It was altogether, as will be seen, a considerable work, and we were hard at it for a fortnight, during which time, with the exception of two shopping expeditions to the neighbouring city of Concepcion, we had little opportunity to see the surrounding country. It felt at any rate dry and warm, in fact well aired, after the damp of the Patagonian Channels, and might have been even adjudged too dry and dusty. The most refreshing sight was a little garden which adjoined the custom-house steps, at which we landed almost daily, and which, in spite of difficulties, was invariably bright with geraniums and other flowers: Chile is much more a country of gardens, in the English sense, than any other land it has been my lot to visit. Talcahuano has about 13,000 inhabitants, and consists of little beside the dockyard, in which the chief posts are filled by Englishmen. Three English officers are also lent in peace time by our own navy to that of Chile; one of these, with whom we happened to have mutual acquaintances, was kind enough to entertain us on board the Chilean warship, whose name, being translated, was Commodore Pratt.
A point anxiously debated at the moment, and not without some practical interest for us, was whether Chile could afford to keep the Dreadnoughts which were being built for her by Messrs. Armstrong. There was a financial crisis at the time, and the exchange was much against Chile; hence firms there which owed money to England were delaying meeting their liabilities, with the result that more than one English company had failed in consequence. The sale of a Dreadnought would of course greatly affect the rate; even without that before we left the country it had materially risen, and the value received for a sovereign was, from our point of view, regrettably diminished.
An Englishman feels distinctly more at home in Chile than in either Brazil or Argentina. Some of the best-known firms are genuinely English, though the possession of an English name is in itself no guarantee of more than a remote British origin: a Mr. Brown may, for instance, marry a Miss Thompson, and neither be able to speak the English tongue.[[9]] Our language is the only one taught free in the schools; it is presumably the most useful from the point of view of trade with ourselves and the United States. One of our countrymen resident in the Republic explained to us that “the Chileans hate all foreigners, but they hate the British rather less than the others.” Those at least were our recorded impressions at this time; on the subsequent visit of the yacht, after war broke out, the German influence was strong enough to affect her position adversely in the way of work and stores.
At last the provision lists were finished and we felt entitled to take a holiday, leaving the remainder of the work on the ship in the competent hands of Mr. Gillam; our special objects were to see the Easter Island collection in the museum at Santiago and get a glimpse of the Trans-Andine Railway. This part of our journeyings has nothing to do with the voyage of the Mana, and accounts of the ground covered have been given by much abler hands, notably by Lord Bryce in his Impressions of South America; it shall therefore be told in outline only. We left Talcahuano by the tri-weekly day express for Santiago; it took twelve hours to travel about 350 miles, but the Pullman car was luxurious, and we were able to see the country well. The line passes northward through the long fruitful plain between the Andes and the coast range, which constitutes the land of Chile, and crosses continually the streams which traverse it on their course from the mountains to the sea. The train stops from time to time at cheerful little towns, and finally at Santiago, which is a most attractive city, with a sense of quiet and yet cheerful dignity. There are but few streets at the end of which it is not possible to obtain a glimpse of the surrounding mountains, but they were scarcely either as near or impressive as descriptions had led us to expect.
The first night of our residence in the capital we experienced an earthquake. I was already asleep when about 10.30 I was awakened by the shock; the light when turned on showed the chandeliers and pictures swinging in opposite directions, and one of the latter was still oscillating when the current was switched off eight or ten minutes later. There was a slighter recurrence at 3 a.m. The shock was stated to be the worst since the great earthquake of 1906, and numbers of people had, we found, rushed out into the streets and squares. It was generally agreed that familiarity in the case of earthquakes breeds not contempt but the reverse, and that shocks of which the new-comer thinks but little, fill those who know their possibilities with nervous alarm. In this case no great damage was done; the only fatalities occurred at Talca, a little place about half-way along the line by which we had come. When we called at the Legation the next day to express our thanks to the British Minister for the trouble taken about our stores, we were shown the cracks in the walls which were the result of the previous earthquake and the fresh additions made to them the night before. We had the good fortune at Santiago to become acquainted with Sir Edward and Lady Grogan. Sir Edward filled the post of military attaché for six of our South American legations, and I had heard at Buenos Aires much of the work and interests of Lady Grogan. She was the almost last Englishwoman whom I met till my return to my native land two years later, when I had the pleasure of renewing the acquaintance, this time in Cromwell Road in proximity to numerous bales for Serbian refugees. We visited the Museum of Antiquities, where we found the objects from Easter Island of which we were in search; and the beautiful new Museum of Fine Arts, which also contains articles from the island.
We left Santiago at noon on Saturday, January 31st, the line at first continuing northwards. The country through which we passed looked rainless and barren, and the journey was hot and tiring. The train was crowded with Saturday travellers, and purveyors of drinks and ices continually pushed their way down it, apparently finding a ready market for their wares. At the junction of Llay-Llay, the line which comes from Santiago on the south connects with that from Valparaiso on the west, and branches off also eastward over the Andes to the Argentine. Here on the platform sat rows of women with some of the delightful fruit in which Chile abounds: grapes can be bought at 5d. a pound and peaches and nectarines at 8d. or 9d. a dozen. The drawback, however, in the case of the two last mentioned, is that, partly owing to the exigencies of packing, the Chileans make a point of gathering and also eating them quite hard and flavourless. The conscientious British matron can scarcely see without distress children of the more prosperous classes, as young as five or six years, concluding a heavy evening meal at eight or half-past, by eating entirely unripe peaches. She ceases to wonder that infant mortality in Chile is said to be heavy.
At Llay-Llay we took the easterly line, which ascends a valley full of prosperous cultivation, till it reaches the little town of Los Andes, where the Chilean state railway ends and the Trans-Andine service begins. The two ends of this railway, the Chilean and Argentine, are in the hands of different companies, which naturally adds much to the difficulty of working the line. The trains run on alternate days in each direction. There is a comfortable hotel at Los Andes where passengers sleep the previous night in order to start the journey over the pass at 7 a.m.; much of the revenue of the line, however, is derived, not from the passenger traffic, but from the cattle brought from the ranches of the Argentine to Chile. The Chilean company is an English one, and the manager, Mr. J. H. White, was good enough to arrange for us to travel with the French minister, who happened to be quitting Santiago, in an observation car at the end of the train; we had, therefore, both pleasant company and most excellent views of the pass. The line winds up a valley, which grows ever narrower between precipitous mountain-sides, but as long as any green thing can find a footing the cultivation is intense; where the incline is most steep a cog-wheel is employed. Presently every trace of vegetation is left behind, and the route enters on its grandest and wildest phase. Bleak rock masses tower to the sky on every hand, and on their lower slopes rest masses of boulders, which have descended at some earlier stage in the world’s history. When a great height has been attained a little lake is reached, which, with its colouring of gorgeous blue, resembles a perfect turquoise in a grey setting. At 10,000 feet the highest point is gained and the train enters the tunnel, which has been bored through the summit and which was opened for traffic in 1909. It here leaves Chile and issues on the Argentine side amidst similar but less striking scenery. The line now runs beneath a series of shelters for protection from snow; they are of corrugated iron and provided with huge doors which can be closed in case of drift. The difficulties which arise in winter from such causes are very great, but at the time of our visit the snow was as a rule confined to occasional white patches near the summit of the mountains: the great peak of Aconcagua, 23,000 feet high, which was now to be seen seventeen miles to the northward, was principally remarkable for standing out as a huge white mass among its greyer fellows.
Inca Bridge is shortly reached, and here we left the train. It is somewhat astonishing to find a large and fashionable hotel in these surroundings; it is resorted to by the inhabitants of Buenos Aires when in search of cooler air or desirous of partaking of the iron waters for which the place is famous. We started at 8 o’clock next morning for the return journey, which we made by riding with mules over the part of the summit traversed by the tunnel, catching the train on the Chilean side. It is a delightful and easy expedition, which can be thoroughly recommended. The road runs at first parallel to the line, and when it leaves the valley rises by gradual zigzags: our guide dispensed with all corners by means of short cuts, but even so the ascent was not strenuous. As we mounted higher and higher the corrugated iron railway shelters looked like long, headless, grey caterpillars crawling along the valley beneath. We had been warned to expect high wind, but it only became unpleasant as we reached the actual summit, along which runs the boundary between Chile and Argentina. The celebrated statue of the Christ with uplifted hands blessing both countries, which commemorates the arbitration treaty, stands on the main road a little to the east of the track by which we crossed, which was, as usual, a short cut.
The descent fully justified the impression which we had formed from the train of the superior grandeur of the Chilean side; it must be even more impressive when more snow is visible. We regained the railway in plenty of time to see the Argentine train issue from the tunnel at 2 o’clock: the travellers had left Buenos Aires on the morning of the previous day, traversed the great Argentine plains, and spent the night en route. If the train is delayed and arrives at the summit too late to be conveyed down before dark, the Chilean officials refuse to take it over, as the descent would be too dangerous; the passengers under such circumstances have to spend the night in their carriages or find such hotel accommodation as is possible. They were indeed, as we saw then, a cosmopolitan crowd; the languages of France, Germany and Spain, also English, of both the European and American variety, were all being spoken in the crowded carriage in which we found places. Our nearest neighbours were two young couples from the United States, evidently making the journey for the first time; as we began the descent through the very finest part of the scenery, they produced packs of cards and became engrossed in a game of auction bridge. This is one of the things which must be seen to be believed, but we were subsequently told it was by no means a unique instance. We arrived at Los Andes, hot and dusty after our early start and long day, to find ourselves carried off to the manager’s house and most kindly welcomed by Mrs. and Miss White to a refreshing tea amid the delight of a cool veranda and beautiful garden.
Next day we left for Valparaiso, retracing our steps as far as the junction of Llay-Llay, and then traversing the coast range. The huge bay of Valparaiso, filled with shipping, is an imposing sight, and the town climbs picturesquely up the mountains which surround it; the higher parts are residential, and are reached by elevators, which are stationed at intervals in the main street, which runs parallel to the harbour. On the lower level there are well-built offices of leading firms, shipping lines, and banks, which give a pleasant sensation of wide interest and touch with the great world. Nevertheless, Valparaiso is scarcely as fine a city architecturally as would be expected from its importance, nor is the hotel accommodation worthy of a first-class port. Its inhabitants cheerily endorse the opinion of a visitor who is reported to have said, “There is one word only for Valparaiso, and that is ‘shabby.’” The city has, however, profited through the rebuilding necessitated by the earthquake, and the improvement of the harbour and other works were in progress. The earthquake is still a very present memory; one resident showed us the spot where one of his servants, escaping from the house at the same time as himself, was killed by falling masonry.