From Copiapó northward the longitudinal railroad to Iquique runs over a great arid desert winding its way across sandy plateaus hemmed in by barren mountains. The southern part of this desolation is named the Atacama Desert and here on the high mountainsides are seen the shafts and settlements of the gold and copper mines. Dulcinea is the first large mine reached. San Pedro is reached in the afternoon and later on Pueblo Hundido, the junction for Chañaral, and the headquarters of the Andes Copper Company. The next morning the train arrives at Catalina, the junction for Taltal and now enters the nitrate country. The same day it stops at Aguas Blancas, the junction for Antofagasta, Chuquicamata, the newly opened copper mining town of the Guggenheim interests, and Bolivia. The railroad from Catalina northward goes through the center of the nitrate country and has several branches running down to the seaports such as that from Toco to Tocopilla. Toco is passed in the middle of the night as well as Quillagua, the last mentioned place being an oasis in the Desert of Tararugal. Pintados which is reached forty-eight hours after leaving Copiapó is the terminus of the longitudinal railway and here trains must be changed for Iquique and Pisagua, the northernmost nitrate port.
Although my ticket was bought for Iquique, I was obliged to leave the train at Aguas Blancas and go direct to Antofagasta. I had the misfortune to break a blood vessel in my right foot in Copiapó shortly before boarding the train, which dolorous accident was due to the injury I received when a rock hit my foot as I was trying to escape from the catapult of stones that were shot from the crater of Volcano Chillán. I consider that my quickness in reaching Antofagasta was what saved me from crossing the River Lethe. I was flat on my back in that prosperous seaport for three weeks.
Antofagasta, the commercial metropolis of Northern Chile has a population of 60,297 inhabitants although it does not look nearly so large. It is the fourth city of Chile and has in recent years taken away much of Iquique's trade, although the latter place does not appear to be dull. The downtown business streets of Antofagasta are paved with asphalt and work is now under way to pave the whole city. Sewers have been extended and the mule power street cars have been discarded for autobuses; a man named Yankovich having obtained the concession for this means of passenger traffic. The old buildings of adobe, wood, corrugated iron, and stuccoed cane are fast being replaced with metropolitan structures of brick and cement. Among these new edifices can be mentioned the city hall, the fire department, the Mercantile Bank of Bolivia, the Victoria Theater, and Luksic's Hotel Belmont.
The city from being a pestilential port in the past is now scrupulously clean, although in its suburbs improvements can be made. The municipality has waged war against the butchers and vegetable dealers compelling them to screen their goods from the flies. Protesting mass meetings were of no avail. A new railroad station has been built on the heights above the city and the old ramshackle wooden structure which is an eyesore to the city will be torn down to make way for the opening of a new street. Antofagasta is proud of its cemetery. To me it is a nightmare. Most of the graves are marked with wooden crosses painted white, many of them being enclosed by picket fences. The bodies of the poor are thrown naked into a pit and covered with quicklime. The stench emanating from this spot is appalling and the litters for the transportation of the cadavers which are much in evidence in this neighborhood do not add any attraction to the scene.
Plaza Colon, Antofagasta
In 1910 a mania struck each resident foreign colony to donate to the city a reminder of themselves. The British colony erected an ornate and useful clock tower in the Plaza Colon; in the same park the Spaniards built a bronze monument signifying the Union of the Waters; the Slavs built a bandstand. In the Plaza Sotomayor the Germans erected a column to Germania, and the Greeks gave a statue of a couple of wrestlers. The Chinamen donated the expensive entrance to the cemetery while the Turks gave the city the benches which are in the parks. The North Americans are not represented in these donations, because at that time the city had only one of our countrymen as a resident, Mr. William Stevenson, and it could not be expected that he himself would pay out of his own pocket a sum of money equivalent to what a whole colony did out of theirs.
