The fleet lay at Punta Arenas for six days, taking on coal, giving liberty and the officers going through a round of official receptions and other courtesies that made the stay one day longer than was expected because of the unusual courtesy on the part of Chile in sending a cruiser down to Punta Arenas to greet the fleet bearing a Rear Admiral, our Minister to Chile, Mr. Hicks, and our Consul at Valparaiso.
The departure of the fleet at night was set for 11 o'clock. Before that time slow-moving lights in the harbor showed that the Chacabuco had changed her station to be near the head of the procession when the start was made. Other lights had revealed that the six torpedo boats of our flotilla had been taking up cruising positions on the right and left flanks of the line that was to be formed. Just before 11 o'clock the signal had been made from the flagship to prepare to get under way. The ships had hove short. At the stroke of 11 the red and white lights flashed from the flagship and they were answered from all the ships. At once anchor engines began tugging at the chains, and soon on every ship the officer in charge of the fo'c'stle sang out:
"Up and down, sir!"
That meant that the anchor was directly under the bow of the ship and was leaving the mud, the chain being straight up and down. In a moment or two the call was:
"Anchor's aweigh, sir!"
That meant that the ship was now swinging with the tide and bells were jangled in all the engine rooms to go ahead slowly. It was all still, only a few lights on each ship were showing and soon the harbor presented the appearance of twenty-five or more craft slowly moving in one direction as if stealing away down the broad Famine Reach softly so as not to disturb the slumbers of the town. But the town wasn't asleep. Half the population was out to witness the departure. The thousands of electric lights showed that. As you drew away from the place it looked as if you were leaving the north shore of Staten Island and going up New York Bay, so thick were the lights on the land.
The Connecticut was quite close in shore and headed toward it. She made a sharp turn, and the Kansas, Vermont and Louisiana and the others fell in quickly. There were gaps in the line for the ships that had sought better anchorages, and these were filled in when the proper time came. Gradually the line became compact and within fifteen minutes one long column of American warships was gliding southward at a speed of ten knots, the Chilean flagship off the starboard bow of our flagship, all silently stealing away in the beautiful starlight night from hospitable and attractive Punta Arenas. The start was made as smoothly and easily as in broad daylight. There was no fuss about it. The fleet had gone about its business in a businesslike way. That business was to get through the rest of the strait in the easiest and safest manner.
You went to bed at midnight leaving orders to be called at 4 A. M. so as to come on deck and see the flagship turned toward home at Cape Froward, the lowest continental point of land in the world. You got out just abeam of Cape San Isidro, with its flashing white light, and you found yourself in the midst of rugged scenery. The sky was overcast and a strong wind, like that which churned Possession Bay when the fleet entered the eastern end, was blowing. Bare mountains and rocks stood out in the gloom. Soon the shadows began to purple the hillsides and rocks; there was visible a strip of green which you made out to be trees reaching half way up the black mountain sides. Then the clouds lightened; everything stood out clearly in a gray light and you knew it was time for sunrise.
The clouds broke to the east and suddenly there shot through them six great shafts of crimson light as if they were the rays of an enormous searchlight in the east, rays colored by passing through bright red glass. You stood on the bridge fascinated and almost enthralled. Then you saw the edge of the snowfield of Mount Sarmiento far to the south. The clouds hid its brow but as they broke occasionally you could catch a glimpse now and then of a glacier gripping the mountain sides with the strength and permanence of the ages and you knew that truly you were looking at God's country, not the country of home, as most folks the world over call God's country, but one that revealed the majesty of creation.
So on and on you went in the narrow channels bordered by rock-faced hills and mountains, green from the water half way up their sides. Some of the mountains were entirely of stone with abrupt sheers like the sides of the precipices in the Yosemite. Waterfalls leaped from cliffs here and there and now and then one could see a stream rushing down the hillside, foaming and roaring, its waters madly dashing to complete obliteration in the swirling sea where the immutable laws of gravity sent them. It seemed a pity that a thing so white and pure should find an ignoble end, but the power of the sun's rays had set the forces of perpetual motion in those leaps and bounds and the same streams will dash down to the sea doubtless as long as the sun's power lasts to heat the edges of the glaciers and try to rob them of their strength. You saw great peaks and short ranges. Every one had a different light upon it; every one differed from another in formation.