On one side of the Plaza Mayor of Rosario stands a very pretentious church, not yet quite completed, but as the towers and dome are finished it makes a prominent feature from a long way off, as one approaches the town. In the centre of this square is a marble shaft surmounted by a figure representing Victory, and at the base are four statues of Argentine historic characters. This square is adorned with a double row of handsome acacias. As regards amusements, so far as is visible, theatricals seem to take the lead, the place having two theatres, both of which appear to be enjoying a thriving business.
When a new city is started in South America upon a site so well selected, and after so thoroughly substantial a plan, the result is no problem. The influx of European immigrants promptly supplies the necessary laborers and artisans, quite as fast, indeed, as they are required, while the ordinary growth and development of inland resources tax the local business capacity, enterprise, and capital to their utmost. Rosario needs to perfect a careful and thorough system of drainage. Fevers are at present alarmingly prevalent, arising from causes which judicious attention and sanitary means would easily obviate.
We will not weary the reader by protracted delay at this point, having still a long voyage before us.
Embarking at Montevideo, our way is southward over a broad and lonely track of ocean. If we can summon a degree of philosophy to our aid, it is fortunate. Without genial companions, surrounded by strangers, and thrown entirely upon ourselves, mental resort often fails us, life appears sombre, the wide, wide ocean almost appalling. One of the inevitable trials of a long sea voyage is the wakeful hours which will occasionally visit the most experienced traveler,—midnight hours, when the weary brain becomes preternaturally active, the imagination oversensitive and weird in its erratic conceptions, while forebodings of evil which never happens are apt to fill the mind with morbid anxieties. The very silence of the surroundings is impressive, interrupted only by the regular throbbing of the great, tireless engine, and the dashing waters chafing along the iron hull close beside the wakeful dreamer. Separated by thousands of miles from home, all communication cut off with friends and the world at large, while watching the dreary ocean, day after day, week after week, we imagine endless misfortunes that may have come to dear ones on shore. However limited may be the world of reality, that of the imagination is boundless, and sometimes one realizes years of wretched anxiety in the space of a few overwrought hours. It is such moments of passive misery which beget wrinkles and white hairs. Action is the only relief, and one hastens to the deck for a change of scene and thoughts. After experiencing such a night, how glad and glorious seems the sun rising out of the wide waste of waters, how bright and glowing the smile he casts upon the long lazy swell of the South Atlantic, as if pointedly to rebuke the overwrought fancy, and reassure the aching heart!
Be we never so dreary, the great ship speeds on its course, heeding us not; its busy motor, like heart-beats, throbs with undisturbed uniformity, forcing the vessel onward despite the joy or sorrow of those it carries within its capacious hull.
The Strait of Magellan, which divides South America from the mysterious island group which is known as Terra del Fuego, and connects the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean by a most intricate water-way, is considerably less than four hundred miles in length, and of various widths. De Lesseps, with his successful Suez Canal and his deplorable Panama failure, is quite distanced by the hand of Nature in this line of business. It would require about ten thousand Suez Canals to make a Magellan Strait, and then it would be but a very sorry imitation. It will be remembered that the Portuguese navigator who discovered this remarkable passage, and for whom it is justly named, first passed through it in November, 1520, finally emerging into the waters of the new sea, upon which he was the first to sail, and which he named Mar Pacifico. Doubtless it seemed "pacific" to him after his rude experience in the South Atlantic, but the author has known as rough weather in this misnamed ocean as he has ever encountered in any part of the globe.
One can well conceive of the elation and surprise of Magellan, upon emerging from the intricate passage through which he had been struggling to make his way for so many weary days. What a sensation of satisfaction and triumph must the courageous and persevering navigator have experienced at the discovery he had made! What mattered all his weary hours of watching, of self-abnegation, of cold and hunger, of incessant battling with the raging sea? Henceforth to him royal censure or royal largess mattered little. His name would descend to all future generations as the great discoverer of this almost limitless ocean.
The passage leading to the strait on the Atlantic or eastern end is about twenty miles across, Cape Vergens being on the starboard side, and Cape Espiritu Santo—or Cape Holy Ghost—on the port. The entrance on the western or Pacific end is marked by Cape Pillar, Desolation Land, where the scenery is far more rugged and mountainous, the cape terminating in two cliffs, shaped so much like artificial towers as to be quite deceptive at a short distance. The narrowest part of the strait is about one mile in width, known to mariners as Crooked Reach. A passage through this great natural canal is an experience similar, in some respects, to that of sailing in the inland sea of Alaska, between Victoria and Glacier Bay, bringing into view dense forests, immense glaciers, abrupt mountain peaks, and snow-covered summits, the whole shrouded in the same solitude and silence, varied by the occasional flight of sea-birds or the appearance of seals and porpoises from below the deep waters. So irregular in its course is this passage between the two great oceans, so changeable are its currents, so impeded by dangerous rocks and hidden shoals, so beset with squalls and sudden storms, that sailing vessels are forced to double the ever-dreaded Cape Horn rather than take the Magellan route. A United States man-of-war, a sailing ship, was once over two months in making the passage through the strait, and Magellan tells us that he was thirty-seven days in passing from ocean to ocean, though using all ordinary dispatch. Within a fortnight of the writing of these notes, a European mail steamship was lost here by striking upon a sunken rock. Fortunately, owing to the proximity of the shore and moderate weather prevailing, the crew and passengers were all saved.
Winter lingers, and the days are short in this latitude. A sailing ship would be compelled to find anchorage nightly, and some days would perhaps be driven back in a few hours a distance which it had required a week to make in her proper direction. Steamships usually accomplish the run in from thirty to forty hours, there being many reaches where it is necessary to run only at half speed. If heavy fogs and bad weather prevail, they often lay by during the night, and also in snow-storms, which occur not infrequently. The sky is seldom clear for many hours together, and the sun's warmth is rarely felt, the rain falling almost daily. Even in the summer of this high southern latitude the nights are cold and gloomy, ice nearly always forming. It must be admitted that this region, of itself, is not calculated to attract the most inveterate wanderer. One is not surprised when reading the rather startling narrations of the old navigators who made the passage of the strait, encountering the constantly varying winds, and having canvas only to depend upon. The marvel is that, with their primitive means, they should have accomplished so much. There are no lighthouses in this passage from ocean to ocean, though it has been pretty well surveyed and buoyed in late years, thanks to the liberality of the English naval service, by whom this was done. There is, in fact, a dearth of lighthouses on the entire coast of South America, especially on the west side of the continent. We can recall but three between Montevideo and Valparaiso, a distance, by way of the strait, of fully two thousand miles. The lighthouses we refer to are at Punta Arenas, Punta Galesa, near Valdivia, and that which marks the port of Concepcion, at Talcahuano. The Strait of Magellan is only fit as an abiding-place for seals, waterfowl, and otters; humanity can hardly find congenial foothold here.
The natives of Patagonia, who live on the northern side of the strait, are called horse Indians, because they make such constant use of the wild horses; they do not move in any direction without them. Those on the Fuegian side are called canoe Indians, as the canoe forms their universal and indeed only mode of transportation. The former are a rather large, tall race of people, the men averaging about six feet in height; the latter are smaller in physical development, and are less civilized than the Indians of Patagonia, which, to be sure, is saying very little for the latter, who are really a low type of nomads. The Fuegians are believed to still practice cannibalism. One writer tells us that criminals and prisoners of war are thus disposed of, and that the last crew of shipwrecked seamen who fell into their hands were roasted and eaten by them. Their hostile purposes are well understood, for whenever they dare to exercise such a spirit they are sure to do so. They cautiously send out a boat or two to passing vessels, with whom a little trading is attempted, the main body of natives keeping well out of sight; but in case of any mishap to a ship, or if a small party land and are unable to defend themselves, they will appear in swarms from various hiding-places, swooping down upon their victims like vultures in the desert. The officers of the yacht Sunbeam, as recounted by Lady Brassey, found it necessary to turn her steam-pipes full force upon the swarming natives, who were doubtless preparing to make an effort to capture the yacht and her crew, hoping to overcome them by mere force of numbers. They were, however, so frightened and utterly astonished by the means of defense adopted by Lord Brassey that they threw themselves, one and all, into the sea, and sought the shore pell-mell. Humboldt, in his day, ranked these Fuegians among the lowest specimens of humanity he had ever met, and they certainly do not seem to have improved much in the mean time. One is at a loss to understand why the Patagonians should have impressed the early navigators with the idea that they were a people of gigantic size. There is no evidence to-day of their being, or ever having been, taller or larger than the average New Englander. Half-naked savages, standing six feet high, naturally impress one as being taller than Europeans clad in the conventional style of civilized people.