Ona Men on the Chase.
The two very important discoveries already alluded to have made life and a prosperous population just possible in this vast savage land. Only a few years ago all of South America south of the river Plata was believed to be a useless waste of barren ground, peopled by man-eating savages. Even to-day this is generally believed to be the state of affairs in Patagonia. But it is not true. The pioneers here are in better health and are accumulating gold more rapidly than in any other part of South America. The reasons for this great transformation are the discoveries that sheep will thrive and that gold is strewn on the various sandy beaches. The possibilities, thus afforded, have brought the people and the capital to America’s southern end, and have made Punta Arenas the centre of a population of pioneers, mostly rich in profitable land and in sheep, but poor in worldly comforts.
When the far-seeing Englishman, already referred to, brought the first sheep from the Falkland Islands about twenty-five years ago, they thrived so well in their new home, that soon many others did likewise. To-day almost every acre of available ground is stocked with sheep. This sheep-farming, however, is done on such an immense scale that even a Yankee farmer will be compelled to feel his littleness. Space will not permit me to dwell on this interesting subject, but a man owning ten thousand sheep is considered to be a small and poor farmer; one owning fifty thousand is quite ordinary; and men who have a hundred thousand are not uncommon. The Cape Horn millionaire is not noted by the number of dollars he possesses, but by the number of sheep he shears.
Gold mining is the occupation of the poor, and the idle population. This is not because gold is scarce or the occupation unprofitable, but because it requires little capital, and yields immediate returns. With a shovel and a pan, inexperienced men earn five dollars daily. The gold is widely diffused, but is seldom in very rich placers. Many of the creeks and the beaches of Patagonia, both on the Atlantic side and in the Strait of Magellan, are known to contain gold. The same is true of Tierra del Fuego. Even the mud of the streets of Punta Arenas is said to contain the yellow metal.
The architecture of Punta Arenas is similar to that of the mushroom towns of the western plains. The houses are made of corrugated sheet-iron, and are altogether uninteresting, except in that they are constructed of material brought six thousand miles, while within a thousand yards is a virgin forest of excellent wood. During the short time of one year, electric lights, telephone, and telegraph plants have been established, a really good theatre has been built and several churches are in the course of construction. Nearly every house sells intoxicating drinks. Alcohol is said to be served even in the churches. Indeed, alcohol is at the base of all the crimes and most of the pleasures of Punta Arenas.
Chief Colchicoli.
One of Colchicoli’s Wives.
Types of Onas.
Unlike the immigrants to the United States, the new-comers to Patagonia have remained as separate little colonies, and never made a homogeneous mixture as in our States. They await with yearly anticipation an opportunity of returning to their mother countries. The sheep-farmers and bankers are mostly British, the storekeepers generally German. The Anglo-Saxon is the ruling spirit, and in a very short time this long deserted no-man’s-land will be a gilded paradise stocked with the healthy mixture of northern races which has made the United States the most progressive of the new nations of the world. Southern South America is to be the Yankee land of the far south and for this, their absorption as stupidly suggested by Rhodes is entirely unnecessary. The people here are able to take care of themselves, and the Republican governments of Chile and Argentina are quite capable of managing their own affairs.