In 1843, with no knowledge of the real worth of the Magellanic regions, but with a sort of natural pride to possess the historic strait, Chile placed a colony at, or near, the ancient site of San Felipe. This was a penal settlement where political prisoners were sent. It was a sort of Chilean Siberia, just as Staten Island is to-day for Argentina, and thus the venture filled two missions: it held for Chile the Strait of Magellan, and placed the troublesome convicts far from the capital, Valparaiso. This was a particularly appropriate spot for that large class of Spanish-American citizens, the ever restless revolutionists.
But men whose occupation is revolt, whose life is a constant navigation of dangerous rapids, are not the proper sort of citizens to build a town. This was soon learned in “La Colonia de Magellanes,” by which name this antarctic exile colony was officially known. Anything which savoured of work was opposed to their natures. War, riot, massacre, brutal freedom, were more to their liking, and this revolting spirit was not a little fired by frequent famines, when the infrequent vessels from Valparaiso did not arrive. The place thus acquired, by hard experience, the name of Port Famine. One day the exiles rose to arms, killed the Governor, and took the town. For this they were all strung up by the necks from the yard arms of a Chilean gunboat.
The buildings of Port Famine having been fired, the Government, after deciding on a re-establishment of the colony, selected for the site of its town a long tongue of sandy ground a few miles farther north. This is the site of the present famous town, Punta Arenas, and it takes its name from the sandy point on which it rests. Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, like the first colony, had as its principal reason for existence a penal settlement, and its population was composed of men of the same class—mental and moral outcasts, revolutionists and high-handed criminals. The new town met a fate similar to that of the first settlement. The prisoners revolted and, assisted by the soldiers who were sent to protect the town, they sought the Governor. But to keep his own blood from being spilled, this unworthy official deserted his wife and children, and left for parts unknown. They caught the commander of the garrison, and massacred him in a shocking manner, after which they took the town and held a sort of drunken festivity for three days. The Governor, in his retreat, had found a Chilean cruiser, and as this came in sight of the town the rioters, to save their necks, took to the pampas. Here most of the miscreants came to a miserable death by starvation, fatigue, and cold. A few reached the Chubut River and were taken to Buenos Aires, where the liberty for which they had struggled was given them.
This last destruction of the colony occurred in 1877. At this time Punta Arenas had already risen to some importance. It numbered, among its exile settlers, several independent citizens; and these were the creators of the true Magellanic metropolis. No more prisoners were sent. The town was left to live and flourish, according to its resources, or to die a natural death. Fortunately, its resources had already been discovered. Some of the desert-like pampas, upon which the liberators famished, had been stocked with sheep, and they thrived unexpectedly. Gold had been found in the creeks, coal had been found but a short distance off, the forest appeared inexhaustible, and steamers were beginning to cut the solitude of the Strait. Dissatisfied, rejected and venturous sailors cast in their lots with the builders of the town. Shepherds, gold-diggers, traders, adventurous wanderers, and striplings from the world’s population—a heterogeneous mixture—came to rest here as a last resort. The semi-Yankee life of Punta Arenas takes its origin from this mass, and the town owes its growth, very largely, to the fact that its site is a terminal morain to a restless stream of human life.
With this preliminary understanding of the causes for the metropolitan life of the Strait of Magellan, one is not so greatly surprised at the first glimpse of the strange street scenes. We naturally looked for some marks of nationality in the people we first met, but quite in vain. Spanish is the language of the place. At one street corner, however, one hears English; at another, German; at another, French; and at still another, Italian. Negroes are few, but Indians are quite numerous. One of our new acquaintances took us about town. He was, I believe, a German by birth, but he talked with us in French, and took us to a bar where he talked English; to a magazine where he addressed the clerk in Spanish; to the church where he addressed the Holy Father in Italian; and others told us that he could speak the various Indian tongues, and was not puzzled with Latin and Greek, though he never had had a college education.
The streets are ordinary country roads, in very bad order. They are most remarkable for their number of stagnant pools of water, and the various heaps of ashes and debris. Stumps of trees, broken carts, tin cans, packing boxes, dead dogs, and a host of other refuse serve to ornament and pave the sandy bottoms. Scattered about these, and usually not far from a bar, are groups of visitors in various attitudes. The most numerous of these are the cowboys or gauchos, as they are called some on horses with ponchos over their shoulders, and wearing huge, broad-brimmed hats, and loose pantaloons; others steeped in alcohol with a soft bed of sand for a couch, and a boulder for a pillow; and still others, in new suits, moving about like a girl in an Easter bonnet to display their annual acquirements. But the gauchos move in groups to themselves, discussing sheep and squaws and the hunting sports of the pampas. In another group one finds quite different types of humanity. Here are the gold-diggers, men of extremes, either without a copper or with a fat bag of gold, according to the luck of their past season. Unlike the cowboy, who is usually in neat attire, the miner is careless of dress, and, rich or poor, is rigged in rags; but he is a bit of a lion in his way. If he has found rich deposits, his pocket is the ambition of the local tradesmen, and his information is eagerly sought by all the loafers of the town. He discusses pay-diggings, nuggets, methods of washing gold, the relative qualities of food and drinks, and his last feminine acquaintances in Sandy Point. And then there are the groups of sailors, soldiers, and of tramps. The citizens of the town one rarely sees; they are always occupied within doors, for everybody who is anybody in Punta Arenas keeps a store and owns one or more sheep-farms.
The location of Punta Arenas is rather unique in its natural surroundings, and in its commercial advantages. To the west and north-west are the slowly rising forest-covered highlands, terminating in the high, ice-covered peaks of the Cordilleras. To the north-east and east are the endless undulating plains of Patagonia. To the south and south-east is the Strait of Magellan and beyond are the blue hills of the northern plains on the main island of Tierra del Fuego. To the south-west are the bleak islands belonging to the Fuegian group. This location has helped to make the town the trade centre of the great regions south of the Rio de la Plata.
Ona Women, in Full Dress, with Papoose Strapped to the Shoulders.
