Early in the afternoon we rounded the point and at four o’clock we anchored in Sandy Point Road. The harbour presented an air of thrift quite out of proportion to the barrenness, sterility and gloomy wildness of the region. Five large ocean liners were at anchor, and many small coasting steamers, with a host of lighters and small crafts, were scattered about on the unruly waters; but the town from its distant appearance was a disappointment. One hears so much about this settlement, its rapid growth, and marvellous development, that one naturally expects to see a substantial city. “Thirty years ago,” said a native, “we were less than two hundred settlers here; to-day we number six thousand, and you have before you a good-sized city. Don’t you think our growth has been remarkable and quick?” One must naturally answer in the affirmative, and to the average European the phenomenon is wonderful; but to an American it is wonderful in quite another direction. The town is in most respects a miniature reproduction of the mushroom town of the western states: a wilderness of low wooden and sheet-iron huts which are quickly and cheaply constructed and as quickly destroyed. Punta Arenas has been building for thirty years. Towns of the western United States of a similar nature spring up in as many days. A Yankee, then, wonders not at the reported rapid growth, but asks, “Why has it taken so long?”
Terminating Ridge of the Cordilleras, Beagle Channel.
After we became accustomed to this appearance of cheapness and unstability which characterised the place, we found much of interest and some things absolutely astonishing. Punta Arenas has a character and a life which mark it at once as one of the most peculiar towns on the globe. We were boarded long before we came to anchor by agents of provision houses, boarding-houses, hotels, saloons, and health officers; but strangely enough no custom officers paid us even a friendly visit. Our business arrangements and not a few social arrangements had been made by Mr. Racovitza, who had preceded us, and shortly after we came to anchor we made our headquarters in the little French Hotel where a welcome bag of correspondence awaited our arrival.
CHAPTER VI
PUNTA ARENAS, THE SOUTHERNMOST TOWN
Ushuaia, Dec. 22, 1897.
We decided, before we left, that Punta Arenas, as a town, is very extraordinary in many ways when you come to know it. Aside from the fact that it is the world’s southernmost city, the metropolis of the lower end of the American continent, the dumping ground for so much of discontented humanity, the capital of Chilean Tierra del Fuego and Patagonia, and a host of other large sounding, but small meaning, names,—it is one of the most cosmopolitan towns of the universe. Its life and its business are absolutely astonishing.
There is a sort of effervescent interest which one quickly acquires in this little speck of bright life and its gloomy wilderness. The interest begins with its misty history and ends, perhaps, to-day with the modern re-discovery of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego by sheep-farmers and gold-seekers. After Magellan discovered the Strait, and led the way across the jewelled waters of the Pacific, the enterprising Spaniards, with the important permission of the Pope, gathered easily and peacefully the accumulated wealth of the fertile islands and opulent empires of the South Sea. Any competition from other nations was forbidden by the Pope and prevented by the supposed danger of passing through the Strait. Both of these dangers were braved by the bold half-pirate, half-explorer, but entire seaman, Francis Drake.
Drake entered the Pacific through the Strait in 1578, and, with a scurvy-pestered crew, deprived the Spaniards of their gold and silver somewhat more easily than they had taken it from the Indians. To prevent this re-harvesting of their easy-gotten profits, Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa was despatched from Lima, in 1579, to survey the only supposed entrance into the Pacific, the Magellan Strait. Sarmiento advised a fortification of the straits, and, accordingly, two colonies were placed on commanding points. These were the cities Nombre de Jesus, near the first narrows, and San Felipe, at what is now called Port Famine. But eight months’ provisions were left these poor protectors of Spanish gold, and they perished miserably before relief was sent them. Only two survived to tell the tragedy, and these were rescued by the British seamen—the men whom the Spaniards were sent to destroy. Sarmiento, who placed the colonies, was captured by one of Sir Walter Raleigh’s cruisers on his return voyage to Spain.
As this first chapter in the history of the Magellan Strait closed, its importance also vanished, with the discovery of the passage around Cape Horn by the Dutch navigators, Schouten and Le Maire; and for two hundred and fifty years following the region was left to the possession of the arctic life with which nature had stocked it.