By far the most important town is Concepción, also in the coal district, and which is known as the southern capital. It has had many serious struggles with the Indians, gaunt famine and the still more terrible earthquake. It is really a fine city of about fifty thousand inhabitants. The last serious earthquake occurred in 1835, when nearly the whole town was destroyed. It is situated on the banks of the Bio-Bio River, and has for its port Talcahuano at the mouth of that river. Talcahuano has a splendid harbour, and is better protected than Valparaiso, as it is sheltered by the island of Quiriquina. Whaling ships now leave it for the Antarctic seas and bring back considerable oil and whalebone. There is a factory here for the manufacture and refining of whale oil. It is the Chilean Annapolis, as it is the principal naval harbour, with arsenals and dockyards, and is also the site of a naval school. It will eventually be the Pacific terminus of a transcontinental railroad running to Bahia Blanca, in Argentina.
Concepción is the supply centre of Southern Chile, and does a large wholesale business as well as some manufacturing on a small scale. Quite a foreign colony is found there, and there are as good clubs and hotels as in Valparaiso, its northern rival. It has forgotten all about earthquakes and has risen above its former disasters. It is arranged very much as other Chilean cities. There is an alameda bordered with poplars, and there is a plaza. Lord Cochrane (pronounced Coch-rah-ne by the Chileans), and Admiral O’Higgins are remembered in the nomenclature of the streets. You can sit under municipal vines and fig-trees, or the pear or cherry loaded with blossoms, if you happen to be there in September. The markets are overflowing with fine vegetables, such as cauliflower, lettuce, artichokes, carrots, radishes, potatoes, cabbage, etc., etc. Indian faces are very numerous at the market and on the streets. Bands play two or three nights in the week and the music is good. The flat plain on which the town is situated is not especially beautiful, but it gives unlimited opportunity for growth, and the Bio-Bio, especially when at flood, is an impressive stream. The galvanized iron used so extensively in construction does not add much to the beauty of the town. As Southern Chile develops, Concepción becomes of greater and greater importance, and it has a steady and healthy increase each year.
Osorno is a thriving city a little ways inland on a branch of the Rio Bueno, and was a place of considerable importance in the Spanish days. Corral is at the mouth of the river that leads back to Valdivia, a dozen miles inland. It has a trade of considerable importance with the other ports, and is distant from Valparaiso almost five hundred miles. The coast is not so densely wooded as farther south, and the tide is not more than one-fourth as high on the average. Puerto Montt is a prosperous and progressive little town situated on Reloncavi Bay. It has a well protected harbour and enjoys a considerable trade in lumber, wheat and leather. The lofty Andes are plainly visible on a clear day, especially the volcano Cabulco, which is only twenty-two miles distant. A half century ago this port had a commerce of considerable value and was even then exporting food products, although its population did not much exceed a couple of thousand.
VIEW OF PUERTO MONTT.
Courtesy of Bulletin of the Pan American Union.
There are innumerable islands, which lie close to the mainland, from Puerto Montt to the Fuegian Archipelago. The largest of these is Chiloé, which is a hundred miles long by from thirty to fifty miles in width. It is generally considered to be one of the sloppiest islands in the world, for that was the reputation the naturalist Darwin gave it, and his opinion has been corroborated many times. Its length runs parallel to the mainland, from which it is separated by a quite broad bay. The shores are generally wild and rather inhospitable. If one lands any place, excepting where a settler is located, the dense growth will be found almost impenetrable, with all branches dripping with moisture, and only an occasional sunbeam being able to push its way through the openings in the evergreen shrubbery. Moss-covered bogs abound in which one may sink to the waist in the mire. On this moist land everything grows with wonderful rapidity that does not require a great amount of sunshine. Moss, yards in length, and of great delicacy and beauty, hangs from the branches, while ferns and polypodia scramble up the trunks. Beautifully scalloped lichens, in brown and gold and lavender, decorate the fallen trees wherever they can take hold, and fungi covers the larger trees. Tough-fibred climbers of great length also decorate the trees. They are oftentimes employed to tie up the fences instead of nails, and are also used in weaving some of the beautiful baskets made by the natives. Brooms made of it are likewise exported. This dense growth abounds everywhere, with the exception of barren pampas which sometimes stretch for a quarter of a mile or so. Cattle will sometimes wander into these thick meshes, and no one but an Indian accustomed to the tangle can penetrate with anything like facility in their efforts to find the recalcitrant animals.
Several thousand Indians dwell on this large island. They have been semi-civilized for two or three centuries. They seem to have been less warlike than the Araucanians on the mainland. Their clothing is modelled somewhat after that of the rotos, for nearly all sport a white cotton or linen shirt, which is oftentimes worn under the gaily-coloured indigo-dyed poncho. The shoes are generally simply made of a piece of raw oxhide fastened to the feet with thongs of leather. Their houses are the very simplest of contrivances. The family that starves does so only through indifference. Land is cheap and nature productive. Most of them live near the seacoast or rivers, where fish are very abundant, and edible wild-fowl of many kinds, including ducks, geese and pigeons, are easy to capture. The forests yield a number of wild fruits and vegetables. Among the wild fruits may be mentioned strawberries of a delicious flavour, and a species of myrtle which bears a palatable berry. The fruit of the luma, or kow-chow, is very abundant, and is used in making a fermented liquor much used by the natives. They have remained as poor as when the Spaniards came, and the population has actually decreased in the last century. This island, as well as others, was a feudal holding and the tyranny of the proprietors and abuses of the merchants account for that. Justice and humanity were frequently unknown terms. Churches are not wanting, for at one place nineteen can be counted on islands and mainland when the weather is clear. The church is always an important and conspicuous building in every community. A few colonists, German, French and British, have located on this island, and have succeeded in carving a home out of the wilderness if sufficiently industrious. Nevertheless many of them have endured great hardships. The Chilean government brought them over but had neglected to provide the necessary roads.
Chiloé is the name of a province composed entirely of islands. In addition to the large island just described, it includes the archipelagoes of Chonos and Guaytecas, and embraces altogether no less than a thousand islands. Many of them contain only a few inhabitants, although the natural characteristics are similar to Chiloé itself. There are several towns on Chiloé. One of them is Chacao, which, for two hundred years, was the principal port. It was founded in 1567, but was practically abandoned three hundred years later. Castro was the capital until it was transferred to Ancud in 1834. These towns were plundered by Dutch freebooters and also destroyed by earthquakes. Ancud is situated pleasantly, but the bay seems to be filling up so that large vessels have to anchor several miles out at sea. Lord Cochrane once attacked this town and wrested it from the Spaniards. Living in this town is very cheap, for the necessities of life can be purchased in the ample market at very low prices. South of Ancud there is only one town of importance, Mellinca, on the Guaytecas archipelago. With the exception of Punta Arenas it is the most southerly settlement of any size in Chile. To-day it is much less important than formerly, although still somewhat of a village with probably less than a thousand population. The first establishment in these towns is usually a distillery of aguardiente (brandy), and its product is not a good friend of either native or settler.
The life both in air and water is very abundant. The sea is most lavish in life of all kinds, and can furnish an almost exhaustless supply of food for those living farther north. The robalo is a Chilean fish of fine flavour. The corbina, which is as large as a good-sized cod, is another good species. The pege-ruge is a sort of smelt, and the herrings abound in countless numbers. Oyster beds too are numerous. They are all natural beds, however, but systematic farming might make them as good as those along our own Atlantic coast. Other mussels and edible crabs of several species abound.