| [Frontispiece] | Lake Llanquihue, South Chile |
| [Maps] (at end of volume) | Political Map of Chile |
| Railway Map of Chile |
| Facing page | |
|---|---|
| Lake Todos los Santos | [4] |
| Balmaceda Glacier | [6] |
| Volcano San Pablo. Desert in Atacama Province. In Northern Antofagasta Province. The River Loa in the Dry Season | [8] |
| In the Strait of Magellan | [10] |
| Santa Lucia Hill, Santiago. Parque Forestal, Santiago. Municipal Offices, Santiago | [12] |
| Viña del Mar, Valparaiso’s Residential Suburb. Valparaiso Street, Viña del Mar. Race Course, Viña del Mar. Mira-Mar Beach, Viña del Mar | [18] |
| Reproductions from Gay’s “History of Chile”: Más a Tierra (Juan Fernández Group) Island in the 18th Century. Capturing Condors in the Chilean Andes. O’Higgins’ Parliament with the Araucanian Indians, March, 1793. Guanacos on the Edge of Laja Lake | [42] |
| In the Chilean Andes. A Chilean Glacier, Central Region. Rio Blanco Valley, above Los Andes | [52] |
| San Juan Bautista, Village of Cumberland Bay, Más a Tierra Island (Juan Fernández Group), 400 Miles West of Valparaiso. The Plain of Calavera, Chilean Andes | [66] |
| Last Hope Inlet (Ultima Esperanza). Channel in the Territory of Magellanes | [94] |
| Balmaceda Glacier, South Chile. In Smyth Channel, heading North from Magellan Strait | [124] |
| The Nitrate Pampa: Opening up Trench after Blasting. General View of Nitrate and Iodine Plant | [152] |
| Antofagasta. The Nitrate Wharves | [174] |
| Sewell Camp at Night. Sewell (El Teniente Copper Mines) near Rancagua | [178] |
| Sewell in the Snows of June. Railway between Rancagua and El Teniente | [182] |
| Curanilahue Coal Mine, Arauco Province. Dulcinea Copper Mine, Copiapó Province. Chuquicamata Copper Mines, Antofagasta Province | [196] |
| At Constitución, South of Santiago. San Cristobal Hill and Parque Forestal, Santiago. Malleco Bridge, near Collipulli | [228] |
| The Post Office, Santiago. Santiago, with the Snow-capped Andes in the Eastern Distance. Subercaseaux Palace, Santiago | [242] |
| On the Chilean Transandine Railway. Laguna del Portillo: near the Transandine line. Santa Rosa de los Andes, Chilean Terminus of the Transandine Railway | [256] |
| Coquimbo, the “Capital of North Chile.” Ancud, the Port of Chiloé Island. Zapallar, a beautiful Chilean Watering Place | [260] |
| Taltal, a Nitrate Port of North Chile. Puerto Corral, the Port of Valdivia, South Chile | [264] |
| Valdivia, a Flourishing New Southern City. Punta Arenas, the Southernmost City in the World. Puerto Varas, facing Calbuco Volcano, Lake Llanquihue | [292] |
| Araucanian Indian, spinning. Note the solid wooden wheel of the country cart. Araucanian Mother and Child. The hide-and-wood cradle is slung upon the woman’s back when she goes outside the hut | [318] |
CHILE
TODAY AND TOMORROW
CHAPTER I
Physical Characteristics.—North, South, and Central Chile.—Brilliant Hues.—Climate.—Wet and Dry Seasons.—Social Problems.—Far-flung Cities.—Formation of Character.—Animals and Plants.
Chile is a ribbon of a country, an emerald and gold strip stretched between the snow-crowned wall of the Andes and the blue waters of the Pacific.
This ribbon is up-tilted all along its western edge to form the coastal range defending the long central valley. It is lightly creased transversely where, from east to west, streams fed with snow-water drain down from the Andean peaks. Below the fortieth degree of south latitude the ribbon is twisted and ragged, with the tilted edge half sunk in stormy waters. Thirty times as long as it is wide, Chilean territory runs from the seventeenth to the fifty-sixth degree of south latitude, for, with a Pacific coast measuring nearly three thousand miles the average breadth is no more than ninety. It is a land of extreme contrasts; of great violence, of great serenity: but whether harsh or smiling, Chile is a stimulating, a promising land holding the mind and the heart. It is a breeder of men and women of forcible character.
To the north lie the tawny and burning deserts where not so much as a blade of grass grows without artificial help, where no rain falls, year after year, where every form of life is an alien thing. In the south are broken, rocky islands and inlets, matted forests of evergreen trees with their feet in eternal swamps, of furious gales and cruel seas, where turquoise glaciers creep into the dark fiords. Eastward stands the great barrier of the Andes, snow-covered for half the year, with proud peaks rising at least eight thousand feet higher than the head of Mont Blanc. To the west, Chile looks out upon a waste of waters, with New Zealand as the nearest great country.
Shut in or defended by these barriers from each point of the compass, it is plain that Chile has had no sisters closely pressing upon her threshold. One might reasonably expect to find here a race possessing characteristics in common with island folk, a homogeneous people with a distinct nationality. Today, when all natural barriers have been overthrown by mechanical transport, no nation escapes exterior influence, but the Chilean does certainly retain the islander’s self-contained habit, physical hardihood, and power of assimilating rather than yielding to aliens. I do not think that the modern Chilean owes his traits so much to inheritance from the Araucanian as to the fact that he has been nurtured in the same cradle, for, without doubt, here is a personality and attitude of mind that distinguishes the man of Chile from his continental brothers.