The position of Arica, connected as it is by railway with Tacna, the centre of a rich mineral district, possessing the best anchorage on this part of the Pacific coast, and a constant supply of good water, must some day make it a place of importance. The headland which commands it is crowned by a fort, on which the Peruvians had planted a good many guns, and its seizure by the Chilians was one of the first energetic blows struck during the war.
For some reason, not apparent, the great waves which flow inland after each considerable earthquake shock have been more destructive at Arica than at any other spot upon the coast. Three times the place has been utterly swept away, and one memorial survives in the shape of the hull of a large ship, lying fully a mile inland, seen by us a few miles north of the town as we approached in the morning. On each occasion the little town has been rebuilt close to the shore. Experience has not taught the people to build on the rising land, only a few hundred yards distant. Each man believes that the new house will last his time—Après moi le deluge, with a vengeance!
At Arica the coast-line, which from the promontory of Ajulla, about 6° north latitude, has kept a direction between south-east and south-south-east for a distance of about twelve hundred English miles, bends nearly due south, and maintains the same direction for nearly double that distance. It is in the tract lying between Arica and Copiapò that the conditions which produce the so-called rainless zone of the Pacific coast have had the maximum effect. In that space of about six hundred miles (farther than from Liverpool to Oporto) there is no inhabited place—with the possible exception of Pisagua—where drinkable water is to be had. Nowhere in the world is there such an extensive tract of coast so unfitted for the habitation of man. But this same region is rich in products that minister to human wants, and man has overcome the obstacles that seemed to render them inaccessible. Besides mines of copper, silver, and lead, the deposits of alkaline nitrates, whose extent has not yet been fathomed, richly reward the expenditure of labour and capital. One after another industrial establishments have arisen along the coast at places suitable for the embarkation of produce, and some of these have already attained the dimensions of small towns. The Ayacucho called at no less than nine of these places, and there are two or three others that are occasionally visited. At a few of them, as at Iquique, the water-supply is partially or altogether conveyed by sea, but most of them subsist by distillation from sea-water.
PORTS ON THE RAINLESS COAST.
As may well be supposed, there is little in these places to interest a stranger, and a description of one may serve for all. Some more or less extensive works, with one or several tall chimneys, are the most prominent feature. Near to each establishment are three or four clean-looking houses for managers and head agents, of whom the majority appear to be English. Grouped in narrow sandy lanes near at hand are the dwellings—mere sheds built of reeds—of the working people. In some of the more considerable places an iron church, in debased sham-Gothic style, has been procured from the United States, and has been set up in a central position, with the outline of a plaza in front of it, and several drinking-shops clustered near.
The aspect of the coast is not less monotonous than that of the inhabited places. The sea-board is nearly a straight line running from north to south, and, except at Mejillones, I saw no projecting headland to break its uniformity. Nearly everywhere what appears to be a range of flat-topped hills from about eight to fifteen hundred feet in height, of uniform dull grey hue unbroken by a single patch of verdure, forms the background. In truth, these seeming hills are the western margin of the great plateau of the desert of Atacama, which at its edge slopes rather steeply towards the Pacific coast, sometimes leaving a level margin of one or two miles in width, sometimes approaching within a few hundred feet of the shore. I find it difficult to form a conception of the causes which have led to this singular uniformity in the western limit of the volcanic rocks of the plateau. Whether we suppose the mass to have been originally thrown out from craters or fissures in the range of the cordillera by subaërial or submarine eruptions, we should think it inevitable that the western front should show great irregularities corresponding to greater volume of the streams of eruptive matter in some parts.
Admitting—what may be held for a certainty—that, whatever may have been the original conditions, the whole region has since been submerged, and that marine action would have levelled surface inequalities, it is not easy to understand how the uniformity in the western front could have been brought about during the period of subsequent and comparatively recent elevation. If this had occurred along an axis of elevation near to the present coast-line, the effect must have been to produce a coast-range parallel to that of the Andes, with a watershed having an eastern as well as a western slope, and accompanying disturbance of the strata, such as we find on a great scale in western North America. Some indications of such action may be seen in Chili, south of Copiapò, and further to the south, but I am not aware of any fact to justify a similar supposition respecting this part of the coast of South America.
WHITE ROCKS AT PISAGUA.
On the morning of May 3 we were anchored in front of Pisagua, which, being the port of Tarapacà, the chief centre of the nitrate deposits, is at present an active place. The houses are rather more scattered than usual, some of them being built on rising ground, apparently above the reach of earthquake waves. The range of apparent hills, fully fifteen hundred feet in height, rises steeply behind the little town, and the monotonous slope is broken by a long zigzag line marking the railway to Tarapacà. Some steep rocks rising from the sea to the south of the anchorage were in great part brilliantly white, recalling the appearance of quartz veins, or beds of crystalline limestone, dipping at a high angle. Thinking the existence of such rocks on this coast very improbable, I was anxious to inspect them; but when I was told that the time of our stay would merely allow of a short visit to the town, I did not care to land. The same appearances are common along the coast, and I soon afterwards ascertained that they are produced by the droppings of sea-birds—the same which, when accumulated in large masses, form the guano deposits of the detached rocks and islets of the coast.
In the afternoon we reached Iquique, which is, I believe, the largest of the unnatural homes of men on this coast. Some one who had gone ashore here returned, bringing copies of two newspapers, by which the public of Iquique are kept informed as to the affairs of the world. I had already seen with surprise, and had many further opportunities for observing, the extent to which the newspaper press in South America has absorbed whatever literary capacity exists in the country. Of information there is not indeed much to be gathered from these sheets; but of grand sentiments and appeals to the noblest emotions the supply seems inexhaustible. I regret to own that experience in other parts of the world had already made me somewhat distrustful of such appeals; but the result of my study of South American newspapers culminated in a severe fit of moral indigestion, and I do not yet receive in a proper spirit any appeal to the noblest sentiments of my nature.