unavoidable in the circumstances, and so long as acountry possesses a sufficient quantity of some recognisedform of currency, the material of which it is composedis not a matter of local importance, although exchangevalues may be grievously affected.

All the gold minted into Chilean money has disappearedfrom circulation, the finely designed little coinsbeing retained only as curios or mementos since 1875,when severe depreciation of silver values rendered goldhigher priced as bullion than as currency. The goldpeso is today no more than a financial term. Officially,gold coin has an existence, as the condor, of20 pesos; the doblón, of 10; and the escudo, of 5, butthe currency actually in use is paper, well printed, indenominations from one peso upwards, with silvercoins of 1 peso, 20, 10 and 5 centavos, and nickelcoins of 20, 10 and 5 centavos. From more than onecountry of the Americas, silver has disappeared entirelywhen the depreciation of paper has borne downthe purchasing power of the peso or other unit to apoint below the market price of the metal, but Chilehas so far escaped this denudation in difficult times.At the beginning of the present century the value ofthe Chilean peso stood at 15 to 16 pence until 1906,when the tragic effects of the earthquake that temporarilydestroyed Valparaiso reduced credit.

276Between 1907 and 1914 it fluctuated about ten pence,went down to an average of eight pence during 1915,rose to nine pence in 1916 when demands for nitrate increased,to about thirteen pence in 1917 and nearlyfifteen pence as the average in 1918; in June of 1918 thepeso soared to an exchange value of over seventeenpence, but dropped quickly when the Central Powerssigned the Armistice. During 1919 the average remainedat about eleven pence, rose to over fifteenpence during the early part of 1920, and subsequentlyexperienced the falls that disturbed the Chilean marketin 1921, when the peso touched an exchange valueof between six and seven pence.

Despite, or perhaps on account of, the wealth ofChile in copper ores, no coins made of this metal areactually in use, although they make an appearance inofficial records. The reason for this abstention isfound in popular prejudice against a commonly knownmetal. During the sixteenth century an attempt wasmade to introduce copper coinage, a large quantity ofthe metal was minted in Santiago, and the objectionsof the peasantry were so strong that more than amillion piastres’ worth of the coins were buried orthrown into the rivers in contempt.

Employés in most of the nitrate fields receive at leasta proportion of their wages in special token-money,distributed by various companies with the chief objectof circumventing the underground liquor traffic.These large discs, specially tinted, and stamped withthe name of the issuing oficina, pass as currency in campstores and upon the contiguous railroads, but arewithout more than curio values outside the nitrateareas. Such tokens help to relieve the need for quantitiesof small money, for Chile, like every other land witha paper currency making conscientious efforts to reduce277inflation, is perennially short of change in industrialregions.

Chile has in circulation about 4,000,000 pesos insilver coinage, and a Government note issue of 150,000,000pesos, which on the basis of eighteen pence tothe gold peso is covered to the extent of 75 per cent bythe Conversion Fund; at twelve pence, the issue isfully covered. But there is other paper outstanding—treasury“vales,” to the amount issued to banks andnitrate producers, totalling at the beginning of 1921about 107,000,000 pesos, as well as 45,000,000 pesosin round numbers, issued against the gold guarantee.The total paper currency of Chile is therefore over300,000,000 pesos, or 75 pesos to each inhabitant, withone peso of silver and with a quantity of nickel: letus say, about four pounds sterling, or $20 U. S. currency.

No one is more acutely aware of the dangers of inflationthan Chileans, a people with a marked aptitudefor finance. That fine journalist and courageouseditor, Carlos Silva Vildósola of the Mercurio, has repeatedlydrawn public attention to important aspectsof the monetary situation, and has declared that Chileis “desperately ill of the disease of paper money”; acomprehensive study of fiduciary issues has also beenmade by Dr. Guillermo Subercaseaux, a Chilean economicexpert, and one of the planks of the Alessandriplatform was a promise to proceed with the fixation ofexchange, “so that we can know what we really possess,and how much we can buy tomorrow with the moneywe earned yesterday.”

Chile’s public debt was augmented in early 1921when $24,000,000 United States currency was borrowedin New York, but prior to this loan the exteriorobligations of the country had not been heavy in comparisonwith its vigorous economic growth; later inthe year, another $20,000,000 (U. S.) was borrowed inNew York, and in the first weeks of 1922 the financialmarkets of London readily took up a Chilean loan of£1,657,000.

The first Chilean loan was made in 1822, after Independence,by the Supreme Director, Don BernardoO’Higgins, through his representative in London, DonAntonio de Yrisarri. One million pounds sterling wasobtained through the medium of Hullett Bros. & Co.,the loan bearing interest at six per cent; a SinkingFund of £20,000 the first year, and £10,000 in succeedingyears was arranged for, any bonds remaining unredeemedin thirty years to be paid off at par. Thesecurity agreed upon was a mortgage upon all revenuesof the State, estimated at 4,000,000 pesos or £800,000annually; also specially pledged were the net revenuesfrom the Mint and from the Diezmos or Land Tax,expected to yield 250,000 pesos annually.

Of this premier loan Peru had a share amounting tothree-tenths of the total, or 1,500,000 pesos.

Successive borrowings brought Chile’s exterior debtto £1,500,000 in round numbers by 1850, and £5,500,000by 1870. Between 1876 and 1893, when the warwith Peru and Bolivia had been followed by the revolutionagainst Balmaceda, these obligations rose to nearly£12,000,000 sterling. In 1901 the account had mountedto £17,000,000, and to £23,000,000 in 1909.

Two years later external loans stood at £35,000,000,279but were reduced to about £34,000,000 in 1913; bythe middle of 1921, according to the Official Message ofPresident Alessandri, this debt had been brought downto about £28,000,000. The detailed history of Chile’sfinancial years since 1884 shows new loans, although asa rule of extremely moderate sums, occurring almostannually with the exception of a gap of eight yearsbetween 1896 and 1905, when not a penny was borrowed;nor was any fresh exterior debt incurred between1912 and 1921. Most of the Chilean loans borethe modest interest of 4½ per cent.

In 1919 Chile began to negotiate for a new loan, tocover the needs of the State railways; there was adeficit of 40,000,000 pesos upon the operation of theselines in 1918, and in addition to another large deficit,expected in 1919, money was wanted for supplies andequipment for new work upon the lines, and especiallyfor construction on the southern part of the “RedCentral.” The law passed by the National Congressauthorising the loan also permitted the State railroadsto raise tariffs by 20 per cent. Eventually, in February,1921, the first New York loan was made through theagency of the Guaranty Trust for $24,000,000 UnitedStates currency; it bears interest at 8 per cent, andwas issued at 99, a considerable proportion of the sumraised being spent by arrangement in the United States.

Public Revenues

Public revenues in Chile are large in proportion tothe population, the great bulk of the national incomecoming from import and export dues and, since theacquisition of Antofagasta and Tarapacá, especiallyfrom the nitrate industry, in the form of exportationtaxes, and leases of deposits, as well as less directly280from the entry of immense quantities of machinery,stores and personnel. In considering the statistics ofChilean revenues, it must be remembered that taxesare partly paid in “paper” and partly in “gold”; nogold coin, nor, necessarily, gold-backed paper actuallypasses, but what happens is that a proportion of thedues are paid in paper of a fluctuating exchange value,while the remainder is paid at the fixed exchange rateof eighteen pence to the peso.

Since the Chilean Government’s excellent statisticaldepartments figure out the totals reduced all togetherin pesos of eighteen pence, however, or in poundssterling, the student of Chilean economics is considerablyaided; but in surveying past years one is confrontedwith the fact that between 1885 and 1897 the peso wasreckoned as being worth thirty-eight pence. For thereason, therefore, that comparisons with external currencieswould frequently be misleading, it is preferableto retain the majority of revenue and trade figures inChilean denominations only.

In 1850 Chile’s national income was still below5,000,000 pesos yearly: there was almost invariably asmall balance over expenditure in these early years, andin 1865 this excess rose to the respectable figure of6,000,000 pesos. It was not until 1868, when revenueshad grown to 13,000,000 pesos, that a deficit so large asa million pesos was recorded, and this was the fourthoccasion only, in 65 years, that expenses had exceededincome.

In the stormy period of the ’seventies, when expenditureon public services was heavy, and, also, railroadbuilding was developed, deficits were common; but by1880 receipts had risen to over 40,000,000 pesos, and abalance of nearly 13,000,000 over expenditures wasleft in the treasury.

281In 1891 the public revenues of Chile for the first timereached—and exceeded by 5,000,000 pesos—thehundred million mark. In 1895 receipts reached 127,000,000pesos, with 93,000,000 expenditure, in roundnumbers; next year, with an income of nearly 163,000,000pesos, there was a surplus of 47,000,000, an agreeablerecord exceeded in 1901 when, with revenues ofnearly 186,000,000, the balance left in public coffersamounted to more than 50,000,000 pesos. Both receiptsand surplus rose in the next year, and in 1903 officialstatistics showed the remarkable figures of 210,000,000income, with 91,000,000 on the right side of theledger after expenses were paid. A slight drop was experiencedin 1904, but in 1905 receipts went up tonearly 257,000,000 pesos, rising to 373,000,000 in 1907and 458,000,000 in 1908. In 1911 a tremendous jumpin public income was made, to 796,000,000 pesos: inthis year the surplus rose to nearly 457,000,000 pesos.In the three following years there was a falling off fromthis satisfactory record, but the balance remaining inthe treasury was always substantial, and until Chilewas adversely affected by the international upheavalsfollowing the European War her treasury was in a conditionthat many wealthier nations might envy. Butin 1919 the Government was obliged to record a deficitof over 60,000,000 paper, and in 1920 estimated a deficitof 89,000,000 paper pesos. The result of these unprecedenteddifficulties is to bring about a somewhathasty series of plans for changing the tax system, witha view to obtaining larger revenues, and while heavydues were placed upon the importation of luxuries, remodellingof the inheritance and land laws, and of theimposts upon industry and commerce was outlined.The fall of nitrate prices, and paralysation of the market,emphasised the fact that this industry is taxed to282a disproportionate degree, while many other forms ofactivity are exempt. In 1915, for example, out of 134,000,000paper pesos received in the customs houses,85,000,000 were paid for nitrate exports and 1,000,000for its by-product iodine, while of the gold receipts,amounting to 30,000,000 pesos, 29,000,000 were paidfor the same output from the salitre fields.

Chile and the World War.—Strength of the ChileanNavy.—The Army.

The geographical situation of Chile, giving her astrip of coast twenty-eight hundred miles long, rendersher acutely interested in the future of the Pacific.Command of the Strait of Magellan and the possessionof an excellent fleet are guarantees of her ability toprotect this interest.

In the wide affairs of this ocean, destined apparentlyto be the scene for the next trials of political if not ofphysical strength, the nations of the South Americanwest coast have as yet had no voice, for while it isaccepted as a matter of course that certain Europeancountries, the United States and Canada, as well asJapan, Australia and New Zealand, should insist uponhaving their views heard, neither Mexico nor thecountries of Central and South America are generallyregarded as parties to the questions involved. With thedevelopment of national consciousness and the creationof well-equipped navies, a number of these countrieswill figure as coadjutors of increasing importance, andin the forefront of them Chile will, I am convinced, befound, ready and able to assume her share in the workingout of a common problem.

Chile was physically affected by the great war. Notonly was Easter Island used as a naval base by the Germanfleet, but her ports were used as refuges or supply284stations by the ships of several belligerents. Germanshipping lay in Chilean ports, many German sailorswere interned during the war period in Chile, and althoughher position was a passive one it cannot bedoubted that the deep interest with which she watchedevents in the Pacific and the Magellanic archipelagoswas much more than passive. So far as the Allies wereconcerned, their cause would have been little, if at all,served by the entry of Chile into the conflict againstthe Central Powers; it was Chile herself, with a possiblepost-war claim upon some of the steamers of the Kosmosline lying interned during the war in her ports, whostood to gain by a belated entry, and it is to the creditof her scrupulously correct neutrality that she refrained.A distinguished Chilean writer, Dr. EnriqueRocuant, published in 1919 a comprehensive study upon“The Neutrality of Chile: the grounds that promptedand justified it.” I think that no one who understoodthe situation, or the feeling that Chile sincerely exhibited,needed this explanation, however lucid andkindly, detailing as it does the absence of any suchmotive as brought Brazil, with her list of torpedoedvessels, to the Allies’ side, and setting forth the equityof Chile’s actions when faced by the acts of the belligerentsin her territorial waters. There were, for example,violations of Chilean neutrality by various units of theGerman fleet at Easter Island and the Port of Papudoas well as in Cumberland Bay (Juan Fernandez);against these violations Chile vigorously protested;when the British Glasgow followed the Dresden, escapedfrom the battle of the Falklands into CumberlandBay, found that vessel with flags flying and gunspointed and promptly sank her, Chile made similarforcible protests. But she accepted the British regretsand offer of satisfaction with very ready graciousness.

285Two years after the close of the great war Chilebecame, as a direct result of her old and cordial relationswith the British navy, in an unprecedentedly strongnaval condition.

Strength of the Chilean Navy

In August, 1914, two dreadnoughts were building atElswick for the Chilean Government, the AlmiranteLatorre and the Almirante Cochrane, the price of eachvessel being £2,800,000. A number of fast destroyers,also constructed by the Armstrong Whitworth Company,formed part of the Chilean naval developments,two of these, the Lynch and the Condell, being alreadyin Pacific waters when hostilities broke out. Thedreadnought Almirante Latorre was completed speedily,taken over for British Government service, and didgood work under the name of H. M. S. Canada duringthe four and a half years of the conflict; in April, 1920,she was repurchased by the Chilean Government,which obtained for the comparatively modest sum of£1,400,000 not only this fine vessel but three moredestroyers, sister ships of the Lynch (the WilliamsRebolledo, Simpson and Uribe) and a naval tug. Aboutthe same time the British Government also presented toChile six submarines and fifty aircraft, a gift associatedwith British appreciation of the sympathetic attitudeof Chile at the time when the exigencies of war broughtabout detention of the vessels under construction.

The dreadnought Latorre displaces 28,000 tons, has alength of 125 feet, beam of 92 feet, and draws 28 feetof water. She carries 30 guns of 14 inches, 3 inches and4 inches, as well as a number of machine-guns and fourtorpedo tubes. Her speed is 23 knots, and her full crew1075 men. She burns coal and has a bunker capacity286of 1200 tons. The five new destroyers each displace1850 tons, are 320 feet long, are armed with six 4-inchguns, and have a speed of over 31 knots; bunkercapacity, 507 tons of coal; crew, 176. These vesselswere laid down in accord with the plans created for themodernisation of the Chilean fleet in 1910, and theirincorporation into the navy of Chile renders this countrythe possessor of an excellent fighting squadron,equipped in consonance with the experiences of thegreat war.

The possession of good modern vessels of war is onething; adequate operation of them is quite another, asmore than one young nation has discovered to her cost.In Chile, however, a traditional naval feeling has existedfor a century, aided by the inheritance of a considerableproportion of blood from British seamen, andthe work of a group of British naval instructors whowere mainly responsible for efficient development in theservice—as the German military instructors mouldedat least the exterior of the army in the years before thewar.

When I had the pleasure of visiting Chilean navalvessels in Talcahuano in 1920 at the invitation of thegenial Admiral Fontaine, it was difficult to realise thatthe sturdy and well-groomed young officers, many ofthem bearers of British names, clad in replicas of theBritish uniform, were going to a foreign country whenthey set out, a few days later, to fetch back from Britainthe new Chilean ships of war.

The Chilean fleet in early 1922 consisted of two battleships,the French-built Prat (acquired 1890), with awar strength of 466 men, and the British-built Latorre(1913–20) carrying about 1100 crew; the two armouredcruisers, the O’Higgins and the Esmeralda,were constructed at Elswick in 1897, carrying nearly287600 men each; three cruisers of another type, theBlanco, Chacabuco and Zenteno, were built in the sameyards following the acquisition in 1890 of the French-builtErrazuriz. In addition to these large vessels, Chilehas two torpedo cruisers built by Laird in 1890; theTomé and Talcahuano; five modern destroyers (flotillaleaders) constructed between 1912 and 1914; seven olderdestroyers (the Thompson, O’Brien, Jarpa Gamero, Orella,Riquelme and Serrano, carrying 88 men each) built atLaird’s; five torpedo-boats (Contreras, Hyatt, Mutilla,Rodrigue and Videla) built in 1896 in the Yarrowyards, carrying 36 men each, war strength; the sixnew submarines referred to above, built by the ElectricBoat Company, Ltd., in 1915, needing a total warstrength of 108 men; one training ship, the GeneralBaquedano, built at Elswick in 1898, a schooner withauxiliary engines, carrying 253 men; three transports,the Rancagua, Maipo and Angamos, with a complementof 86 men each; one sailing ship, the Lautaro, builtin Glasgow in 1896; ten patrol boats, of which sixolder vessels were built on the Seine between 1890 and1905, while four boats acquired in 1919 were built inHelsingfors. There is also still upon the list an oldironclad, the ex-Cochrane, built at Elswick in 1875,carrying a crew of 132 men.

Chile reckons the peace strength of her navy afloatand ashore at 8377 men, while the naval expensesamount to about 14,000,000 Chilean pesos; in wartimes the personnel would be increased by 1020 men,costs being brought up to 15,200,000 pesos. Navalreserves are calculated as 35 per cent over the warfooting, as regards personnel, while in the event ofhostilities aid of great practical value exists in thesteamers of the Government-controlled CompañiaSud Americana, transformable into auxiliary cruisers.

288A certain number of men are annually recruitedcompulsorily for one year’s service, but as these conscriptsonly amount to three or four hundred, the navalforces are chiefly made up of volunteers who enlist forthree to ten years; many conscripts after serving theirinitial year elect to remain under this system. In amaritime country such as Chile seamanship is popular,and the navy never has difficulty in filling the listswith young men who are developed rapidly into smartand well-disciplined sailors. The naval schools of Chileare adequate and well equipped: in Valparaiso is afine establishment training 200 cadets, of whom 20to 30 are annually passed as junior naval officers; theNaval Academy, part of the same building, trains twelvehigher rank officers. Also in Valparaiso is the NavigationSchool, passing about six officers yearly, and theSchool of Mechanics training 120 pupils is supplyingyearly 30 to 40 petty officers. Cadets of the NavalSchool receive a second-class midshipman’s certificateafter five years’ instruction, and are then sent to theBaquedano for advanced technical training and a 2000-milesailing trip, before the first-class certificate isgranted. It is significant of Chile’s high repute as atrainer of young sailors that cadets from several otherSouth American countries are to be seen in Chileannaval schools.

Besides the Valparaiso establishments, Talcahuanohas a Mechanical School for naval engineers, with 200cadets in training; here also young officers obtain instructionin torpedo work and radiotelegraphy; thisschool turns out about 120 seamen, 30 wireless operators,and 20 midshipmen, as well as qualifying an averageof 10 officers. On board the ex-Cochrane is a gunneryschool, training 120 men every year; on the sailing-shipLautaro is a school for training pilots of the Chilean289merchant marine, as well as for the navy; the corvetteAbtao is used as a training school for boys, and here150 lads are prepared yearly, with the obligation ofserving five years in the navy. The Baquedano corvettereceives boys from the Abtao and midshipmen qualifiedfrom the Valparaiso school for a year’s voyage of instructionbefore they assume duty in the regular service.

Chile has four naval bases, at Arica, Valparaiso,Talcahuano, and Punta Arenas; the latter has none butmobile defences, since the Treaty made with Argentinaat the time when boundary limits were settled stipulatesthat the Strait of Magellan shall not be fortified,a decision which will probably be modified in view ofChile’s undoubted right to protect the property andlives of her nationals in the rapidly developing districtof Punta Arenas and a number of inlets and islands.No belligerent or other vessel would be prevented byChilean fortifications from passing from Pacific toAtlantic waters or vice-versa, since the Cape Horn routeoffers open waters.

The Hydrographic Bureau attached to the Chileannavy has been responsible since its inception in 1874 forconstant exploration and surveying work directed toall parts of the coast, but particularly to the intricatewaterways of the south. Over 150 maps and chartshave been published by this Bureau, constantly incommunication with the equivalent services in themost advanced countries.

The three first-named naval bases possess fixed landdefences, as well as movable and submarine defences;at the chief station, Talcahuano, are two dry docks,one of 45,000 tons and the older of 15,000 tons capacity,as well as a floating dock of 1200 tons. Arrangementsare also made with private dockowners in Mejillones(Antofagasta) and Valparaiso for repairs when needed,290the shipyards of Punta Arenas, Chiloé, Valdivia, andConstitución also offering useful help both as regardsconstruction and repair work. In point of numericalstrength, the Chilean navy is second only to that ofBrazil, while as a matter of fighting record this servicehas been conspicuously successful on the three occasionswhen Chile has been at war during the last hundredyears. Her history is firmly bound to her maritimetradition, and her political influence in the futurewill undoubtedly be considerably affected by her vigorouscommand of the sea.

The army of Chile is a citizen army; its strength,year by year, is under 20,000 men, of whom about halfare newly conscripted; but every healthy man overtwenty-one years old is due to receive a year’s training,and is as a matter of fact very rapidly made into goodfighting material. I have seen extremely smart soldiersturned out in six months’ time in the training campsof Chile.

There is no doubt that in case of need the countrycould raise and equip a hundred thousand men at leastpartly trained to arms in a few weeks’ time. Disciplineis good, the uniform neat, weapons of modern patternand well kept. The cavalry is conspicuous forfirst-class condition in particular; horses and horsemanshipare of a remarkably high quality.

The aircraft branch of Chile’s service is being steadilydeveloped; the daring and skill of the Chilean aviatorwas displayed when Lieutenant Godoy crossed theAndes into the Argentine—the pioneer to perform thishazardous feat.

The First Immigrants of the South.—Araucanian Lands.

Organised immigration efforts began in Chile justbefore the middle of the nineteenth century, during therégime of President Bulnes; they ceased within a fewyears, and recommenced between 1881 and the end ofthe century: thenceforth the flow has been regulatedby a series of laws of strict tendencies. For a numberof years the largest contributor of blood to Chile hasbeen Spain, but there are no colonies such as thosecreated by the Brazilian system, newcomers of todayusually finding industrial employment in cities, or thecoal, nitrate and copper camps. For several years before1914, when immigration practically ceased, theaverage entry was less than 2000, of whom at least 75per cent were Spaniards. Chile’s first batch of regularimmigrants arrived in 1850, following the efforts of anenergetic agent in Europe. There were 70 German men,10 women and 5 children in the party, who sailed roundthe Horn, had a passage of 120 days and were landedat Corral. Both Valdivia and Corral were economicallydead at this period; it would perhaps be more exact tosay that they had never lived. The sea-port and theriverine city had been maintained as frontier postsagainst pirates on the ocean and Indians on land duringthe Spanish colonial days; a small mixed populationhad grown up as a result of Valdivia’s utilisation as adumping-ground for convicts from all the West Coast.Evildoers were shipped here as a convenient means ofobliteration, and a number never returned north. For292thirty years following independence from Spain Valdivialanguished, the forts decaying and the soldiersindifferent. There was no connection with the rest ofChile except by sea, for the land of the unsubduedAraucanians lay, a broad belt of forbidden land, belowthe populous towns of the Central region.

Corral had twenty-eight houses when the Germanslanded; Valdivia’s plaza was a rubbish-heap, thestreets unmade, the one-story houses of mud had unglazedwindows. To add to the troubles of the agentwho had brought the settlers, governmental negotiationsfor land on which to plant the colony had not beencompleted. Vicente Perez Rosales, the agent, tells inhis memoirs that as soon as immigration to the southloomed in view as a fact, tracts of land that had beenwild and valueless suddenly acquired owners and aprice. Enterprising citizens went forth into the woods,found some ancient Indian who was willing for a considerationto swear that such and such a tract was hisinheritance from his fathers, and, for another consideration,to sell it.

Vicente Perez found it an extremely difficult matter tofight this new flood of landowners, and had no time tospend upon litigation; so, philosophically, he adoptedsimilar methods, and presently acquired territory.But meanwhile provision had been made for the firstarrivals by the public spirit of Benjamin Viel, a Frenchcitizen of Valdivia, who gave for their settlement thepretty Isla de la Teja which lies at the confluence ofthe Calle-Calle and the Cruces rivers in front of ValdiviaCity. Today the island is covered with prosperousbusinesses, most of them carrying German names—breweries,a paper mill, two or three shipbuilding yards.

293The agent then went to look for interior land for thenext batches of colonists, and, finding that forestcountry was unclaimed, started to explore what wasstill virgin country to the white man. He lived onhoney and wild nuts, struggled through dense woodlandto the edge of Lake Llanquihue, chose his ground, andthen gave his chief Indian scout, the celebrated Pichi-Juan,thirty pesos to burn clearings through the heartof the forest. It was this Indian who brought the firstfifty yoke of oxen to the borders of the Gulf of Reloncaví,driving them through the jungle from Osornoand opening the first track.

Pichi-Juan took three months to burn a belt fiveleagues wide, and fifteen leagues long, through theOsorno Valley, leaving isolated woods to serve for house-materialand fuel. Puerto Montt, at Melipillo, wasfounded in February, 1853, among blackened stumps,and the new colony, also of Germans, had two badwinters when the crops rotted in the ground; but by1861 had progressed so well that the town was made thehead of the province.

One hundred and five more settlers had come in1852; another batch four years later. By 1858 PuertoMontt was self-supporting, with cultivated fields, flourmills, and was exporting brandy and honey, planks,tanned leather and wheat flour. Between the foundationof the settlement and 1864, when immigration ofGerman families ceased, 1363 people had entered.Henceforth the opened territory received continualadditions of energetic people from many parts of theworld, Chileans themselves went south, and today thereis no better developed and managed part of Chile.

Araucanian Lands

A new spurt of immigration occurred after 1881,when the Mapoche Indians obstinately held claim to294sovereignty over the broad belt of lands known asAraucania was finally destroyed by the republicanforces of Chile. With the frontier barrier overthrown,farming lands lay open, and the Government made afresh bid for European settlers.

Agents were sent out to Switzerland, France, Englandand Germany, and prospective colonists wereoffered 40 hectares of land (about 100 acres) insome regions; in others, twice this amount; part ofthe passage-money was given, a yoke of oxen, seeds,implements, materials for house construction, and acash advance towards the expenses of the first year.Against these advances was set off a mortgage uponthe property, to be repaid in three years.

By the year 1884 a French-Swiss colony had beenestablished at Quechereguas, and another at Traiguen,fifteen miles distant. In the same region, at Victoria,were Germans and Swiss; French settlements had beenmade at Quina, Angol and San Bernardo, while in theTemuco region were more Swiss colonies, as also atQuillen, Puren, Galvarino, Contulmo and Ercilla.Between 1881 and 1887 the European newcomers hadinvested 8000 francs (the Chilean peso being thenworth five francs) in land, and the colonists in Araucanianumbered about 4000.

Their early life had its difficulties. When railwaysbegan construction through the long-secluded territorythe Indians became infuriated, and the unfortunatecolonists suffered from repeated raids. Property wasdestroyed and settlers attacked and killed when theAngol-Traiguen section of the line was commenced,and eventually a special police force was establishedto protect the new settlements. The Swiss Governmentmade investigations through their consulate in Valparaiso,raising certain points in connection with the295well-being of the Swiss immigrants, their physicalsecurity, and delay in obtaining land titles, and,although the Chilean authorities did their best to ameliorateconditions, a check to the invitation extended wasfelt for a time. However, the young towns began toprosper, the Chilean Government planned and beganmore railways, and before the end of the century thewhole territory had been tentatively opened. Cultivatedfields spread over the face of the old Indianreserve, joining eventually with the Valdivia and Llanquihuelands settled thirty years previously.

Two small specialised groups of immigrants are tobe seen in the south in addition to the German and Swisswave. After the last Boer War, a number of farmerscame from South Africa with their families, and settledupon the Island of Chiloé. Here the fair-haired childrenof the Boer folk thrive, the farms are neat andwell kept, and the properties, many of them extendingto the sea’s edge, appear to flourish. The other transplantationis that of a group of Canary Islanders, ahardy folk who have acquired land on the beautifulBudi Lagoon, on the coast of Cautín Province. In thesouthern provinces below the Bio-Bio, however, thelong existence of the Spanish outposts next door toIndian populations had its effect upon both groups.The Indians learned quickly to adopt the Europeanhabit of keeping domestic animals—they are said tohave owned 50,000 sheep by 1567—and to till the soil;the Spaniards or their descendants of mixed bloodlearned to live contentedly in houses of mud bricks,to eat Indian food and to prepare it in the Indianmanner. The southern tribes had no domestic cookingvessels: holes in the soil, beaten hard and lined withstones, were heated with wood fires, and the food,thickly wrapped in leaves, was placed in a red-hot296cavity and covered down with branches: all kinds offood together—shell-fish, birds, green vegetables, potatoes—wereput in, the whole coming out as an appetising,steaming mass. This curanto was adoptedby the mestizos, and still survives in certain localitiesas a favourite dish, exactly as the old Peruvian locro,the potato stew of Inca days, is still an indispensableitem of the menu of upland West Coast towns today.

Neither coffee nor tea were to be had in the south inearly days; the former in fact had not yet come intogeneral European use, while the import of tea was forbiddenunder the Spanish colonial régime; the mestizostook to a drink made of ground and parched maizemixed with water, or chicha, or the infusion of yerbamaté, imported overland from Paraguay. The lattercustom still survives in country regions, while the colonistsfrom Central Europe of last century filled theirneed for coffee with a decoction of dried, burnt andground figs. The use of the woollen poncho, a garmentexcellently adapted to the climate, has long been generalamongst the farming classes or any others spendingmuch time out of doors and, especially, in the saddle.

Captain Allen Gardiner, in Chile between 1814 and1838, observed that in the south a spade was used bythe Chilenos which was a copy of the Indian implement,made of a horse’s blade-bone lashed to a four-foot-longpole; that thread was spun by hand without a wheel,and cloth woven upon the “very rudest description ofa loom”; and that the descendants of both races builttheir ranchos of an oval shape, with mud floors, wattledsides, no windows, an interior row of supporting posts,and a roof with openings at each end of a raised ridge-coping;the fire was built in the middle of the floor.

Material comforts brought by contact with the world,and prosperity resulting from access to markets, transformed297the mode of life after the arrival of colonists,the advent of the railway, and the commencement ofsteamship services. When flowers began to be seen inthe window-spaces of southern houses in place of irongrilles, as Vicente Perez Rosales says, it was the signalof a new standard.

Formal colonisation in Chile is today little needed,but there is a constant informal inflow of white foreignersof good standing who in a considerable proportionmarry the charming Chilean women and are added tothe permanent population. No great wide spaces areundeveloped, and the natural increase of a healthy landwill suffice for industrial needs.

Conditions of Authorship.—Historians.—Politicians,Engineers and Novelists.—The Society Novel.—RealisticSchool.—Poets.

Conditions of authorship in Chile are not altogetherencouraging to the writer of books. The journalisthas a fair chance, for in this as in almost every Latin-Americancountry where prosperity is at least recurrent,there is a large output of daily and weekly papers; ifthe publishers are unable to offer any great financialreward to talent, they are keenly sympathetic, andthe writer of light or learned essays is eagerly welcomedand rapidly renowned. But publishers of books, asdeveloped in Europe, are unknown in the Americassouth of the Rio Grande. Therefore the author of distinctionor wealth frequently takes his manuscripts toParis or Madrid, where he seeks a professional publisherto issue his work, and although he may share in the expensesof publication he is consoled by the assuranceof expert distribution.

The way of the author publishing in Chile is harder.He goes to a printer with his book, makes a personalcontract, pays the bill, and then has to market hiswares. Any advertising is performed at his own expenseand he must depend for sales upon the localbookstores. He is secure of receiving encouraging reviewsin the local press, unless he has become unpopular299in any particular quarter for, perhaps, political reasons,and the bookstores always seem proud to display thegroups of “autores chilenos” upon their shelves. But,in the case of a serious, non-fiction book, the authorrarely prints more than 200 copies, and thinks himselflucky if he sells 50. A novelist who has already achievedsomething of a name probably prints 500 copies andmay reasonably expect to sell half that number.

The lack of professional publishers all over SpanishAmerica appears to be due chiefly to mental dependenceupon other countries and particularly uponFrance. By far the greater proportion of books offeredfor sale in any Spanish American town is French, ortranslations into Spanish of French books, the listranging from such classics as the works of Voltaire,Rousseau and Nordau to Zola, Dumas, AnatoleFrance, Guy de Maupassant and the more modernwriters of fiction. Conan Doyle’s detective tales stillsell freely in Latin America, as do the works of Scott,Kipling, Rider Haggard, Hardy, and a few other“standard” English authors, in Spanish translationssome of which are not so much incredibly bad asextraordinary misfits. The oddest translation of thiskind that I have ever picked up from a Latin-Americanbookstall was of Sudermann’s “Mill.” I found it ona forlorn newsstand in interior Nicaragua, and kept itas a shining example of the difficulty of translating intoa Latin from a Teutonic tongue. Neither the speechof the German peasants, the routine of the mill, theideas or scenery “went” in Spanish, and it is at leastpartly because a French story translates so happilythat Latin America is flooded with French literature.All these translations are made in Europe, and aregenerally published in Madrid; as a result, LatinAmerica reads, in the main, what Spain reads.

300Under these circumstances it is admirable that theslender stream of Chilean literature persists. Examiningthe output, one concludes there are today twomain classes of producers: first, the authors who aretrue artists, pricked by the age-old necessity forwriting, and secondly the propagandists who for thesake of public service, or political reasons, wish to presenttheir views. In the delicate mid-shades one findsthe genuine historian; the personage whose aim is toachieve a literary reputation; and the sound economicessayist.

As regards history Chile has been well served by herown sons. The bright spirit of Benjamin VicuñaMackenna, descendant of one of the distinguished Irishsettlers in Chile, informs his “History of Chile,” whileexcellent work was also done by Barros Arana in hismonumental record. It would be difficult to exaggeratethe value of another series of productions byJosé Toribio Medina. This delver into archives hasbeen producing for many years the result of tireless andcritical work, the books being printed “en casa delautor” (in the author’s house). His series of “Documentosineditos para la Historia de Chile” run to twentyvolumes; we are also indebted to him for a detailed andfully documented account of the Inquisition in Chile,in addition to similar works dealing with the Inquisitionin Peru and Mexico. He is, in fact, one of the mostindefatigable workers in the Latin-American field ofhistory. Among other living historians of Chile is Dr.Domingo Amunátegui Solar, Rector of the Universityof Chile, while Chilean geography owes much to DonErnesto Greve, head of the Geographical Board in thePublic Works Department in Santiago and to the devotedwork of Dr. J.G. Guerra.

Of political monographs, Chile has sufficient writers301of this class of work coming from the ranks of journalistsas well as from those of the professional politician;a glance at a pile of such pamphlets leads inevitably tothe conclusion that only a small proportion can possiblybe disposed of by sales. But among the politicalwriters whose essays are frequently of wider interestis the author of “The Neutrality of Chile,” EnriqueRocuant.

The distinguished engineer, Santiago Marín Vicuña,is one of the best Chilean writers upon economic subjects,his range covering railways, mines, irrigation,ports, canals, etc. The press of the excellent Mercurioof Santiago reprints in book form many of these andkindred articles of national concern, performing soundwork in bringing the acute problems of the country beforethe public, never more needed than in republicswhere continuity of domestic as well as foreign policiesis often lacking.

In the realm of fiction it cannot be said that Chile isrich. She has never yet produced a great novel. Butthere is consolation in the fact that neither have mostof her sister states, the greatest wealth of literature,particularly of the genuinely national school, floweringin Portuguese and not Spanish America; the novels,belles lettres, historical studies and poetry of Brazilhave been and are poured forth in quantities that aretorrential compared with the thin streams from manyother Latin-American countries. The fact is curiouswhen one considers the present strength of Spanishliterature compared with that of Portugal. It wouldbe unfair to Spanish America if one did not seek anexplanation of her attenuated literary production onother grounds than those of mental capacity, and unfairto Chile if her output were not considered in relationto that of all other parts of Spanish America.302Spanish America during the major part of the nineteenthcentury underwent constant political upheavalsresulting in the preoccupation of the most brilliant menwith presidential disputes and, not infrequently, theexile of the most active citizens from a share in theircountry’s advancement and ideas. Behind the formerSpanish colonies lay, also, a traditional acceptance offormalities and inhibitions that were far from encouragingto intellectual development.

Nevertheless, here and there rose bright founts ofliterary production during last century. It is not surprisingthat the best of these originated in the regionswhere the viceregal courts had been established forthree hundred years, where the Royal Audiences anduniversities had been set up and a nucleus of well-educatedpeople settled. The best-known novel ofSouth America (aside from Taunay’s famous “Innocencia”),the sentimental “Maria” of Jorge Isaacs, isnot a case in point, however, for the author, writing inproud and intellectual Colombia, was the son of anEnglish Jew.

But amongst the shining examples to be found isthe list of novels put out by José Milla in Guatemala,and the work of Ricardo Palma in Lima. Milla, anindefatigable worker of fine intellectual training, putmost of his romantic-historical novels into a colonialsetting, and enjoyed a great local vogue, while the“Tradiciones de Peru,” although purporting to be legendaryrather than fiction, strikes a somewhat similarnote.

Chilean literature has not developed along like lines.Here the development of the novel was chiefly basedupon the internal political struggles of the countryduring the later part of the nineteenth century, and,with such themes as that of the revolution against Balmaceda303fading from public interest, the military-patrioticstory has yielded to two chief classes, thesociety novel and pictures of the life of Chilean peasantsand workmen.

The former are not infrequently of an insufferablelength and insipidity; the scene is nearly always confinedto Santiago, and the author devotes half his pagesto minute descriptions of the heroine’s costumes, whilethe rest of the space is taken up with endless discussionsabout amor. For instance, in the highly reputed“Martin Rivas” of the late Alberto Blest Gana, one ofthe most polished and admired Chilean novelists, it isimpossible to discover why Edelmira, Leonor, Adelaide,or Matilde should “love” or dislike Martin, Agustin,Rafael, Emilio, or Clemente; not only is all the conversationof the young people based upon the questionof whether someone does or does not cherish a heart-affair,but all the fathers, mothers, uncles and brothersare represented as perpetually running about suggestingthat their sons, daughters, sisters, etc., shouldenter into matrimony. The high principles of thevirtuous Martin do not prevent him from suborning asoldier and police official in order to escape from jail,but his worst crime in the eyes of the reader is likelyto be his interminable letters of loquacious sentimentality,which unfortunately set as well as followed afashion. “Los Transplantados,” displaying the Chileanwho elects to live out of Chile, is generally placedsecond in popularity. This novel and “Martin Rivas”were imitated in a trickling stream of politico-social-amatorynovels, of which perhaps the best-known latesuccessor is Luis Orrego Luco’s “Al Traves de laTempestad,” in two thick volumes whose pages, devotedas they are to unctuous accounts of the heroine’sfeathers and embroidered dresses, are relieved by304occasional strokes of interesting political portraiture ofthirty years ago.

By far the most interesting and vivid fiction of todayis that of the realistic school, dealing with the Chileanworkman, bandit, etc. The methods of Blasco Ibañezinspire much of this output, and it frequently happensthat in order to achieve an appearance of strength theauthor descends to a sordid brutality that is apt todefeat its own ends. We don’t believe it. This murdering,lying, callous drunkard is not a typical Chileno,says anyone who knows Chileans, and we begin tosuspect the novelist of cultivating misery in the firstplace because he thinks it makes his work strong andsecondly because he really has not studied the Chileanworking-class very thoroughly, and trusts that hisreaders are equally unaware. An example of thisclass is “El Roto,” by Joaquin Edwards, publishedin the middle of 1920. “El Roto” followed the workof several other writers dealing with the life of thecampesinos (countryfolk), miners, huasos (cowboys),etc., of Chile. Baldomero Lillo is perhaps the mostlucid, restrained and sympathetic of the members ofthis school, and his “Sub-Terra” is a stronger collectionof short stories than those of “Sub-Sole.” Lillo is theavowed friend of the poor and simple; his miners andbeggars are invariably wronged, and the bailiff or foremanthe wicked aggressor. His most successful talesare pitched in a minor key, a tragedy the inevitableconclusion; but his delicacy of expression, admirablesincerity and brevity, and the plain fact that he knowsthe life of which he writes, single him out from thebrutal-realistic stream. Lillo worked in the coalminesof Lota in his youth, was afterwards an employéin a store in Lebu, and did not begin to write until yearsafterwards he came to Santiago and joined the band of305young Chilean writers that included his distinguishedbrother, the poet Samuel Lillo. Don Baldomero is nota fertile producer, but his work is of steady quality.Another portrayer of virtuous campesinos is FedericoGana, whose “Días de Campo” is a pleasant, smoothlywritten series of scenes. In quite another manner arethe stories of Mariano Latorre, whose most strikingvolumes are “Cuentos del Maule” and “Cuna de Cóndores.”Latorre’s background in the latter tales is theChilean cordillera, a region plainly well known to him;he has a gift for incisive description, and if his charactersare frequently insensible, melancholy and animal,they are at least rarely sentimental. Don Pedro Cruz,a well-known Chilean critic, has criticised Latorre forplaying to the gallery with his sententious insistenceupon the characteristics of the Chilean race as displayedby his rather morbid peasantry, and, speakingin general of the school to which Latorre belongs, declares:“We are tired of the idiocies of Peiro, the brutalitiesof Goyo, the sensuality of Florinda, the cunningof Ermelinda, although all this is presented to us witha mixture of dawns, sunsets, trees, brooks and fragrantbreezes,” and roundly charges the authors with lack ofimagination and inadequate study of their own environment;the gross peasantry shown in these stories is not,he says, genuinely Chilean, as it pretends to be: “Characterconsists in a mode of thinking and feeling, andthese writers seek the national character in preciselythose individuals who think and feel the least.”

Among the minor writers of fiction are AugustoThompson, Fernando Santiván, Diego Dublé Urrutia,Egidio Poblete, Rafael Maluenda and Francisco ZapataLillo, most of them writers of short stories and delicatesketches rather than of profound studies. A tendencytowards decision of style and condensation of expression306has undoubtedly made itself felt during the last decade,and the scores of facile pens in Chile promise the developmentof the national novel.

Amongst the most interesting recent work is the outputof a group of Chilean women writers. The charming“Tierra Virgen” of Señora Echeverria y Larrain (“Iris”)describing the southern lakes and woods of Chile, is acameo of literature, while the work of two youngerwriters, Laura Jorquera (“Aura”) and Elvira SantaCruz (“Roxane”) is sincere and of remarkable promise.The former writer’s “Tierras Rojas,” a tale of life in thehigh copper plains of Antofagasta, is a genuine pictureand her “En Busca de un Ideal” a pleasant love story.Elvira Santa Cruz has, I think, done nothing better thanher “Flor Silvestre,” with its presentation of life inthe Chilean countryside.

Drama has received a number of Chilean contributions,although it is but rarely that the visitor to Chilehas the opportunity of seeing a Chilean play. AcevedoHernandez, Videla y Raveau, Armando Monk, andRafael Maluenda have all written plays of merit. Butwhile playhouses are chiefly filled with foreign companiesacting foreign plays, the Chilean author haslittle to stimulate his talent.

Like every other Latin-American country, Chileclaims a large number of delightful versifiers. A senseof melody and love of sweet words is part of the Latininheritance, and development of sentiment is encouragedby the fine climate, physical beauty and spring oflife found in such happy regions as Chile. The musicalquality of the Spanish tongue lends itself to the expressionof emotion, and no shame is felt in fervid outbursts;environment and vehicle combine to encouragethe poet of South America.

307There has been for half a century a considerable groupof young poets in Chile, many of whom turn in laterlife to politics, journalism or another profession; theresiduum of mature poets is small. But this is notbecause Chile is an unkindly host to the poet: on thecontrary, she is a genial foster mother. The world doesnot forget that the greatest of Latin-American writersof noble verse, Rubén Darío, although a Nicaraguan-born,found here his first literary encouragement, andthat the electrifying “Azul” was published in 1888 inSantiago. Darío was at the time a weigher in theCustom house at Valparaiso, and Armando Donososays, in his Anthology of Contemporary Chilean Poets,that he was no doubt a very poor weigher. At least,however, he was immediately recognised as a greatpoet, and it was Chilean appreciation that set his feetupon the triumphal path that he trod until his death.As kindly was Chilean nurture of the genius of anotherexile, the Venezuelan poet Andres Bello.

Following Darío’s shining wake, a cluster of Chileanverse-makers began to publish in the early 90’s: thebeginning of the new century showed a growing list asthe work of young Chileans. Included in these earlyvolumes is the “Ritmos” of Pedro Antonio González;“Versos y Poemas,” by Gustave Valledor Sánchez;“Esmaltines,” Francisco Contreras; “Campo Lirico,”Antonio Borquez Solar; “Brumas,” Miguel Recuant;“Del Mar á la Montana,” Diego Dublé Urrutia; and“Matices,” by Manuel Magallanes Moure, who hassince greatly added to his early laurels. Recently aselection of his poems, “Floreligio,” was published byJ. Garcia Monje in Costa Rica, that stronghold ofLatin-American literature. Magallanes Moure is anexcellent painter as well as a poet of the front rankin Chile.

308Striking a less contemplative and minor note thanMoure, the distinguished Pro-Rector of SantiagoUniversity, Samuel Lillo, is one of the most admiredpoets. His “Canciones de Arauco” has a good deal incommon with the verse of Brazilian “Indianism,” andthe “Canto Lirico,” “Chile Heroico,” “La Escolta dela Bandera” and the poem to Vasco Nuñez de Balboa,strike a patriotic note. No poems, perhaps, are morewidely known in Chile than those of the singer CarlosPezoa Veliz, dead in his promising youth; and otherwell-loved verse is that of Victor Domingo Silva.

Again in the realm of poesy the Chilean woman hasa high place. The brilliant lady who hides her identityunder the pseudonym of Gabriela Mistral is not only apoet but an authority upon literature: a few years agoshe was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in partnershipwith the Spanish dramatist Echegaray.

Inca Control.—Racial Divisions.—The SouthernTribes.—Araucanians.—Race Mixture.—Archæology.

Before the coming of the Spaniards to Chile, animportant line of division already lay between thenative folk who accepted the domination of the Incaand those who successfully resisted his rule. The physicalsign of that division was the Maule River.

But both north and south of the Maule the varioustribes differed widely in blood, in speech and habitsand in capacity for the adoption of alien culture.Divergence of a marked character must have existedfor a long time between the primitive, fish-eating coast dwellersand the people living in the great longitudinalvalley, who, although they were in all probability originallyhunters, had taken to the cultivation of such foodstaples as maize and potatoes. The coast dwellerswere not all of the same race, although necessity inducedsomewhat similar living habits: T. A. Joyceshows that upon the strip between Arica and theAtacama desert were a colony of the Uros, whose realhome was on the Desaguadero River leading southfrom Lake Titicaca, but who were planted on thePacific littoral in accordance with the Inca system oftransferring tribes. South of these groups were thewood and skin huts of another colony brought from310Bolivia, the mitimaes of the Charca tribe, who buriedtheir dead in a contracted position. South of Tarapacáwere groups known collectively as Changos, living thesame simple life but practising extended burial. Thepractical, industrious system of the Incas could dolittle with such folk except, probably, to levy a tributeof fish, and chief attention was turned to the fertilecountry of the central valley. Here agricultural lifeseems to have been forced upon certain regions throughscarcity of game, for although guanacos, birds and afew small edible animals are found all the way fromCoquimbo to Cape Horn, such creatures as the puduand the huemul (small and larger deer) are found onlyin forestal belts. South America has never possessedany great quantity of large game animals, and Chile inparticular has a surprisingly short list of indigenousquadrupeds, although she has always been well stockedwith both land and sea-birds.

Today the “Indian” has practically disappearedfrom the major part of the coast and from thebeautiful central valley of Chile. The 50,000 Araucanianswho survive in the Temuco region (Provinceof Cautín) do not retain more than dwindlingtraces of their former customs; in the deep forestalarea of Valdivia and Llanquihue, as for instance uponthe island in Lake Ranco with its group of “Huilliches,”a few people are found under conditions still approximatingto their pre-Spanish state. But in the extremesouth where the freezing water-mazes of the stormsweptarchipelagos have tempted few newcomers, thenative groups of Yahgans and Onas and Alakalufs areliving in much the same manner as that described byobservers three or four hundred years ago. Here andthere, as near the newly developed farms of Tierra delFuego, where the native folk have learnt herding, habits311have been definitely changed, but in the main the folkof the Magellanic regions have been left in undisputedpossession. The natural conditions under which theyexist are not conducive to cultural development. Thedaily struggle for food absorbs all effort, and it is onlywhen an outside civilisation armed with tools andmachinery and modern economic knowledge has imposedits will that the effects of the inclement climatehave been conquered. Despite missionary effort, thesoutherly native people, among the most primitive andmost miserable tribes in the world, sharing the commonfate of their happier kin of the pleasant lands tothe north, have almost disappeared. Today the travellertraversing by local steamer the wonderful Smyth’sChannel and nearby inlets and fjords may see, as theearliest travellers saw, the open canoe of the “Indians”with a wood fire burning continually upon a tiny hearthof clay, paddled through the chilly waterways by folkwhose dark skins are practically unprotected from thewind and rain. The Fuegians meet any passing vesselto beg for clothes and food as they begged from theBeagle, but contact with newcomers has taught themnothing but a new list of small demands. In the developinglife of Chile they seem to have no place.

To discover the true racial differences between thenative inhabitants of Chile before the Spanish conquestis a task requiring more evidence than lies as yet beforeus. It is rendered more difficult by the absence of templesor permanent dwellings and by the comparativelysmall witness yielded by graves. Only in the north, inthe dry belt, are cemeteries offering a considerable bulkof remains; here are such sites as Calama and Pucara,near Chiu-Chiu, where Inca influence is plain althoughthe residents had certainly attained to no more than amodest cultural status. The pottery found in the cemeteries312of Arica and the Antofagasta sites is rough andsimple; the weaving coarse. The houses were merequadrangles of cemented rubble where, as at Pucara,ruins survive in the rainless country. These are, however,beyond ancient Chile. Nothing so advanced as thisproof of settled communities is found south of Copiapó,and seekers must fain rely upon the evidence of shell-heapsand arrowheads, plus the records of early visitorsand such help as is afforded by the life of indigenousfolk surviving today.

The names of tribes as recorded or in use are notracial. The cloud of these appellations confuses theenquirer until he realises that Araucana is a Spanishderivative of the Quechua “Auca” or rebel; thatPicunche means simply “People of the North” asHuilliche means “People of the South”; Puelche, “Peopleof the East,” and Moluche, “of the West,” while thename Mapoche or Mapuche indifferently exchanged forAraucanian today is a local term indicating inhabitantsof a certain territory. Joyce considers that the evidenceproves existence of an agricultural folk in Central Chilebefore the Inca conquest, speakers of the Araucaniantongue prevailing from Atacama to Chiloé. Upon thesepeople of sedentary habits had descended a wave ofnomads from over the Andes, Pampa-bred hunters whoas in many allied cases adopted the speech of the invadedland. The speech of the rebels or Aucaes survivedInca control following the invasion from Peruabout the middle of the fifteenth century. Of thetribes found by the Spaniards a century later, the mostnortherly Araucanian speakers were the Picunche, amixture of Pampa immigrants with remnants of the old“rebel” stock, the latter predominating; the Moluches,farther south, showed signs of descending in the mainfrom the Pampa invaders, although among them were313found agricultural groups where older habits had prevailed.In the Andean foothills were the Puelches,closely allied to tribes of the Argentine plains, who hadcrossed the lower mountain passes between Villarica andCorcovado.

Far south, three racial divisions are admitted. Twoof these are commonly known as Fuegians, and thesescant tribes, Alakalufs of the southwest and Yahgansdwelling in the most southerly part of Tierra delFuego, are a much more primitive folk than the fewand diminishing Onas, a taller, round-headed race alliedto the big Patagonians, and inheriting from their kin afair degree of hunting skill. A number of the Onas havetaken kindly to a shepherd’s life since the creation ofscientific Fuegian farms, but the Yahgans remain asthey have always been known to history, a fish-eating,practically amphibious race, unreconciled to civilisation.The long-headed Alakalufs of the Chonos Archipelagohave been forced, whatever their origin, into a mode oflife much like that of the Yahgans, depending chieflyupon the sea for livelihood, using arrows and harpoonsfor killing fish, constructing canoes and showing skill aswatermen.

Very finely worked arrowheads have been and arestill being made by these southerly folk: Chileanspecimens are among the best weapons of the kind foundin the Americas. But neither the Onas nor Fuegianshave ever constructed pottery, or know anything ofthe loom; shell-fish, seal-meat and fungus, forming theirchief food, is frequently eaten raw. Alakaluf homesare huts of sticks, covered with skins, and carried bycanoe from place to place. They have no chiefs, dwellin family groups, and we know nothing of their gods.They have as a whole resisted efforts to Christianisethem.

Among the great body of Araucanian speakers dwellingin Central Chile at the time of the Spanish conquesta more definite culture existed. Religious beliefs wereprobably genuinely Chilean, since they are quite distinctfrom the ideas found on the other side of theAndes. The supreme Deity Pillan was a sky-god withhis dwelling in the volcanos, and was propitiated by thatworld-wide institution the medicine man, here called aMachí. Faith still survives, but so completely hassoothsaying been relegated to women that a case hasbeen known of a male Araucanian dressing as a womanand keeping up an elaborate life-long farce in order tohold the berth. “Cures” of the sick by fumigation andvarious drinks, and yearly ceremonies under the sacredcanelo (a kind of cinnamon) tree, called forth the majorsymbols of the Araucanian cult, but there were neithertemples nor images of deities.

The aboriginal Araucanian may be credited with theinvention or adoption of chicha, a fermented drink madeof berries or maize (and after the coming of the Spaniards,of apples from the trees planted by colonists ormissionaries); of the poncho, well woven of guanacowool, or later of sheep’s wool; and of the cultivation ofmaize and the potato. Native to the West Coast, thepotato grows wild today over the chief part of Chileand the adjacent islands, and formed a valuable contributionto the limited list of pre-Spanish foods. Theuse of certain seaweeds, with cochayuyo as the mostsucculent, in stews, was doubtless an aboriginal habit;it survives in South Chile, and in such coastal marketsas that of Valdivia this dried sea-weed is sold and eatenin enormous quantities. The seeds or nuts of theChilean pine formed another part of the old diet. The315method of cooking food in stone-lined holes in theground is a native custom that remained in use amongboth “Indians” and Creoles in the more remote districtsuntil recent times. There seems no doubt thatthe game called by the Spanish “chueca,” played witha ball struck with curved sticks, is genuinely Chilean;it bears a strong resemblance to hockey. The bolaswith which the Chilean huaso (cowboy) is so efficientwas not known on the West of the Andes until afterthe Spanish conquest. But with the speedy adoptionof the horse and rapid increase of cattle this implementfrom the Patagonian pampas became widely used.Within thirty years after the entry of Pedro de Valdiviainto Chile the horse had spread throughout theinhabited part of Chile, and mounted Araucanians,hardy and expert, were giving battle to the cavalry ofthe Spaniard.

The Araucanian fought to retain his independencefor over three hundred years. It was a contest inwhich he was doomed to fail in the long run, but hereceived from his enemies unstinted appreciation of hiscourage. The famous poem “La Araucana” writtenby Ercilla, a soldier in Valdivia’s army, embodies aSpanish concept of chivalry rather than that of theMapuche; his noble Indian is a mediæval Spanishknight, and the verses frequently quoted as proof ofAraucanian virtues display chiefly the convention ofgenerous sentimentality infusing the European literatureof the sixteenth century. But undoubtedly theAraucanian possessed qualities that all the world agreesto admire: he defended his own, and showed tenacityand ability in that defence. From a series of tribesliving loosely in family groups, obeying no overlord intimes of peace, the native folk evolved a strong fightingconfederation. The Toquis, or wartime leaders,316supported by their Ulmen or district chiefs, developedgenuine skill in warfare, and turned the whole of thetribes living south of the Maule into a mobile fightingcommunity. The task was rendered easier by the oldnomadic habits of a large part of the population.

The hostile relations between the earliest Spaniardsand the Araucanians became crystallised with succeedingyears, a feeling constantly renewed by women-huntingand house-burning raids upon the Spanish colonies,followed or preceded by ruthless attacks uponthe Indian camps. The repeated treaties and parliamentsarranged by the Spanish authorities with theIndian leaders during later colonial times were littlemore than symbols of optimism.

As far as Spain was concerned, good intentions towardsthe original owners of the Americas were frequentlypricked to action by the priesthood, consistentadvocates of the indigenous folk. When Charles V,pressed by Bartolomé de las Casas, published in theyear 1542 the “New Laws” relating to the treatmentof American natives it was with a determination to securethe Indians’ well-being which was only surpassedby the determination of the colonists to make thegreatest possible industrial use of these folk. “Ourprincipal intention and will” declared the king, “hasalways been to preserve and augment the numbers ofIndians, that they may be taught the articles of ourholy Catholic faith and may be well treated as fellowmen and our subjects, as indeed they are.” The strictaccompanying rules against enslavement or overworkof the Indians, and the minute instructions to theAudiencias and Procurator Fiscal were avoided withdexterity in the colonies from Mexico southwards, andnot all the efforts of the missionary padres could renderthem effective, although these and similar laws317were repeated by successive monarchs, and notably byPhilip III, at the instance of that famous apostle ofthe West Coast, Father Luis de Valdivia. It cannotbe said that, with regard to the Araucanians, thisbacking was either badly needed at the time or requitedwith gratitude; but it was followed by missionaryefforts aiming at Christianisation of these wild andstubborn people. The Father Nicolas Mascardi, workingin South Chile about 1670, “merited the crown ofmartyrdom that he received”; nevertheless the goodPhilippe de la Laguna took up the task, converting“Puelches and Poyas” in the mainland region oppositeChiloé, but making, apparently, little impression ofpermanence. The intransigeance of the southernerssaved them for a time, for the more amenable Picuncheand simple Changos, accepting the foreign yoke, rapidlydiminished—the survivors losing caste with suchfinality that Ocampo, writing of West Coast conditionsin 1610, declared that the Indians were generally downtroddenby the Negroes imported to supplement themas workers, “with ill-treatment both of word and deed,so that the Indians called the Negroes their lords, andthe Negroes called the Indians dogs.” It should besaid that Ocampo’s comment applied more to Peruthan to Chile, where neither climate nor rich mineswarranted the introduction of any large number ofAfrican slaves.

Today the Araucanian who resisted Spanish controlis not in better case than the docile native of the morenortherly part of the West Coast. Their definite overthrowas an independent people dates from 1882, whenChilean troops seasoned by the campaign with Boliviaand Peru marched across “la Frontera” and put anend forever to Araucania as a native stronghold in themiddle of republican Chile. By this time Valdivia and318Llanquihue had been colonised, and Araucania stood,fenced against north and south, in the way of freecommunication and development. A land reservationhas been allotted in the province of Cautín, its limitsbeginning about half a mile outside the town of Temuco.Here dwell some 40,000 to 50,000 Mapuches.The majority are nominally Christianised, and in additionto the state schools, there are a couple of well-runBritish mission establishments near Quepe, wherefarming and handcrafts are taught. The younger folktake fairly readily to instruction, but on the whole theIndians prefer to withdraw themselves from contactwith all foreigners, to live in the native rucas, huts ofmud and thatch, to prepare food in the ancient manner,and to work only when a little money is needed tobuy provisions. The women are adepts at the loom,weaving beautiful ponchos or mantos, and boldly patternedand tinted rugs and saddle-cloths. Now andagain one meets in the streets of Temuco a group ofAraucanians with rugs for sale: there are two or threewomen and the male head of the family, who is creditedwith doing no work but with careful shepherdingof his household. The women have a certain goodlooks; the faces are extraordinarily broad, pale bronzein hue, with a touch of red on the cheeks; the hair isstraight and black, plaited and bound with bright ribbons.The dress consists of a fold of cloth woundround the waist and held in place by a gaily patternedbelt; a bodice, and a large shawl fastened with a bigsilver topo or pin. A wealthy woman will wear silverornaments across the forehead, in the ears and on theneck in addition to the almost indispensable topo, andno Araucanian will sell these adornments from the person,although in hard times they may be taken to thepawnshop.

319Racial purity amongst these survivors is not to beexpected. There had been a considerable mixture ofblood between North, South, and the Transandinegroups before the Spanish entry, brought about notonly by wars and migrations, but by the custom prevailingamong the indigenous folk of Central Chile ofseeking wives outside the tribe. During the colonialperiod numbers of white women were systematicallyseized and held by the Indians, the resulting admixtureof blood accounting for the comparatively blond strainseen in some of the Araucanian families.

Correspondingly, there was a certain absorption ofnative blood into the Spanish towns and settlements,Indian girls and children having passed into the possessionof the Europeans from time to time: but racialtraits have in both cases yielded a great deal to environment,and the mixed-blood youth of the Spanishsphere of influence is not remarkable for sympathywith the dwindling remnants of the Araucanian tribes.The child of the soil appears to be doomed here forvery much the same reasons as the Red Indian isdoomed in the states of the North American Union:he is irreconcilable and sullenly proud; has been conqueredby slow pressure plus the spread of alcoholismand disease; and in spite of honestly-meant legislationon the part of the present rulers of the country, is progressivelystripped of his remaining property. Duringa session of the National Congress in Santiago in early1921, the Deputy for Temuco, Dr. Artemio Gutierrez,made a strong protest against the “constant victimisation”of the Indians by grasping exploiters. Heattacked the municipal authorities for failing to defendthe Araucanians, declaring that spoliation, eventhe robbing of the native huts, was permitted, andcomplained that although the State Government exempts320the Indian from taxes the municipalities do not.“The Indians are not even masters of the two, four,five or ten hectares they operate, for they are only incontrol through the grace of the State,” he declared,adding that many of these folk cross to the Argentineto escape their home troubles. Conditions of the kindseem almost unavoidable in a country rapidly fillingup with a new population, against which the old resolutelysets its face; nothing perhaps is more typical ofthis attitude than an incident occurring at the ceremonyin connection with the opening of the railwayinto Temuco town some years ago. Amongst the personagesof the vicinity invited to attend the entry ofthe first train were the local Indian chiefs: they came,with an entourage of followers, bedecked in feathers,with fine ponchos, mounted upon fast horses, and wereplaced in a long double row, facing the line from eitherside. The assembly waited, fidgeted, talked; but theAraucanians sat motionless on motionless steeds, theirswarthy, strong-featured faces set like wood. Presentlythe smoke of the engine was seen in the distance,and with a piercing shriek of the whistle Temuco’s firstrailway train rushed forward. The people swayed, applauded,crowded to the rail’s edge, exclaimed excitedly:but not an Araucanian moved so much as his eyes toglance at the steel monster. It thundered forward andpassed; the crowd pushed across the track, wavedhands and shouted; the Araucanians sat their horses,did not turn their heads to send a look at the peopleor the train, and in a few moments turned off andwithout a word or a change of expression gallopedaway. The ancient rebel refused to take the least outwardinterest in the white men’s doings.

One sees in Chile a mirror of what is happening orhas already happened in the major part of the Americas—the321gradual extinction of an embryo civilization.Whatever beginnings the Chilean race had made towardsthe development of a social system, the evolutionof a tongue and a cult, have been fruitless. Inother continents the impression is given, very frequently,that the existing culture is built upon an olderform, that it is the first seed of an ancient civilisationthat has eventually flowered through whatever innerstruggles and changes: in the Americas the developingcivilisation has been introduced and superimposed, theyoung shoot of earliest native growth cut short andfatally withered.

The archæology of Chile does not offer a field forstudy comparable with that of Mexico, Peru or CentralAmerica, with their splendid ruins of temples andburial grounds containing ceramic treasures, textilesand human remains. Because there is less that is spectacular,the Chilean area has been less adequatelystudied, and there is much work still to be done. Valuableresearches have been made by the indefatigableJosé Toribio Medina, author of “Aborigines de Chile,”published in 1888, and by R. E. Latcham, author of“Anthropologia Chilena,” while the devoted energy ofDr. Aureliano Oyarzún in the field of physical anthropologyis of the highest interest. Dr. Oyarzún has publishedmany ethnological monographs and directs anexcellent ethnographical Museum at Moneda 602, Santiago.A second collection in Santiago, containingmuch Peruvian pottery obtained during the War of thePacific, is housed by the State, while a third is in theUniversity buildings, possessing many specimens fromEaster Island. Concepción owns a small but well-keptarchæological museum, but the scarcity of purelyChilean specimens displays the gap in present knowledge.

A Lost Culture.—Fate of the Islanders.—The Statues.—TheBird Cult.—Wooden Carvings.

Chile is the only South American country owningterritory situated at a considerable distance from hershores; it was picked up, in fact, in 1888 as a kind ofderelict child of Spain in whom nobody had much interest.

For Easter Island has little commercial importance;it has never yielded precious metals, includes no fairwidespread lands inviting agricultural settlers, and hasno woodlands nor a single river. The sheep and cattlebred upon the island are the property of one company,a British enterprise, and the natives are but a coupleof hundred in number. The island lies in a lonely position,at the extreme west of the South Pacific series,and measures but thirteen miles in length and aboutseven in width. The hues of the land are sand andtawny; the sea is a faithful mirror of the turquoisesky; the dreamy heat of Polynesia endures throughoutthe year. Easter Island is lonely, lazy, unproductive,a little speck upon the broad breast of the Pacific.

But shut within its tiny compass, it holds one of thegreat mysteries of the world. It contains one of thekeys to Polynesian culture, although it bears no apparentconnection, as was once believed, with ancientAmerican civilization. The strange, almost incredibleevidence upon Easter Island speaks of a culture atonce more advanced and more primitive than that323which should be most intimately connected with it.For instance, the Easter Islanders speak a languagewhich is a branch of a Polynesian tongue; in certainaspects, the culture of the old people is clearly alliedto that of Polynesia in general. But—here is theproblem of the ethnologists—Easter Island possesseda written language: the early European visitors put itupon record that the learned men of the territory couldread the script of the wooden tablets of which specimensstill exist. But Polynesia never had a writtenlanguage, and pre-Spanish South America, the nearestmainland, was equally ignorant; the nearest countryto the east with any idea of such script was CentralAmerica, in the Maya culture-area, and the nearest tothe west was Sumatra.

The striking and eloquent evidence of Easter Islandis fast disappearing. Two hundred years ago, when itwas first visited by Europeans, stone statues stood,with their tawny headdresses, as a thick fringe uponthe coast, and there were perhaps a couple of thousandnatives, divided into tribes spread over the land,among whom were the small clan of “wise men” whochanted from the script of the wooden tablets.

Today the natives are reduced to a handful groupedat one end of the island, the learned men have allpassed away, and not a single statue stands uprightupon the platforms of the coastal memorials. A partof the sea-border where a series of highly interestingcarved rocks stand is being undermined by the sea,and in a few years little will be left. Science is thereforedeeply indebted to the splendid work of the RoutledgeExpedition of 1914–15 in chronicling the exactresults of a thorough examination of the remains, aswell as for the indefatigable research work throwingnew light upon this strange and ancient culture.

324Modern historical knowledge of Easter Island isscanty. It was discovered by the Dutch AdmiralRoggeveen on Easter Day, 1722, when he was searchingfor a small island seen previously by the Englishcorsair Davis. Roggeveen stayed here for a week,recorded the cultivation of sugar, sweet potatoes, bananasand figs by the natives, and noted the thirty-foothigh stone statues that stood thickly upon thesea’s edge. Fifty years later came a Spanish expeditionunder González, who took formal possession forthe King of Spain and had a map made. A few yearslater, in 1774, Captain Cook sailed into the westernbay retaining his name, the expedition’s botanist, Forster,leaving an account of the island; La Pérouse ofunlucky memory was here in 1778. These later visitorssaw little cultivation, thought the island poor, and,according to Cook, the natives no longer venerated thestatues. When the British Admiralty sent the Blossomhere in 1825 the figures near the shores were nearlyall ruined.

Fate of the Islanders

Destruction of the natives and their peculiar cultureproceeded at the same time. American sealers, shortof hands, raided the villagers from the early nineteenthcentury, and when, about 1855, the exploiters of thePeruvian guano beds needed workers they sent slave-huntingexpeditions to the Pacific. In the course ofthese raids one thousand men are said to have beentaken to Peru, the prisoners including chiefs and “wisemen.” Principally at the instance of the French, whosent French-Chilean missionaries about this time tothe island, a number were returned, but only fifteenreached Easter Island alive. These took back thegerms of small-pox with them, and the remaining325islanders were decimated by this disease and by phthisis,introduced, apparently, by the devoted French priests.This mission had converted all Easter Island to Christianityby the year 1868, and in the zeal of proselytisationbrought about the destruction of quantities of theinscribed wooden tablets.

Commercial exploitation of the island by Frenchtraders operating from Tahiti led to the shipment ofmany natives to Tahitian plantations and the gatheringof the 175 survivors into one small settlement atthe western end of the island (at Mataveri) by the timethat the Topaze called in 1868. This vessel took awaythe two stone statues that are, fortunately, now preservedin the British Museum. The American vesselMohican came in 1886, the paymaster Thomson subsequentlypublishing an account of the conditions, andretailing a few folk-stories; a statue was excavatedand taken to Washington. In 1888 the Governmentof Chile formally took possession of the island, retainingpart of the western territory for the permanent useof the natives. The rest of the island is under the controlof a British stock-raising company with headquartersin Valparaiso.

That is the brief record of Easter Island from theoutside. But it has been increasingly plain sincearchæology and ethnology took form as organisedsciences some fifty years ago that the strange series ofstone figures and wooden carvings emanating fromEaster Island presented a magnificent puzzle. Thework done with courage and ability by the Routledgeexpedition will perhaps only be adequately appreciatedwhen the remains upon the island are no longer intelligibleto the remaining natives. This time is rapidlyapproaching, and the resulting mystery adds to thepicturesque quality of this lonely spot.

The majority of the figures bordering the sea wereoverthrown during tribal feuds. These figures originallystood at the end of sloping platforms of stone slabs,called ahus, upon which the bodies of the dead werelaid, or under which they were buried; and the figureupon each ahu was crowned with an enormous “hat,”five to eight feet in diameter, of reddish volcanic stonebrought from one spot, a quarry on a slope of the volcanoPunapau.

But these statues of the burial-places formed onlyone of the island series. The Routledge Expeditionidentified three roads, apparently connected with tribalceremonies or rights, which were once bordered bygiant figures; while on the interior as well as the exteriorslopes of the volcano Rano Raraku, in the southeast,are scores of these strange carvings. The slopesof Raraku are almost the sole sources of the “imagestone” used by the islanders, and in the quarries areto be seen huge heads in all stages of preparation, somecompleted and in process of removal. The figuresvary in size, some weighing 40 to 50 tons, but all followa similar design: a tremendous face, with closedlips, and long nose with a concave bend. The back ofthe head is so narrow as to be almost negligible, but adistinguishing feature is the length of the ear-lobes,distorted to four or five times the natural size. Theback is carved with some care, and a curious designthat includes circles is often marked out upon it; theshoulders are well shaped, but the arms and hands areshown by a simple and well-conventionalised method,the fingers frequently meeting across the front of thewaist. At the hips the carving ceases, the rest of thestone being generally shaped into a peg for convenient327erection. Severely simple and quite primitive as thefigures are, there is a fine dignity, a repose, about theslightly up-tilted faces that is impressive; the effectof the statues en masse, as they are still to be seen,many of them erect, with the faces looking out fromthe mountain on the slopes of Raraku, is remarkable,even through the deadening medium of a black andwhite photograph. Why the statues were carved insuch number—there are 150 above the crater lake ofRaraku—and why the work ceased, is one of EasterIsland’s problems. The unanimity of design, its peculiarconventions, and the skill and decision of theworkmanship, suggest a “school”; and as the writersand readers were a special inner guild, so, apparently,were the image-makers. It is true that there seems tohave been at one time an itch for carving, for in certainregions every piece of stone that projected fromthe ground has been carved as it lay, without any attemptto remove it: perhaps, a beneficent influencewas created with each serene carved face. But it iscertain that many of the statues were set up to markboundaries, and were so well known that their specialnames still survive. The larger figure now under theportico of the British Museum, for instance, whichcomes from Orongo, is “Hoa-Haka-Nana-Ia,” whichmay be rendered in English, “There is a friend whowatches”; the inference certainly being that this statuestood on a boundary. The image stone is a fairly softvolcanic rock, and the tools used, many of which havebeen found near the images in the quarries, were piecesof harder stone, roughly chipped, bearing a strikingsimilarity to the tools found near Stonehenge, andused in dressing the monoliths. The natives had, ofcourse, no metal. A people of extremely simple habits,they neither made any kind of pottery nor wove cloth,328using beaten bark (tapa) for body-coverings. Food wascooked in holes in the ground, lined with stones andheated. Fresh water was and is obtained only fromthe crater lakes or other collections of rain. The peopleseem to have lived contentedly in the many caveson the island, but also built huts of a uniform pattern:in shape long and very narrow, the hut had a floor ofstones edged with a little wall of slabs; from thissprang a series of twigs, bent and interlaced togetherat the top, and covered thickly with leaves. Food consistedchiefly of the sweet potato, a kind of sugarcane,and bananas; there was no animal upon the islandyielding meat except a small rodent, but the islanderswere expert fishermen, and also, in the season, caughtgreat quantities of the sea-birds that visit the nearbyrocks to breed.

The Bird Cult

The Routledge Expedition, with good fortune andexquisite patience, discovered and elucidated the extremelyinteresting story of the Bird Cult of EasterIsland. Dependent upon the sea-birds’ coming foran important part of their food-supply, the islandersevolved a series of rites connected with the event.The chief ceremony was concerned with the securingof the first egg, deposited on Moto Nui, one of threelittle rocky islets opposite the highest peak of EasterIsland, Rano Kao, at the southwestern edge. At aspot called Orongo, on a slope of Rano Kao, are stillto be seen fifty stone huts, where the people went inSeptember and waited for the sea-birds’ coming. Severalbirds visit the rocks, but it is the egg of the SootyTern, known as manu-tara, that was the islanders’ objective;competition among the watchers was keen,329and only members of the temporarily most powerfulclan, or their friends, could take part in the contest.The competitors, men of substance, waited in specialhouses, but deputed servants to swim to the islet whenthe season was at hand; carrying food, these men livedin a big cave, whose carvings are still to be seen, untilthe curious scream of the birds heralded their coming.When the first egg was found, the deputy shouted thenews to his employer (who shaved his head and paintedit red), and swam ashore with the precious egg in a tinybasket tied to his forehead. The victor and his rejoicingparty danced ceremonially, carrying the egg, allthe way from the west to the eastern end of the island,where the bird-man went to a special house for a year,at Orohié, on Rano Raraku’s slope, strict tabu beingmaintained for five months. Each old egg was as arule given to the incoming bird-man, and by himburied on Raraku.

Mrs. Routledge says that apparently the last year inwhich the dominant clan went to Orongo to await thebirds was in 1866 or 1867, although the competitionfor the first egg survived for some twelve years afterwards.

Legends of the Easter Islanders appear to point totheir racial origin upon other Pacific islands, and migrationin at least two separate periods, a traditionwhich is confirmed by the divergence of types found,and the number of shades, from dark brown to nearlywhite, of the skin of the different people. Stories ofthe wars between the “Long Ears” and the “ShortEars” suggest that the image-makers, always depictingelongated ear-lobes, differed in tribal attributesfrom their opponents. None of the native settlementsupon Easter Island appear to be of very old establishment.

A curious and beautiful series of small objects istypical of the peculiar culture of Easter Island. Thenatives had, of course, no metal, and it must have beenwith stone or hardwood tools that quantities of smallwooden figures made in former days in Easter Islandwere carved. It is not known with certainty whetherthe territory formerly included a larger number oftrees, offering timber for this work and for the largercanoes of which tradition speaks, or whether use wasmade of driftwood. Today there are no trees of thequality shown by the figures.

The most striking of the old wooden objects representhuman figures—rarely, those of women, andmost commonly, of singularly emaciated men. Specimensof the latter are beautifully finished, and thehead shows “long ears” and faces with “imperials” orlittle beards, and marked aquiline features, quite distinctin type from these of the conventional stone faces.These statuettes are from 29 to 30 inches in height, thecarving bearing a technical resemblance to the “lizards,”another highly-finished series. Crescent-shapedbreast ornaments, formerly worn by women, have almostentirely disappeared, although a few specimenssurvive, one, in the British Museum, bearing inscriptions.The dancing-clubs or paddles belong to anotherseries of high artistic merit, but the most interesting ofthe wooden carvings from an ethnological point ofview are the tablets engraved with signs whose meaningwas lost when, sixty years ago, the last of theariki (learned men) died, a slave in the guano fieldsof Peru.

Tradition upon the island states that the woodenfigures were originally made by a great ariki, named331Tuukoihu, one of the first immigrants to Easter Islandfrom the western islands; but the art of wood carvingstill survives feebly, chiefly in the manufacture of objectsfor sale, as antiques, to unsuspecting visitors.

The natives today wear clothes, a habit which hasprobably tended to render them more liable to disease;they number about 250. Retaining their two-hundred-year-oldreputation of being courageous and persistentthieves, they have however lost many of their ancientarts and are not addicted to regular work. But theyare of a physically fine type, appear to possess a gift ofwit, and, unless when instigated to anger by theirequivalent for medicine men or women, are an amiablepeople. They formerly tattooed the body in definiteconventional patterns; their religious cult was chieflyconnected with respect to ancestral dead, and ideas ofspirits, kindly or the reverse. A certain clan, the Miru,assumed possession of supernatural powers, and speciallygifted men and women were given the usualhomage of the medicine man. But religious ceremonies,as apart from the burial rites, initiation into the birdcult, and, later, ritual connected with the visits ofEuropean ships, do not appear to have existed.

Of weapons, quantities are found; black obsidianflakes, roughly chipped at edges, with a short stembound to wooden handle, are typical.

Exterior communication with Easter Island dependsupon the Chilean Government, sending an Admiraltyvessel yearly, and upon the visits of a sailing ship sentto bring away the wool clip, product of the flock of the12,000 sheep, by the commercial company of Valparaisoleasing the main part of the territory.

The Chilean vessel sent of recent years on the trip isthe training ship Baquedano, a corvette fitted withauxiliary engines.

332Visits of the British company’s boat are rare, and therepresentatives at Mataveri are cut off from the outsideworld for long periods. During the early months of thewar five vessels of the German fleet appeared in Cook’sBay: the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, Nurnbergand Dresden; they used the island as a naval base forsix days, gave out the first news, considerably garbled,of the war, and went away, first to sink the Good Hopeand Monmouth off Coronel and later to meet their fateat the Falklands. The Prinz Eitel Friedrich also enteredon December 23, went out and captured a Frenchbarque, and sunk her inside the three-mile limit inCook’s Bay, after landing her crew and that of a Britishsailing ship taken off Cape Horn.

Today Chile calculates her area at over 300,000square miles, with a population not far exceeding fourmillions. There is plenty of room for at least twentymillion people, although one must rule out from possiblesettlement certain areas of the rugged south, andof the arid north, where, however, scientific irrigationmay bring unsuspected regions into the realm of cultivatedand settled country.

The growth of population in Chile has not kept pacewith that of some other of the South American nations,partly because definite efforts to invite immigrationhave long been discontinued. Numerical success hasnot always been accompanied by peaceful assimilation,and Chile, with no great untouched areas to fill,prefers to wait for the natural increase of her people.Since 1820, when the total Chilean inhabitants did notreach one million, the number has quadrupled, a fewhundred thousand persons of foreign blood adding,during the century, to the stock; today the foreign-bornresiding in the country are calculated at 135,000,of whom 100,000 are men.

A brief examination of the population figures ofChile shows some illuminating details, and nothing isclearer than that the apparently rapid growth of certainregions is not due entirely or even chiefly to aninflux from outside Chile, or to natural increase, butto a shifting of the workers from one point to anotherin response to industrial demand. Antofagasta city,334which did not figure at all in the census of 1875counted 8000 people ten years later, and 70,000 in1919. This concentration is of course a result ofthe magnificent rise of the nitrate industry, andwhile a proportion of the employés are Bolivianand Peruvian, most are drawn from more southerlyChilean districts. Valparaiso, always a prosperouscity, despite recurrent earthquakes, shows a progressiverise during the last half century from 70,000 to220,000 people, its lovely residential suburb, Viña delMar, counting 35,000 more; Santiago also has madestrides in accord with her political, social and financialstatus, the population numbering 425,000, as against116,000 in 1865 and 333,000 in 1907. Concepción isanother city showing legitimate and steady increases—75,000people today as compared with 14,000 fiftyyears ago. Iquique, another of the new nitrate towns,has about 50,000 people, appearing in statistics, likeAntofagasta, only twenty-five years ago.

Agricultural and industrial Chillán, in the south,has over 40,000 people; Temuco, opened to the generalpopulation of Chile only after “the Frontier” wasbroken down in 1882, made its first appearance in thecensus of 1885, and has now 35,000 people. Valdivia,with but 3000 people in 1865, now has 30,000.

But Copiapó, with diminished mining, has a fewthousand people less than she counted in 1865; Lebuhas lost half its people since 1875, and has now lessthan 3000; Tomé has been practically stationary forfifty years, for similar industrial reasons.

Two new agricultural and pastoral centres in thesouth show sustained activity, Puerto Montt andPunta Arenas. Puerto Montt, like Valdivia, drew astrong part of its population from Germany and hastoday 8000 people; Punta Arenas, with less than two335hundred inhabitants in 1865, has 25,000 people. Fortyper cent of these are calculated to be foreigners,chiefly Scots, or Falkland Islanders of Scots blood,and Yugo-Slavs; the only other city showing so largea proportion of foreign-born residents is Tarapacá,while Antofagasta has 16 per cent of non-Chileans.

Vital statistics in Chile are carefully kept andpromptly published; they do not always give satisfaction.A storm of protest was roused, for example,in the Santiaguino press, led by the outspoken andadmirably edited Mercurio, when Santiago’s figuresfor the first four months of 1920 were issued. Infantmortality was shown to be extremely high in thatperiod,—5237 deaths to 4777 births,—a fact whichcalled for investigation by the health authorities, whilestress was laid upon the listing of 2402 of the birthsas illegitimate. “If on the one hand our populationdoes not increase in the normal proportion, while onthe other the race is debilitated in the manner revealedby the figures, it is useless for us to claim proudly thatwe are a well-defined and homogeneous nationality,”declared the Mercurio, and a cloud of articles appearedto account and to suggest remedies for the conditionsshown by the official figures.

As regards infant mortality, there seems to be nodoubt that the rate is high for Chile, a fact surprisingin view of the healthful climate and abundance of goodfood produced in the country. Santiago province registeredduring 1919 a death rate of children under oneyear of 37 per cent, nine thousand dying out of twenty-fourthousand born. Many other towns registeredhigh mortality rates, but inside this figure. Of thesesame 24,000 babies, 10,000 were born out of wedlock.

The two sets of figures no doubt have relation toeach other, but it should be said at once that large336numbers of the children officially registered illegitimateare only officially so regarded. Civil marriagesonly are recognised by Chilean law, and if this ceremonyis omitted the couple are officially unmarriedalthough a priest may have united them.

In the country districts, distances are far and marriagefees no light matter to an agricultural population;many stories are told of young couples makinga long journey to the nearest office where a weddingmay be performed, finding it shut, and returning toset up house without being able to make another attemptat matrimony. The clergy are accused, perhapswithout sufficient reason, of setting their faces againstthe civil marriage, and there was certainly a period inChile, when the laws were first enforced, when devoutchildren of the Church who refused to go through theofficial form were forbidden the religious ceremony,and marriages amongst the more obstinate circles practicallyceased.

With regard to mortality, no explanation can excusethe loss of so large a part of the precious life blood ofthe country. One of the reasons is certainly to belooked for in the economic independence of manywomen in Chile. The woman wage-earner, of whomthere is a larger number than in most Latin-Americancountries, is not always disposed to risk permanentassociation with an unsatisfactory mate—for divorceis scarcely known in Chile; and where no special socialdisability results, she prefers freedom. The wholequestion is one in which the future of Chile is concerned,and attracting the attention of thoughtfulChileans, has called for better housing regulations andschemes for the education of young mothers in infantcare. A group of the admirable Club de Señoras, thecharacteristically Chilean association of wealthy, forceful337and intellectual women of Santiago, is workingtowards the solution of a serious social problem.

Through the force of economic circumstance, thequestion of the employment of women is not one whichis likely to be reconsidered in Chile.

Large groups of men are drawn to isolated campsin the copper and nitrate fields, and there is a resultingtendency for women in the other regions to takeup work in factories, public services, etc.

It was the War of the Pacific that brought womeninto the employ of the street-car companies in Valparaisoand Santiago, for with the men absent in thearmy there were gaps in the ranks of workers. Whenthe men returned their female supplanters refused togive up their berths, and remained victors. One feelssympathy with their spirited attitude, and, despitethe unlovely dress imposed by the German tramwayowners in early days (which includes the apron of ahausfrau) they make a generally good impression. Itis doubtful whether such work is well suited to women;the hours are long—the old (now altered) time schedulekept certain women at work as conductors for fourteenhours a day—and the strain is plainly great uponfeminine endurance.

Employment in the Chilean post-offices is notwithin the same category, but one becomes in SouthAmerica so well accustomed to the general and gracefulhabit of service to women that a certain mentaladjustment is required before one becomes inured toreceiving service from them. If the far-famed Chileanpoliteness, a genial flame of nation-wide brightness,suffers an occasional eclipse, it is almost invariably dueto the widespread employment of women.

Aji: small red peppers, highly aromatic, grown in the northerlyregions; used extensively in Chilean cooking.

Alerce: a tall conifer of South Chile; fine lumber. Alerzal, a woodof alerce trees.

Algarroba: the sweet pod of the minosa-like Algarrobo tree (North).

Algarrobo: (al carob, Arabic), term applied by Spanish to smallthorny tree bearing pods used as cattle fodder (North).

Antofagastino: native of Antofagasta.

Arenal: sand desert, sand-laden wind.

Atacameño: native of Atacama.

Avellano: small tree (Central and South) yielding the avellana, asoft-shelled nut resembling the hazel.

Bolas: throwing weapon used by mounted cattlemen or hunters;long pliable rope or hide thong with heavy weights at eitherend, flung in such a manner that it enwraps and twists aboutthe legs of the animal pursued.

Boldo: a small tree yielding the drug boldaina.

Boquete: a mountain pass.

Brasero: deep dish or bowl, usually made of copper or silver, filledwith charcoal and heated for cooking purposes or to warm aroom.

Butre: smallest wild bamboo.

Cajón: a gap in the high mountains.

Caliche: strata containing nitrate of soda.

Camanchaca: fog or mist over the northern plains.

Cancha: depot (for ores, North); gun-park; tennis-court.

Candeal: hard brown wheat of the southerly provinces.

Canelo: sweet-smelling small tree (Central Chile), the “SouthAmerican cinnamon.”

Capacho: bag used for carrying ore, made of hide.

Capataz: foreman of workers.

Carbonado: a Chilean soup.

Cardón: applied to various thistles and especially to the big blue-floweredCynara cardunculus, growing through Central andSouth Chile, but the term is also used for many spiny plantsand leaves, for the wild artichoke and the thorny leaves of thePuya.

Cateo: the search for a mine.

341Cazuela: thick stew, made with chicken, rice, potatos, aji, etc.

Chacolí: country wine, lightly fermented.

Chacra: a small cultivated plot of land.

Chagual: applied generally to Puya chilensis or Puya coarctata,growing freely from the sea-border to Andean slopes in allCentral Chile: the tall spike of blue, or in other varieties yellowflowers is the “chagual,” while the spiny leaf is called“cardón” and the big thorns used as knitting-needles; theflowers are gathered for their honey.

Chaucha: twenty centavo piece.

Chañar: small tree (North), yielding date-like fruit. Chañaral,group of chañar trees.

Charqui: dried meat (“jerked” beef).

Charquican: Chilean dish made with charqui.

Chicha: heavy liquor made from grapes or apples; formerly madefrom wild berries by Indians of Chile.

Chileno (a): native of Chile.

Chillehueque: Araucanian name for the Guanaco.

Chilote: native of Chiloé.

Chinchilla: small fur-bearing rodent, today scarce and valuable.

Chingana: wattled booths set up at fairs for the assembly of musiciansand dancers.

Choapino: saddle-cloth, woven of thick black-dyed wool (South).

Choclo: maize.

Cholo: a Peruvian. Cf. Godo, a Spaniard; Gabacho, Frenchman.

Chonta: palm growing on Más a Tierra island (Juan Fernandezgroup), yielding a fine wood of which walking sticks and canesare made, prized for the bright yellow and black pattern ofthe wood. The young head of the palm is cooked and eatenas a “cabbage.”

Choros: large mussels found off Chilean coast, eaten in greatquantities.

Chuño: arrowroot; or frozen and dried potatoes.

Chuso: a stupid fellow.

Cochayuyo: sea-weed, stewed in the south for soup, like luche.

Coihue, Coigüe: large tree (South), yielding hardwood and a red dye.

Colihue: wild bamboo. Colihual, bamboo thicket.

Condor: giant vulture (Sarcoramphus) of the Andes, ringed withwhite about the neck. Appears on Chilean coat-of-arms togetherwith the native deer huemul. Araucanian name, manqui.

Congrio: a Chilean fish, generally liked; as also is the corbina,robalo and delicate pejerey.

Copihue: wild vine with a large, rosy bell. The national flower ofChile.

Coquimbano (a): native of Coquimbo.

342Cueca: a popular soup.

Cueca, or sama-cueca: the Chilean national dance.

Culén (Cytisus Arboreus): prophylactic against witchcraft: leavesdried to make a medicinal tea and gum from stalks; well knownas a vermifuge.

Cupilca: thick liquid or thin paste made with toasted and powderedwheat or maize and mixed with chicha or chacolí.

Curado: “half seas over.”

Curanto: Indian dish of meat and vegetables, originally cooked in astone-lined hole in the ground.

Cuyano: a native of the Argentine. Properly, applied to one bornin the old province of Cuyo, formerly including the thenChilean provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and San Luis, butused familiarly of any one born in Argentina.

Despacho: shop or store on an estate or mine where goods are sold toemployés.

Empanada: a paté, filled with chopped meat, onions, gravy, etc.,and served hot.

Estrada: raised bench generally built across the end of a livingroom, used in colonial days as a seat for all the ladies of thefamily.

Fernandecino (a): native of the Juan Fernandez group of islands.

Floripondio: large white pendant flowers of the Datura arborea,growing as a fairly large tree in Chile. Infusions yield thehuanto, a drugging drink used in regions of Quechua influenceby witch-doctors to obtain insensibility and visions; huanto issimilar in effect to the natema of Amazonian headwaters; caapiof Eastern Ecuador, and ayahuasca of Peru.

Fundo: a general farm. Fundo de rulo, a non-irrigated farm.

Futre: a pretentious person; in copper mines, a ghost or imp.

Garúa: fine rain, like a “Scotch mist” (North).

Guachuchero: a liquor-smuggler (mining regions).

Guagua: a baby (Araucanian Indian).

Guaira, guairachina: little smelters built on hilltop to catch thebreeze.

Gualcacho: (Araucanian) plant yielding a small native grain similarto but more delicate than maize.

Gualhue: (Araucanian) damp ground, usually near a river, suitablefor maize cultivation.

Guanaco: ruminant quadruped, still found in considerable numbersin the wild mountainous regions, all the way from theBolivian border to Tierra del Fuego. Rugs and coveringsmade of the thick tawny hair, and the flesh eaten by Indians.In Ch. slang, a “guanaco” is a country bumpkin, a “hayseed.”

Guaso, huaso: a cowboy (Central Chile).

343Guemul, huemul: the native deer of Chilean woodland.

Hacer-se Sueco: to be unintelligible.

Huacho: properly, a motherless calf, but applied to any waif.

Huasca: a whip: originally applied to a supple creeper or liana ofthe forests, used as a cord or thong.

Humita: maize paste.

Inquilino: farm-worker on a Chilean estate, on special conditions.Usually given free house, land for cultivation, rations, smallwages, and use of implements.

Invernado: wintering-place for cattle.

Litre: a tree used for fuel. Leaves poisonous, affecting persons inthe tree’s shade.

Llareta (Lareta acaulis): umbelliferous plant of low growth, spreadingto an enormous size like a giant mushroom: grows in uplandsof Tacna and Antofagasta, and is cut, dried on lowerslopes, and brought down to inhabited regions to serve as fuel.

Luche: sea-weed used for making stews.

Lumo: a large tree supplying good timber.

Machí: medicine-woman of the Araucanians.

Maitén: tree with white wood. Leaves infused to obtain a febrifuge.

Mampato: the small Chilean pony.

Manco: properly, a one-armed man, but applied to broken-downhorses.

Manta: a finely-woven poncho, often of alpaca or vicuña wool.Manto, black shawl worn by women when attending churchservices.

Mineral: a mineral reef or group of mines.

Molle: small tree with sweet-scented flowers and medicinal berries,formerly used by Indians for making chicha.

Paco: slang term for a policeman.

Palqui: plant yielding mauve or yellow flowers: ashes used in soap-making.

Pampa: a plain. Pampas salitreras, nitrate fields.

Panqui or Pangui (Gunnera peltata): plant with large rhubarb-likeleaves, yielding a black dye and tannin. Grows in great quantitiesupon the islands of Juan Fernandez. Pangal, a mass ofPangui plants.

Penquisto: native of Penco: applied to inhabitants of ConcepciónCity, the former Penco, or of Concepción province.

Pirquén: system by which the miner (pirquenero) works a vein onhis own account, paying a royalty on production.

Politiquero: a professional politician: used derogatively.

Porotos: beans.

Porteño: native of “the port”: usually, of Valparaiso.

Pudu: the miniature deer of South Chile.

Pulpería: store at a mine or nitrate oficina.

344Puno: mountain sickness due to rarefied air: more commonlycalled soroche in Peru and Bolivia.

Puntarrense: native of Punta Arenas.

Puya (Puya chilensis, formerly listed as Pourretia coarctata):group of plants common in Chile, belonging to the genusBromeliacrae, different varieties bearing light or dark blue oryellow flowers arranged in a huge spike; large orange stamens.The spiny leaves form a thick rosette at the base, in a formsimilar to that of the related pineapple. Feature of landscapein Central Chile, on spurs of hills. The light pith of the maturestem of the tall flower-spike, more buoyant than cork, isused for fishing floats and for sharpening razors.

Quelghen: the Chilean native strawberry, remains white when ripe,very sweet.

Quila: the small climbing bamboo of the South.

Quillay: a tree yielding a saponaceous bark much used in Chile.

Quintral: a beautiful scarlet-blossomed parasite upon poplar andother trees.

Quisco (Cereus quisco): columnar cactus of Central and northerlyChile, called “torch thistle”; thorns used as needles; grows 12to 18 ft.

Raule: a fine timber tree with red wood.

Robie: properly, oak, but applied to the Chilean beeches (South).

Roto: a “ragged man,” originally: now applied to any worker.

Salitre: nitrate of soda.

Santiaguino (a): native of Santiago.

Siutico: “low-class” person; same meaning as mediopelo.

Soroche: See Puno.

Tajamar: wall or bank built to restrain the flood of sea or river;that of the Mapocho river a famous promenade in Santiago.

Templados: people in love; same meaning as encamotados.

Ulmo: drink made of parched and ground corn or maize (Indian).

Valdiviano: a native of Valdivia; also name of a vegetable soup.

Ventisqueros: glaciers; frequently driven by wind into frozen snowpinnacles, commonly called in Chile “nieves penitentes.”

Williwaw: a squall in Magellanic territory (Scots).

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