SPECIAL PRICES FOR THEAMERICAN FLEET!
It was the strict truth, especially as to furs. Fox skin rugs that had been selling for $25 went to $40. Guanaco skins that had been $10 went up to $15. Seal skins that were $50 went to $75. The only way to get the lower prices was to get some resident of the town to purchase for you on the pretext that he wanted to make a gift of the furs. Then you paid him and you got furs nearer their real Punta Arenas value.
The visitors found the city laid out in squares with thewide streets in the central part of the town paved with rubble. The curbs are marked with heavy wooden timbers and most of the walks are narrow and covered with gravel. Probably one-third of the buildings in the central part of town have concrete sidewalks in front of them. The visitors also found the place well policed with men in long cloaks and swords, bad looking men to go up against, but men who soon had orders, apparently, to go into the back streets and disappear. At any rate they were seldom seen in the heart of the city after Jack got ashore, and it was whispered openly that the authorities had told them to "go into the bosky" and let the Americans do their own policing. This was done and the best of order prevailed during the fleet's stay.
The visitors also found a fine water supply brought from far back in the mountains, an excellent fire department and the streets sewered and clean. Electric lighting was the common mode of illumination in the shops and scores of dwellings. Most surprising among the little things to be observed was that practically every dwelling had an electric bell at the front door. Galvanized iron was the predominant material for dwellings and some stores. The reason was soon apparent. The fire regulations do not permit the erection of wooden buildings in the city—up to date, you see—and stone and good bricks have to be brought in. Rough bricks are made here, but those of a better quality have to be imported. They will be made here in time doubtless, but the town has been too busy making money in wool, exporting mutton and selling furs to start up manufactories for building material for home consumption strictly. Corrugated iron is the easiest andcheapest to get and the fashion of having a residence of that material has been so well established that even a rich man takes it as a matter of course that he must live in one.
As one wandered further into the town he found a central plaza with a band stand in it, the western frontage occupied with the Governor's residence and the Catholic church; the northern side the site of a residence that made the visitor gape with astonishment to find so really handsome a building in such a place, the office and general wholesale store of Moritz Braun, the American Consular Agent here, and the shop of José Menendez of Buenos Ayres and Punta Arenas, the richest man in all this region. On the eastern side of the plaza were two banks, shops, clubs and a dwelling or two. The southern side bordered on a vacant square sold recently for $150,000.
The plaza was quite impressive in its pretensions. As one wandered further he observed that the city was treeless, that there was a little railroad on one of the wide streets to the north which leads to the coal mine in the hills about seven miles from town, that there were few gardens and flowers. Occasionally one could see a patch of radishes or potatoes or lettuce growing in a yard, but most of the yards were bare, with a wood pile—wood is cheap here—as its chief ornament. A small white pink was about the only flower that was grown freely out of doors. In hundreds of windows, however, there were house plants, largely geraniums, in bloom.
Street scenes occupied one's attention immediately. The most common would be drays pulled by fine oxen with the yokes about their horns. Better looking animals are not to be found anywhere in the United States. All the draywork is done by these carts. There are hundreds of them in town. The next thing to catch the eye was the fine horses. A gaucho clad in gay colors would ride through the streets occasionally with the easy swing of one of our cowboys and he had a picturesque getup that would fit a circus parade at home. You noted that when they tied horses they simply hobbled their forefeet.
Few women were to be observed on the streets. Many of them wore black mantillas for headdress. Now and then a smart carriage with a coachman in livery would go dashing by. Again one would see a pony cart with children under a nurse's care in it. Then one's eyes would open as he saw a fine coach drawn by four horses swing along. It made the visitor smile a little to see a big bag of potatoes tied up behind the coach, like a trunk in the racks of stages in some of our Western towns, but you must expect crudities of some kind in the jumping-off place. Then would come the Governor's carriage, correct as to livery and all the other appointments befitting his station.
The signs were all in Spanish, of course. Saloons were found all over. The entire aspect of things, however, was one of our Far Western towns that had struck it rich and was in that stage where the wealthy men are still residents of the place, actually proud to acknowledge that they have come up from humble beginnings, content to live where they have made their money and in humble dwellings, and are not yet ready to advance upon New York and build palaces that blare out to the world that they are among the newly rich and want all mankind to know it.
After you had wandered about a bit you came back intothe plaza for a look at the one fine residence of the city. It belongs to Mrs. Sara Braun Valenzuela, wife of Vice-Admiral de Valenzuela of the Chilean navy. She is one of several children of the Braun family of which Moritz Braun is now the head. The family's life has been spent here, for their parents came here as immigrants from Russia more than thirty-five years ago. The daughter Sara married a man named Nogueira, who, with the rest of the Braun family, prospered and grew rich in herding sheep and keeping store. As they prospered they improved themselves mentally and acquired finish in social matters. To the credit of the family it must be said that each of its members speaks freely of his or her rise in the world, and you must smile a little at the twinkle in their eyes as these accomplished linguists, well-equipped business people, familiar with finance, stock speculation, trading, correct social usages, say:
"You know our people came here as immigrants, very poor, and had to make their way in the world, just as many of the ancestors of the rich in your own country did. By the way, I believe that the founder of the Astor family started out in life peddling furs and then selling them in a store. Of course, one has to start in life as best he can. We sold furs, of course, but the sheep and wool industry gave us our opportunity. However, one should be modest about his belongings. This is our home and here we shall probably stay. We are of the town and have no aspirations except to do our share in advancing the place and to be good citizens."
Several years ago Señor Nogueira died, leaving his wife a millionaire. She decided to have more of the physicalcomforts and she built the fine house in which she dwells. Building materials and workmen were brought from Buenos Ayres, and the result was a house that would do credit to any city in the world. Its glass covered porch and its conservatory give it the appearance of the home of one who not only appreciates luxury but has a love of flowers and good taste in furnishings. Four years ago Mrs. Nogueira, still a young woman comparatively, married Admiral de Valenzuela. The Admiral's duties keep him away for the most part, but his wife remains, content to dwell where the rest of her family reside and where she can look after her immense business interests. She owns a good part of the town and has an enormous income for a woman in South America. Her house cost about $150,000 to build. The furnishings cost well into the tens of thousands and the combined result is to make it one of the most comfortable, luxurious and complete dwelling places to be found anywhere. One sight of it was sufficient to make the observer stop short and admire. It was so unexpected, you see, after you had been wandering about in a city of corrugated iron dwellings.
There are half a dozen other rather pretentious places in the town. Mr. Braun's house and lot cost him about $150,000, and there are two or three places that would be worth probably from $10,000 to $20,000 in the States. Otherwise the rich are content to dwell as if they were in moderate circumstances.
You wandered about the plaza some more and soon found yourself in the rooms of the Magellanos, or the English club, well fitted up establishments, with smoking rooms, reading rooms, reception rooms and billiard rooms. Theseclubs are small compared with those in New York, but they are complete as far as they go and are really pleasant loafing places. Then perhaps you went across the plaza to look at the mission Catholic church. As you went down the side street you noticed an entrance to what seemed to be the parish house and a school. Some one told you that in there was a museum of natural history that was really unusual. In you went, and you met Father Marabini, urbane, gentle, cordial and a scholar, a lover of nature, under whose supervision a small but most valuable collection of birds, fishes, reptiles, animals and geological specimens has been gathered together. When many of the animals found in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego have been destroyed and wiped out under the pressure of civilization, like our buffaloes and the seals, all this country and the lovers of natural history everywhere, to say nothing of the devotees of science, will be grateful to this humble Dominican monk for his labor and patience of years.
In addition to natural history Father Marabini has gone into anthropology to some extent. His collection along that line has yet to be enlarged, but you find weapons, hunting and fishing implements, canoes, specimens of clothing of Indians, photographs of the aborigines, now fast disappearing. Chief Mulato, the last of the high grade Patagonian Indians, died only recently of smallpox. The Fuegan Indians, described as the canoe Indians and the lowest form of humanity on earth, are also going. Speed will have to be made to get a complete anthropological collection of these people.
In the natural history collection you see specimens of the albatross, the largest bird that flies; the condor, all thefowl of the region, the deer, guanacoes, otter, seals and other fur bearing animals; you also see geological specimens bearing on the mineral wealth of the country and also specimens devoted to pure geology. You see the pottery and the metal working of the natives. You can spend hours there with Father Marabini and you leave him with regret and respect. His museum is one that would make a most creditable showing in New York's Museum of Natural History.
You wander out to the north and you soon find a large building surrounded by a high fence. You learn it is the Charity Hospital, with accommodations for thirty-five patients, a boon to this far off land. The late Dr. Nicholas Senn made a visit to this hospital late last summer and commended it highly. He prided himself on having visited the most northern hospital in the world at Hammerfest, Norway, in 1890, and the most southern last year. He declared this one to be "a credit to the young city and a refuge for the homeless sick and injured in this hospitable and remote part of the world."
So the visitor found this a well equipped, modern city with the residents rosy in their cheeks, cheerful and contented with their lot in life. They said that sometimes it grew a little monotonous, but never dreary. Most of the year they have theatricals, and just now they have a more or less permanent company. A good many of those on the fleet went to the vaudeville show and said they found it very good indeed.
It was not until Mr. Braun, our Consular Agent, gave a reception to the fleet that the full power of Punta Arenas to do the handsome and correct thing was revealed. Theguests entered a home modern in every respect. They found a great hall whose floor was covered with rugs, a large room behind that as big as a private saloon in Paris, a magnificent dining room with panelled ceiling, a superbly furnished drawing room and side rooms used for smoking or retiring rooms. There did not seem to be a door on all the first floor. It is a house of large floor dimensions rather than of elevation, and the first floor was like a palace rather than a mere dwelling.
The appointments—table furnishings, beautiful candelabra, glassware, punch bowls (there were half a dozen of them), dainty little tables spread with confections and the main dining room table elaborately set and decked out—were such as only great wealth could provide.
And the company! Of course the naval officers were in full dress with all their gilt fixings and white gloves, but every other man there, and there were dozens, was as correctly garbed in evening dress as at any Fifth avenue reception. The number of handsomely gowned women was a surprise. There were probably fifty in costumes that were distinctly Parisian. The one comment was:
"Where did they get these fine looking women?"
You didn't see them on the streets and you were astonished that there was so much society in the place. You heard all languages spoken and you might imagine you were in Paris. When the band struck up it was with a quadrille. You were pleased perhaps to see the old dances—quadrilles, lanciers, schottisches, the old waltzes—danced. You see, the new kind of glides, two steps, walk arounds, fancy steps they call dancing nowadays—and perhaps it is dancing—hasn't struck Punta Arenasyet. Surely in that respect the town was behind the times. It couldn't do the hippety-hoppety steps and the slides and glides. Poor old fashioned Punta Arenas!
The brilliant scenes at Mr. Braun's home were duplicated two nights later at the Governor's ball. This reception was a display in keeping with the wealth of the place. There was no vulgarity, no crudeness, no little amusing sidelights that showed that the town had just arrived in a social way. It was plain that Punta Arenas knew how to entertain. Scores of naval officers said that they never saw entertainments in Washington in better taste.
After all this you began to investigate what it meant. There was one answer to the question—wool and sheep. When you hunted for statistics you got them from an official whose business it is to collect them. You found that last November the population of the place was 11,800 and of the territory 17,000. In 1889 the population of the territory was 2,500 and the town only 1,100. It was a pretty raw town then. You found that in 1906 the number of sheep in the Magellan territory was 1,873,700 and that thirty years ago it was less than 2,000. You learned that the industry was started through the Falkland Islanders, 200 miles to the eastward, where the Scotch missionaries got rich quick and were not averse to worshipping mammon to some extent. You learned that the number of tons of wool exported last year was 7,174, that the number of refrigerated sheep exported last year was 104,427 and that this year it would probably be 130,000.
You learned that the imports of the town were nearly $3,000,000 a year and the exports nearly $5,000,000.You found that there was a coal mine in operation close by, producing about 12,000 tons a year, chiefly for local use. The coal is of the lignite variety and disintegrates rapidly. It is improving as the shaft sinks deeper, and the owners hope soon to have coal that they can sell to steamships. That will help Punta Arenas a good deal.
You learned that there are three daily newspapers here, each giving cable news. Indeed, we heard of the assassination of King Carlos here as quickly as the rest of the civilized world. You were even surprised to find that there is one tri-weekly newspaper in English and you get a copy and read the list of guests at Mr. Braun's reception, quite up to date with the society news. You learned that Punta Arenas had been connected with the rest of the world since December, 1902, when the overland telegraph was put through to Buenos Ayres. You learned that there was gold in all the hills near by; that four dredges were engaged in mining over in Fireland, as they call Tierra del Fuego here, and one in a gulch just back of the town. Some progress has been made with this mining and there are Americans and men from the Transvaal engaged in the industry. A lot of money has been put into it, but the expense of getting the gold is still too high to make the proposition attractive to the general public and so one need not look for a gold rush here for some time. You learned that there was copper mining in many places, but that the difficulty in getting transportation by water from the remote places high up the mountains where such mines are is such as to eat up most of the profits. You learned that about 60 per cent. of the population is foreign, ranking as follows as to numbers: Austrian, German, French, English, Spanish, Scandinavian and American.
The prosperity of the town you then realized depended upon sheep and furs, chiefly sheep. You found four immense ranching companies doing business here and you got the annual report of the largest one, the Exploration Society of Tierra del Fuego. It has 1,200,000 shares, owned mostly by Valparaiso and Santiago people, but Punta Arenas has 140,000 shares, of which Mr. Braun owns 62,000. This company owns 1,200,000 acres of land and its wool clip is nearly 6,000,000 pounds. Last year it had 900,000 sheep, 14,000 cattle and 8,000 horses on its property. Its capital is $6,000,000 and last year it paid nearly 15 per cent. in dividends. It has its property divided into five big ranches. Altogether its real estate holdings are as big as the State of Delaware and nearly one-half as large as the State of Connecticut. That isn't very large compared with the entire territory of Tierra del Fuego, because that land is as big as the State of New York, but it is pretty big doings as sheep ranches go. Australia and Argentina can make a slightly better showing in the production of wool, but, as the Punta Arenas people say, this country is still young in the business.
You began to wonder how the sheep could thrive in this terribly cold and barren region and you were surprised to be told that really it wasn't very cold here. You hunted that matter up for yourself and you found that Father Marabini had been keeping a well equipped meteorological establishment for fifteen years and you got the printed records. You found that the average temperature for February, the warmest month in the year, was 52.5 Fahrenheit, 11.6 centigrade; that the highest temperature for fifteen years was 77 degrees (20.59 centigrade), and that the lowest recorded in summer in all that time was 33.8 (1.31 centigrade). That made you shiver some. Then you looked for the lowest winter records. You found them in July. The lowest recorded temperature for that month is 20 degrees above zero (-6.70 centigrade), and the highest 44 degrees (7.91 centigrade). You found that the average temperature for the three summer months in fifteen years was 52.5 (11.396 centigrade), and the average for the winter months was 36 (2.225 centigrade). Few places in the temperate zone can show a variation of temperature of only sixteen degrees between winter and summer.
The temperature record and the rich grasses on the plains told the story of sheep farming here. There isn't much snow. Now and then there is a fall of from two to three feet, but for the most part the snowfalls are only a few inches in depth. The greatest climatic drawback is the searching winds. These winds blow hardest in summer and give a decided chill to the air. The fleet was here in the best season of the year. On two days out of the six it was comfortable to wear light overcoats. The temperature was something like our April weather. Occasionally it rained for a few minutes, but four of the days were absolutely clear. We came in when there was a high wind and a drop in the temperature and we feared that the stay would be most uncomfortable. It was anything but that from a climatic standpoint.
So goes the statement quoted early in this article, that it doesn't rain every day in the year in Punta Arenas because some days it snows. The value of the other statement that the bay is shallow is shown by the fact that if the port hadn't been crowded the fleet would have anchored within half a mile of the city. As it was, it anchored about a mile out and the water was so deep that three of the battleships had to move in a quarter of a mile because there is a limit to the length of anchor chains. As to the impossibility of landing more than once a week, it may be said that there never was an hour when the launches could not land. Once or twice the wind came up and the little craft tossed about a bit, but that happens in any port. So goes another of the many informing things that have been said incorrectly about this much abused and misunderstood place.
After learning something about the business of the place the inquirer naturally turned to the form of government. He learned that it was a place without politics because it has no suffrage. The Governor and three alcaldes, with a consulting board of paid city officials, run things. The alcaldes are representative men. One represents the foreign interests especially. They pass rules and ordinances which are approved or disapproved by what would be called in Santiago the Colonial Office. These laws are rarely disapproved. The alcaldes are wise in their generation. They do not adopt unpopular measures. Public opinion is so strong that any alcalde who got to cutting up and attempting boss rule would find himself so cut off from the rest of the people with whom he must live and do business that he would feel as if he had been banished. There is a movement to make the territory a provincewith political powers of its own, but it is being fought vigorously.
"We are so well governed," said a resident of ten years to the Sun man, "that we do not need a change. We can put the responsibility right on the one man in our present situation. Nothing goes wrong and our taxes amount to about $3 on $1,000 in a year. Real estate and live stock are about the only things taxed."
Well governed as Punta Arenas is it is curious to note how certain customs in municipal government exist the world over. Did you notice that police official who just went by? Well, he keeps his carriage and private coachman and his people dress well, and his home is above the average in its pretensions. His salary? Oh, about $1,500 a year. You see they can't pay high police salaries in a town of 12,000 and only about fifty policemen. But there are certain resorts which sailormen and others support in all remote places of any size, and the authorities somehow seem not to observe them too closely—well, there's no need to go into the matter further.
Some things, however, are a little different in Punta Arenas from other places, because it is one of the few large free ports in the world. You can import anything duty free. Chile had to adopt this plan to build the place up. Even ocean freight is high to this far off place. Argentina had to make several of its neighboring ports free in consequence of the advantages of Punta Arenas, and so you have about five free ports down in this neck of the woods.
Some curious effects have followed, the most interestingof which is that Punta Arenas is one of the greatest centres of smuggling in the world. You will not get any of its merchants to admit it openly. For instance, it is said that there are more Havana cigars imported into Punta Arenas than into all the rest of Chile put together. They are not consumed here. They go somewhere. Punta Arenas does not begin to use all the millions of goods imported. A little figuring would show that. The outside population in the territory, amounting to about 5,000, could not take care of the rest after the wants of Punta Arenas are satisfied. Why, there are no less than twenty-two coasting steamers engaged in trade from here, to say nothing about scores of sloops and schooners darting in and out among the islands and channels that run far up the Pacific coast. One of the merchants gave an instance of the smuggling. He said:
"Not long ago I had several hundred articles of limited sale consigned to me by mistake. I couldn't sell them here and didn't want to send them back. I sent some somewhere else. They sold like hot cakes. You see the price was so much lower than you could buy them before in that same city where they were sent. It is true that there is a great deal of quiet wealth here, but really you mustn't ask too many questions."
An interesting sidelight was thrown on this subject when this same man was talking about the illumination of the city by the American fleet's searchlights on the night before the fleet sailed. Fully seventy-five beams were thrown from the ships. They swept the town fore and aft. Some of the ships concentrated their lights in one spot. Five beams from our ship were centered upon thechurch steeple in the plaza. It made the place so light that you could read a newspaper anywhere. The entire town was in a light almost like that of midday.
"I wonder that it didn't make some of our people run into holes to hide," said a citizen who knew things when he was speaking of the brilliant illumination.
As is well known, Punta Arenas started out in life as a penal colony. It will surprise most of those who know the place and probably some of the residents themselves that it is still a penal colony legally, because the penal laws were never repealed. Indeed, it is even now a place of exile. Every few months some man arrives from the upper part of Chile who has been banished to the place. Once here he is welcome to stay or go as he pleases. These men are usually embezzlers or undesirable citizens from some other cause in small places where the machinery of justice is inadequate to fit the crime. The culprit is ordered to Punta Arenas.
It was in 1843 that Chile took possession of all this territory, wresting it from Spain. She established a penal colony at once in Port Famine, a few miles from here. In 1849 she removed the colony to Punta Arenas. Two years later there was mutiny of the guards, led by Lieut. Cambiaso. There was a good deal of slaughtering before it was quelled. In 1877 there was another similar mutiny, and then Chile withdrew the guards and let Punta Arenas get along as a commercial place.
The free port regulations followed, merchants came dropping in, fur trading became profitable and then came the sheep industry and Punta Arenas graduated into the really modern city it is. Where it is possible to makemoney there you will find people these days, for the rovers of the earth are just as active as ever and neither cold nor heat, sickness nor desolation will stop the march of commerce.
There are still many citizens of Punta Arenas who came here in the days of the penal colony. Many of them were political prisoners. Many were mere youths who had gone wrong. Scores of them have remained and have grown up to be good citizens and solid business men, a credit to any community. Still the memory of the past remains with some, as was shown when the Sun man was walking along the street with a merchant and stopped to look at a finely dressed party of men and women going down to the pier to go off to the Connecticut on the day of the elaborate reception on board. The men were in frock coats and tall hats and the women in beautifully fitting afternoon gowns.
"That's as fine a looking group of men and women as you would see in any of our ports," said the Sun man.
"Perhaps so," said his companion, "but one has to smile a little when one thinks of some things."
"A past?" inquired the Sun man.
"Oh, yes," was the answer, "but one shouldn't refer to that. Only it does make me smile."
This man hadn't received an invitation to the reception. He had a past that would bear the closest scrutiny. His point of view was responsible for the tone of his remarks. Nevertheless, how many of our own frontier towns could stand inspection when it comes to investigating the careers of some of their solid citizens?
Here is a town which has fine free schools, where theMethodist mission conducted by the Rev. J. L. Lewis not only has a congregation of 300 but an English school of forty pupils; where the Episcopal mission has a congregation of 400 and a mixed school of 100 children; a town where there is very little crime, and what there is is chiefly disorderly conduct; a place where everybody is prosperous, apparently; where life is sometimes dull, but always comfortable, with good government, and where a man can stand on his own merits as he is and not as he has been.
The bluejackets enjoyed their stay here thoroughly. Only the special first class men were allowed on shore; to have turned all the men of the fleet loose would have swamped the town, for there were more persons in the fleet than in the city. The men who did get shore leave made for post card shops first. In a day nearly all the best cards were gone. The supply lasted throughout the stay, but now and then you would meet a party of bluejackets hunting the town over for better specimens. So serious was this drain upon the town that the supply of postage stamps ran out on several days. It was necessary to go to the treasury vaults here to replenish the post office.
The bluejackets then swamped the fur stores. Many really fine specimens of furs can be secured here and at moderate prices compared to those in the United States. The bluejackets spent thousands upon thousands of dollars, and so did the officers. Fox, guanaco, seal, otter, alpaca, vicuña, puma—any kind of fur that seems to be in the market, except tiger's skins, was to be found. Then the plumage of birds, ostriches, swans, gulls and so on was sought out eagerly. Some of the skins were fully dressed and some not, but the commonest sight in Punta Arenasfor the six days the fleet was here was hundreds of sailors making for steam launches with great bundles of furs under their arms. Many a woman in the States will have the opportunity of explaining to inquiring friends that Tom or Dick or Bill got that fur for her right across from Tierra del Fuego, and many an officer will show a floor covering with something of the same satisfaction.
Having purchased his furs and postal cards and having taken samples of the various brands of libation, as sailor men usually do in foreign and home ports—it must be said in truth there was almost no excessive drinking because only special first class men were ashore—Jack turned his attention to other things. He soon found that there were dozens of very good saddle horses in town and he promptly went horseback riding. Scores of sailors could be seen galloping about the streets. Amusing? Yes, in a way, but not because they could not ride. Many of them rode like cowboys. You see a large part of the young blood of this fleet, indeed most of it, comes right off the farms, Western farms, too, and those boys know how to ride and handle horses. The people gaped at them and then took it as a matter of course that an American Jack tar could do almost anything.
The officers, too, had their fun ashore. In two hours after the fleet was anchored many of those off duty were seen in riding costume cantering about the streets on fine horses that the chief of police put at their disposal. An hour or two later the launches began to land roughly dressed men with rifles and bags. They were hunting parties, going right out to get foxes and pumas and all sorts of wild things in the suburbs. Finally a mysteriousgroup landed from the Vermont. They had ponchos and picks and shovels and guns.
"Where you going?" was the inquiry on all sides.
"Ask Connolly," was the answer.
Now, Connolly is the famous writer of sea fiction, particularly Gloucester fishing stories, the warm personal friend of the President, and he once served in the navy two months as yeoman, at Mr. Roosevelt's suggestion, so as to pick up local color.
"Going out to camp on the hills and discover gold!" was all you could get out of Connolly. Late the next afternoon the bedraggled party swung into town again. Connolly's hand was tied up. A more trampy looking outfit never struck a town.
"What's the matter?" asked the crowd surging about Connolly on the pier.
"Oh, nothing at all," he said, and then he looked faint and sighed. Then began a quest for information as to whether they found gold or shot anything, and how was Connolly hurt. Finally it was whispered that a Tierra del Fuego Indian who had stealthily crossed to the mainland had shot at the party and the Mauser bullet, Mauser, mind you, had nipped Connolly and had caused a bad flesh wound. Then it was a puma that had leaped upon him and he had strangled it to death. Then the story went that he had been shot accidentally by one of the party. Then he had broken his fist in a fierce personal encounter with savages. All through this period of rumors and yarns all Connolly could do was to nod and make a show of great nerve in not noticing the terrible pain under which he was suffering.
Well, there had to be an end of it, and it came out that Connolly had slipped in wading a stream and in trying to keep himself from falling had put a finger out of joint. He grinned over the joke and when he was asked for details of the shooting he said:
"Honestly, we did see some puma tracks!"
That, so far as results were concerned, was the experience of all the hunting parties. The Yankton took some of the officers across to Fireland, about twenty miles, one day. They got some fine birds and a fox or two and had really good sport. Punta Arenas not providing any hunting, the officers took to receptions for the rest of the stay.
One thing that keeps impressing itself upon the patriotic observer as this fleet goes from port to port should be mentioned. It is the painful lack of the American flag on shipping. The English and German flags are seen everywhere. All over this South American country you also hear one lament from merchants. It is that there is no American line of steamships trading directly all along the coast. Everywhere they tell you of the great opportunities for American goods down here.
"If you Americans would only find out what we want and then learn how to pack the goods and then would establish steamship lines there is immense wealth to be had in our trade. Give us American steamship lines," is the burden of general comment.
This is not the place for a discussion of the revival of the American merchant marine or the best methods to attain that end. The writer of this has no desire to go beyond the province of his assignment, which is to chronicle the doings of the fleet, but surely one may mention withpropriety the one remark in every port that the presence of the fleet has brought forth.
Punta Arenas was like the rest in its craving for American trade. It may be the jumping off place of the earth, but if you did have to jump off a ship and should land here you might be in far worse places, and if you had to jump off from here the fact would still remain that you might jump from more undesirable places. The American sailor men were practically unanimous in voting Punta Arenas all right and a tremendous surprise.
Fog, Shoal, Wind and Tide—Most Awesome Scenery in the World, but Not a Place to Anchor—Start at the Witching Hour of 11 p.m. on Friday Brought Only Good Luck to the Long Line of U. S. Leviathans, Flanked by Its Torpedo Flotilla—Vessels Wabble Where the Tides Meet, but Steady Hands Curb Them Back to the Course—The Willywaw—Island Post Office and Cape Pilar, Where No Ship-wrecked Seaman Ever Escaped.
On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,
At Sea, Feb. 15.
WHENword was cabled from Chile just before Admiral Evans's fleet swept in and out of Valparaiso harbor on February 14 that the fleet had passed through the Strait of Magellan safely, there was probably a feeling of relief in Washington. Admiration for the successful performance of a great feat of seamanship was probably expressed generally throughout the world. The passage accomplished, it was easy to say that all along every one who had any sense knew that it would come out all right and not for one moment had there been any real cause for anxiety. Of course, of course!
Nevertheless all the world knows there was great anxiety and even dread lest something serious might happen in navigating this most treacherous and dangerous passagein the world. Even the foreign press said that it would be a supreme test of American seamanship to take a fleet of sixteen battleships, to say nothing of the auxiliaries, through those waters.
It is comparatively easy to take one or two ships through the straits. Two or three hundred skippers perform that task with success every year. Time and again have our warships, singly and in groups of two or three, gone through with ease. But here were sixteen monster ships that had to go through in single file and within about 400 yards of one another, with no place to anchor and without the possibility of stopping, buffeted by swift tides and currents, in danger of running into the sheer cliffs of mountains or of striking hidden rocks in fog or possibly snow. If any serious mishap had occurred there was nothing to do but go right on. You couldn't lay to in these waters. If fog hid the way you must keep on and trust to picking up headlands here and there, and you must maintain your sustained speed of ten knots, because each vessel would then know where its immediate predecessor or follower ought to be.
Certainly it was a difficult performance, one fraught with great danger and grave responsibility. The chief point is, however, that the fleet got through without the slightest mishap. It was done as easily as entering the harbor of New York. There was not the slightest manifestation of undue concern by any of the officers of the fleet, but it cannot be denied that every one was keyed up to his best and all were glad when the roll of the Pacific was felt. When it was over all hands looked at one another and said, in the French expression, "It is to laugh."
But you want to know all about it? Is there an impatient call for details of this much-heralded trip of dread, a breathless demand to know how many close calls and narrow escapes there were from hitting sunken rocks, gliding against precipices, scraping the paint from the ships' sides, dodging willywaws? You want to learn how many men were nearly swept from the decks by overhanging cliffs and limbs of trees, how often icebergs choked the narrow places, how many times the treacherous Fuegan Indians, "the lowest form of humanity on earth," lit their fires as signals that there would be fine plunder and good eating of humans when one or more of these ships went on the rocks; whether it was true that the officers and crews went without sleep or food until all dangers were passed?
Well, if you guessed any or all those things you must guess again. None of 'em happened. Of course the winds blew fiercely at times, but they do that every day in the year in the Magellans. Of course the tide rips caught the ships at certain critical places and twisted and turned them somewhat. Of course the rain fell occasionally and now and then shut out from view a most beautiful glacier or snow field just when you wanted to see it most. Of course the clouds obscured the mountain tops from time to time. Of course the currents and tides swept through the various reaches like mill races. Of course a willywaw or two came out and smote us, and of course there was fog.
But if you want to know how easily the passage was made let it be said the last thirty miles of it was in a mist that thickened into a dense fog, obscuring the landon both sides completely for hours and only now and then lifting for a moment's revelation of some rock or headland. Yes, the American fleet not only went through the dangerous passage, but it actually sailed through miles and miles of fog in doing so, and it was done in as smart a fashion as if the ships were on the high seas and not in the most fearsome strait in the world, intervals and speed being kept perfectly. After all, even if the men on the fleet pretended to make light of it, the performance was a fine piece of navigation. Admiral Evans has just reason to be proud of it and so have the American people. It couldn't have been done better.
There was reason for dread. Hadn't all the timid folk spoken of the terrible risks to be run? Hadn't the superstitious lifted up their voices and pointed out that in the fifty-two wrecks that had occurred in the strait in, say, the last twenty years, exactly twenty-six had been of vessels beginning with the letter C? Didn't we have the Connecticut to lead us? And worse than that, wasn't it the Chilean cruiser Chacabuco which had been sent to Punta Arenas as a national compliment and to act as escort about half a mile in front of the Connecticut? One ship beginning with C was enough, but here were two. That surely was wilful defiance of all the high signs and deep portents. And, then, didn't we start out from Punta Arenas on Friday night at the eleventh hour? Hadn't the moon just gone down, and who knows but that a darky had failed to catch a rabbit over in the graveyard on the beach yonder and so had missed having his left hind leg in his pocket (or whatever the details of that superstition are)? And so there was no adequate guarantee from escaping deathand destruction. Certainly it was ticklish business, a task for the ignorant or the foolhardy.
But, speaking seriously, what the maritime world thinks of this region is revealed best probably by the nomenclature of the various headlands, islands, bays and capes. A study of the charts presents such names as these: Desolation Island, Point Famine, Famine Reach, Point Mercy, Delusion Bay, Dislocation Harbor, Useless Bay, Disappointment Bay, Spider Island, Corkscrew Bay and Cormorant Island, to say nothing of Snow Sound and Snowy Inlet. Why, the very contemplation of the chart was sufficient to give a landsman the shiverees!
The Strait of Magellan is 360 miles long and the width varies from about a mile and a half in the narrowest part to twenty-five miles. The strait is in the form of a letter V with the right part curved down a little at the top and the left part extended above what would be the correct proportion of a well-shaped letter. The short end reaches out into the Atlantic and the long end into the Pacific. The short right end is barren of fine scenery, the grandeur of the hills being reserved for the long or western end. Down at the point of the latter is Cape Froward. Coming from the eastern end there is about fifteen miles of rugged scenery before you make the turn to the northwest. Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, as the English call this hustling, modern city, is about two-thirds down the eastern side on a broad stretch of water known as Broad Reach. Opposite is Useless Bay, probably so called because it is useless to go over there to find an exit from the strait.
It is desirable, almost necessary in fact, to make the run through the strait in daylight. To do this you enter,say, from the east as early in the morning as possible so as to make Punta Arenas by night. Leaving that port you start at night, about midnight. You have about forty-five miles of broad deep water with no difficulties in navigation to Cape Froward, which you reach by daybreak. After that you can go through the western end of the strait by daylight and reach the Pacific about nightfall.
The strait has half a dozen lights in it, but in time of fog or fierce snowsqualls these are of little value unless by accident you happen to pick them up. Again the tide races through the strait at the rate of never less than three miles an hour and in some of the narrow places it has a speed of from five to six miles. Where the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific meet there are cross currents and disturbances that catch even the most high-powered ship and swing it here and there, despite careful work of the helmsman.
Still hundreds of steamships go through safely every year and a close study of the chart revealed only three places which occasioned anxiety to the fleet officers.
One of these places is Sarmiento Shoal that juts out into the Atlantic for miles from Cape Virgins, the Argentine headland, 135 feet high, that marks the beginning of the eastern end. It really is no more dangerous to cross, for example, than the shoals of Nantucket. The fleet came down to the shoal about noon. There is one place where there are nine fathoms of water and it has a width of only four or five miles. The task is to fix the place of crossing from bearings and then to cross it. When the exact spot was reached a fierce black cloud came up and obscuredthings. With it came a strong southwest wind that made things choppy. Over the narrow part of the shoal the ships headed. Once or twice, perhaps because the looks of the water or the lead may have given warning, the flagship made short turns. But in half an hour it was over and the fleet turned to the northwest, past Dungeness light, five miles below Cape Virgins, and marking the real entrance to the strait, which is now under the entire jurisdiction of Chile. From the mast of the Chilean signal station there fluttered flags which said, in the language of the international code:
"Enter Chilean waters; welcome distinguished American seamen; pleasant voyage."
The fleet voted the sentiment all right, even if the verbiage was somewhat unusual. There was a quick run up into the broad waters of Possession Bay, close to the entrance of the First Narrows. There are two narrows on the run to Punta Arenas and here is where the tide runs strongest in the strait. If the tide is against you it is better to anchor and wait for the turn. There is a good anchorage in the bay and about 4 o'clock of the afternoon of January 31 the mudhooks were dropped in a boiling sheet of water that in its actions resembled the lower part of Chesapeake Bay in a storm.
At daylight the next morning the fleet was under way again with a favorable tide. The First Narrows are ten miles long, two wide and have water forty fathoms deep. There was no trouble in just skimming right along. Then the ships entered another big bay, Philip Bay, and after about twenty-five miles of deep water came to the Second Narrows, twelve miles long. This passage also has a swifttide, but the waterway is about three miles wide and very deep, and no one had any concern about getting through. It was as easy as rolling down hill.
Then came the waters of Broad Reach, the wide sheet of water that stretches clear down to Punta Arenas. At the very beginning there is one of the two really difficult places in the strait to navigate. The reach has extensive shoals. Santa Magdalena Island, with a lighthouse on it, faces an oncoming ship and there are two channels, one to the north and the other to the south. Small vessels usually take the north passage, called Queen's Channel, but larger ones take the other, known as New Channel. There are two buoys which indicate dangerous places from tide rips and shoals.
Well, the fleet officers were a little nervous as they saw those tide rips. Soon it became evident that the current was dangerous. It was difficult to keep exactly on the course. Twice the Connecticut made turns to overcome the sweeping effect of the tide and keep well clear of shoals. The long line of ships kept zigzagging here and there, but in less than half an hour all the dangers of the first leg of the strait had been passed. There was nothing but fine deep water all the way to Punta Arenas, where we dropped anchor about noon.
All the experts of the fleet, the men who had been through not once but several times before were unanimous in declaring that the worst was over with the passage of New Channel and it made every one feel good. If that was all there was to going through Magellan, why on earth had there been such a big scare about it all? It didn't compare with navigating the Chesapeake in a fogor a storm and it seemed farcical to make so much fuss about it.
The fleet lay at Punta Arenas for six days, taking on coal, giving liberty and the officers going through a round of official receptions and other courtesies that made the stay one day longer than was expected because of the unusual courtesy on the part of Chile in sending a cruiser down to Punta Arenas to greet the fleet bearing a Rear Admiral, our Minister to Chile, Mr. Hicks, and our Consul at Valparaiso.
The departure of the fleet at night was set for 11 o'clock. Before that time slow-moving lights in the harbor showed that the Chacabuco had changed her station to be near the head of the procession when the start was made. Other lights had revealed that the six torpedo boats of our flotilla had been taking up cruising positions on the right and left flanks of the line that was to be formed. Just before 11 o'clock the signal had been made from the flagship to prepare to get under way. The ships had hove short. At the stroke of 11 the red and white lights flashed from the flagship and they were answered from all the ships. At once anchor engines began tugging at the chains, and soon on every ship the officer in charge of the fo'c'stle sang out:
"Up and down, sir!"
That meant that the anchor was directly under the bow of the ship and was leaving the mud, the chain being straight up and down. In a moment or two the call was:
"Anchor's aweigh, sir!"
That meant that the ship was now swinging with the tide and bells were jangled in all the engine rooms to go ahead slowly. It was all still, only a few lights on each ship wereshowing and soon the harbor presented the appearance of twenty-five or more craft slowly moving in one direction as if stealing away down the broad Famine Reach softly so as not to disturb the slumbers of the town. But the town wasn't asleep. Half the population was out to witness the departure. The thousands of electric lights showed that. As you drew away from the place it looked as if you were leaving the north shore of Staten Island and going up New York Bay, so thick were the lights on the land.
The Connecticut was quite close in shore and headed toward it. She made a sharp turn, and the Kansas, Vermont and Louisiana and the others fell in quickly. There were gaps in the line for the ships that had sought better anchorages, and these were filled in when the proper time came. Gradually the line became compact and within fifteen minutes one long column of American warships was gliding southward at a speed of ten knots, the Chilean flagship off the starboard bow of our flagship, all silently stealing away in the beautiful starlight night from hospitable and attractive Punta Arenas. The start was made as smoothly and easily as in broad daylight. There was no fuss about it. The fleet had gone about its business in a businesslike way. That business was to get through the rest of the strait in the easiest and safest manner.
You went to bed at midnight leaving orders to be called at 4 A. M. so as to come on deck and see the flagship turned toward home at Cape Froward, the lowest continental point of land in the world. You got out just abeam of Cape San Isidro, with its flashing white light, and you found yourself in the midst of rugged scenery. The sky was overcast and a strong wind, like that which churned Possession Bay whenthe fleet entered the eastern end, was blowing. Bare mountains and rocks stood out in the gloom. Soon the shadows began to purple the hillsides and rocks; there was visible a strip of green which you made out to be trees reaching half way up the black mountain sides. Then the clouds lightened; everything stood out clearly in a gray light and you knew it was time for sunrise.
The clouds broke to the east and suddenly there shot through them six great shafts of crimson light as if they were the rays of an enormous searchlight in the east, rays colored by passing through bright red glass. You stood on the bridge fascinated and almost enthralled. Then you saw the edge of the snowfield of Mount Sarmiento far to the south. The clouds hid its brow but as they broke occasionally you could catch a glimpse now and then of a glacier gripping the mountain sides with the strength and permanence of the ages and you knew that truly you were looking at God's country, not the country of home, as most folks the world over call God's country, but one that revealed the majesty of creation.
So on and on you went in the narrow channels bordered by rock-faced hills and mountains, green from the water half way up their sides. Some of the mountains were entirely of stone with abrupt sheers like the sides of the precipices in the Yosemite. Waterfalls leaped from cliffs here and there and now and then one could see a stream rushing down the hillside, foaming and roaring, its waters madly dashing to complete obliteration in the swirling sea where the immutable laws of gravity sent them. It seemed a pity that a thing so white and pure should find an ignoble end, but the power of the sun's rays had set the forces of perpetual motion in those leaps and bounds and the same streams will dash down to the sea doubtless as long as the sun's power lasts to heat the edges of the glaciers and try to rob them of their strength. You saw great peaks and short ranges. Every one had a different light upon it; every one differed from another in formation.
But this is an account of navigation rather than a description of scenery. The ships went along in the slack water easily and smoothly and again you wondered at the stories of the difficulty of steaming through this wide deep strait. You passed through Froward Reach into English Reach, and miles away, straight ahead, you saw the Thornton Peaks, where Jerome Channel cleaves a way into the large mysterious and only half explored Otway Waters, a body of water like one of the Great Lakes at home. You saw no channel ahead.
As you approached these mountains it was like the turn in the Hudson up in the Highlands, where you seem to be headed for the rocks with no way of escape except by turning back. You knew from the chart that you were then approaching Crooked Reach, that runs beside the island called Carlos III. Soon you saw a bend toward the left and then you stiffened yourself a little, for you knew that in less than half an hour you would be in the one dangerous place of navigation in the western half of the strait. It is necessary to make an S curve in Crooked Reach, something like the one in the Subway at Fourteenth street, only it is one six or eight miles long and not of a few hundred feet.
Just before you reached the line running from Jerome Point to the upper end of the island of Carlos III. you saw black lines in the water running from shore to shore, nowonly a little more than a mile apart. These lines were foam-crested and they marked the meeting place of the tides of the Atlantic and the Pacific. The officers had no time now to look at scenery. Here was serious work. The Connecticut crossed the first one and so intent were you in watching preparations to cross on your own ship that you scarcely noticed her movements. But what was the matter with the Kansas, directly astern? She was swaying off to starboard violently. Then she made a swoop to port. Queer kind of steering it seemed! Perhaps it was the Connecticut that had swayed this way and that. Wait a moment.
Soon the Kansas got fairly straight with the Connecticut and then the Vermont took to dancing sidesteps this way and that. The helm was being shifted constantly in the endeavor to keep in the middle of the road. It was the Louisiana's turn next. Standing on the bridge you scarcely noticed any deviation, but when you looked at the line of ships behind you knew that the Louisiana was having its troubles keeping straight and when you saw the quartermaster twisting the wheel about, now this way and now that, you knew that this ship had been doing fancy stunts far from home.
Then you looked at those behind. On they came, and that straight line, the pride of any one who has seen it from day to day, went zigzagging, twisting and turning, thrust here and there until it resembled the twists of a snake crawling along the ground rather than a fleet of majestic ships sailing in a straight line. Once again a similar performance of the fleet occurred and you began to realize what the dangers of navigating Magellan meant. You realized thatwith high-powered vessels such as these ships it was easy to correct the swaying of the tides and currents, but you understood what smaller ships had to contend with.
We were going through at the most favorable season of the year, but you shuddered to think what it must be to be caught here in the winter, perhaps with darkness coming on, no place to anchor and a blinding snowstorm or a fog hiding the way and your steamer having hard work even to hold its own against the terrific current that might be running against you. Oh, yes, then you knew what a task, a dangerous task it was to brave the perils of Crooked Reach and you were glad you were on a warship with strength enough to scorn nature's effort to hurl it against the rocks.
You passed dangerous Anson Rock and you soon glided out into Long Reach, an arm of the strait that runs for fifty or sixty miles to the northwest almost as straight as a taut rope, and you then took up your glasses to look around. You saw the little island just off Borja Bay, where the famous post office of the strait was situated, a place where sailors rowed ashore to leave their letters to be mailed and their newspapers months old to be read by those who followed them. You could see the signs nailed to the trees giving the names of ships that had called, the dates and the ports to which they were bound. All that is done away with now that Punta Arenas looks after the mails and gives hospitable welcome to sailormen, but those signs, some of them a half century old, told tales of hardship, of shipwreck, of misery to many a man who could read what they really meant.
Then you began again to watch the mountains. Far down Snowy Inlet you saw the sloping sides of Mount Whartonand a magnificent blue glacier sloping down its broad reaches. It had teeth all over the lower part where it had cracked under the sun's rays, but back for miles and miles, as far as the eye could reach, the blue ice extended until it hid itself in the vast snowfields of the mountain's top. You were glad that the sun's rays came out from time to time to show you a patch of the top of the mountain, for then you understood what Darwin meant when he compared some of the glaciers in the strait to "a hundred frozen Niagaras." You knew that you were looking at one of the greatest accessible ice patches in the world outside of the ice cap of Greenland.
The wind began to strengthen and black outbursts of it were seen coming toward you from time to time. Then at last you began to realize what a willywaw is. It is a fierce blast that comes down from these mountains with well defined limits like the ray of a searchlight in the night. One moment you do not feel it and then you shoot into it and it tosses you about, churns up the waters, roars and barks at you and you feel that a demon from the hills is trying to tear you to pieces. Half a dozen times one of these willywaws got started for the fleet and then the sun came out, the clouds broke up and the blast was dissipated. You could see it all with your eyes, you didn't have to imagine it. It was as if some big policemen had scattered a crowd that had begun to torment a procession and had said "G'wan!" It g'wanned all right. Finally a big one gathered force that laughed at the policeman, and it fell upon us. With it came mist and dashes of rain. It spat in our faces. It wrapped our coats about our legs inknots. It shrieked and howled at us, and when we staggered through it it laughed at us, as if to say:
"You may be a great fleet of warships, but I'm not afraid to tackle you, just like any other ship or set of ships. I have fun with every ship that goes through here, and if I don't one of my rough brothers does the business. No one who goes through here can escape a willywaw. How do you like being tousled up? Ha! Ha!"
All that the writer of this cares to say is that willywaws are rude things, the rudest kind of things he has ever met, and he's glad that you can find them nowhere else in the world than in Magellan Strait. Like the man who made a mistake in matrimony, he is willing to sing hereafter the old song:
"Once was enough for him!"
When you got past that willywaw you began perhaps to speculate on the height of the mountains and you were surprised to learn that they are not high, as snow-capped mountains go; that they varied in height from 3,000 to 4,500 feet with occasionally a monster in the distance from 5,000 to 7,500 feet tall. They looked like the Alps or the Canadian Rockies. You soon realized that it was because they rose directly from the water and there was no slope to them before they began to shoot upward, as is the case in the great mountain ranges of the earth. The fact that they were snowclad, like all the other great mountains, also made you feel as if they were as high as such elevations.
As hour after hour passed you saw why it was that one writer had said that if you had taken the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps, and had moved them all here and had submerged them up to their necks you would get scenery like that which the strait presents. As you looked at the mountains and saw the bays here and there you began also to realize what another writer meant when he said that a hundred Lake Comos, Lucernes and Genevas could not present the lordly beauty of some of these bays and inlets. Perhaps you compared the trip with that of the Inland Sea of Japan. If you did you could only say:
"This is grand; the Inland Sea is beautiful."
And when we began to reach the end of Long Reach and to get into the wide open waters of Sea Reach and the fog shut us in completely many a person then was not altogether sorry, for he had been surfeited with it all. We went down to dinner just as the ships began to feel the Pacific's swells. The wind from the northwest began to blow violently and soon after 8 o'clock word was passed that we had passed Cape Pilar, where no shipwrecked mariner ever escapes, and that the fog had lifted and those on the bridge had caught a glimpse of it. There had been thirty miles of fog navigation in the strait itself. Two hours later as the ship was plunging and careening in the gale—they always have a gale or extremely heavy swells at the Pacific entrance to Magellan—we heard that the Evangelistas Islands, four rugged rocks with a light on one, had been seen, and then we turned in, knowing that in an hour or so the fleet would be headed due north, every turn of the screws bringing us nearer home. On the whole, every one was glad that if the fog was to be it had shut off the view of the mountains and glaciers and bays just after it had been finest. We had seen the strait at its best and there was not a man who did not feel something of aweover it, believing as he did that he had been in sight of the grandest handiwork of the Creator that the earth presents.
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters.
"And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so."
Any one who has sailed through the Strait of Magellan can easily believe it was there that God began to divide the waters from the waters. Any one also who has sailed through the strait into the heaving, tossing Pacific, wrongly named for that part of the world, could realize the full significance of what was in the heart of a sailor of the midwatch who sang softly to himself as you passed him:
"Rocked in the cradle of the deep!"