CHILE AND HER PEOPLE OF TO-DAY
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY
The republic of Chile has one of the strangest configurations of any country on the globe. It stretches over thirty-eight degrees of latitude, thus giving it a coast line of twenty-six hundred and twenty-five miles from its northern border to the most southerly point on the Fuegian Archipelago. It is a long and narrow ribbon of land, at no place wider than two hundred miles, and in places narrowing to sixty-five miles. It has an average width of only ninety miles, while the length is fully thirty times the average width. Placed on the western coast of North America, in the corresponding latitude, this republic would extend from Sitka, Alaska, to a point on the Pacific coast opposite the City of Mexico. If the state of Texas should be stretched out into a narrow strip of land two thousand and five hundred miles in length, it would give a fair idea of the peculiar shape of Chile. It follows quite closely the seventieth parallel of longitude, which would correspond with that of Boston. This strange development has been due to the Andean mountain range, which, with its lofty peaks and numberless spurs, forms the eastern boundary throughout its entire length. For a long time the boundary lines with its neighbours were in dispute, but these have all been successfully adjusted.
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Within these boundaries there is naturally a wide divergence of climate. In the north, at sea level, the vegetation is tropical, and it is semi-tropical for several hundred miles south. If one goes inland the mountains are soon encountered, and the line of perpetual snow is reached at about fifteen thousand feet, but this line descends as you proceed south. On the Fuegian Islands snow seldom disappears from sight, although at sea level it may all thaw. The temperature everywhere varies according to altitude and proximity to the sea. In the north it is milder than the same latitude on the eastern coast, because of the Antarctic Current which washes the shores, and at the south it is warmer than the same latitude in North America. Within these extremes, from the regions which are washed by the Antarctic seas to the banks of the Sama River, which separates it from Peru, and between the shores where the Pacific breakers roll and the Cordilleras of the Andes which mark the boundary with Argentina, there are two hundred and ninety-one thousand, five hundred square miles, and supporting a population of three and a quarter millions of people, of many shades of colour.
One-fourth or more of the territory of Chile is made up of islands. The largest of these, of course, is Tierra del Fuego, of which a little more than one-half is Chilean territory. The coast from Puerto Montt to the southern limits of the continent is notched and indented with fiords and inlets, and scores of islands have been formed, probably by volcanic action. Few of these have claimed any attention, and, of all those lashed by the waves of the Antarctic seas, Tierra del Fuego is the only one that has received any development. The sheep man has taken possession of portions of that island, and hundreds of thousands of sheep now graze on its succulent grasses. The island of Chiloé, near Puerto Montt, is one of the most important of the islands, and several small foreign colonies have been located on its rich soil. Some of the islands are very remote from the mainland. The most isolated one is Pascua, or Easter, island, which is at a distance of more than two thousand miles from the coast. It is almost in the centre of the Pacific Ocean. The San Felix and San Ambrosio groups, and that of Juan Fernandez, the reputed home of Robinson Crusoe, are also at a distance of several hundred miles from the shores of the republic.
From the northern boundary to Concepción, the coast line is generally uniform and indentations are rare. There are only a few bays of any considerable size, and only an occasional cape or promontory. From Chiloé to Tierra del Fuego is a stretch of coast five hundred miles in length, which a glance at the map will show is a perfect network of islands, peninsulas and channels. This is the Chilean Patagonia. It provides scenery as grandly picturesque as the famous fiords along the coast of Norway, and greatly resembles that broken and rugged coast. The bays and gulfs cut into the shores to the foothills of the Andean range. They are of great depth. The Gulf of Las Peñas furnishes an entrance to this labyrinth at the north, and the Straits of Magellan at the south. Some of the passes are so narrow that they seem like gigantic splits in the mountain ranges—grandly gloomy and narrow. Through these openings in the rock the water rushes with terrific force owing to the action of the tides. But, once within, the opening broadens out into little bays, where the waters are as calm and serene as a mountain lake. These channels are a vast Campo Santo, or God’s Acre, of wrecked vessels. Numerous as the disasters have been the sight of a stranded boat is rare, for the grave is usually hundreds of fathoms deep. In every case, however, the wrecked vessel has given her name to the rock that brought disaster, and the official charts are dotted with the names of rocks, which thus form eternal headstones for the unfortunate vessels. One writer has given the following account of these channels:—