Part 17

The city has a population of nearly 250,000, but, as some one else has remarked, “As the principal port of the west coast, and, in a way, the ‘downtown’ for the capital and the rest of Chile, Valparaiso seems more important than its mere population would indicate, and, although the newspapers and street signs are in Spanish and Spanish is the language generally spoken, it has little of the look of the old Spanish-American town.” A large element of the population is foreign. The Germans are said to have the largest colony and the Italians and French to come next in order. These are mostly retail merchants of the better class; but it is here also that the men live who design and control the vast nitrate and mining enterprises in the north and the capitalists who finance the big industrial projects and railway development, the exporters and importers, bankers, brokers, and insurance men, and among these the ten or twelve thousand English in the city predominate. The better-educated class of Chileans speak English as well as Spanish and French. The French have almost a monopoly of the retail trade having to do with fashionable apparel and luxuries, for Paris has always been the Mecca of the smart set here and in Santiago, just as it has in Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.

Although there are parts of the city that still retain something of the old-world aspect, the buildings generally are modern—many of them new, since it had to be largely rebuilt after the great earthquake in 1906, which was relatively as disastrous there as the one in San Francisco of the same year was to our principal Pacific port. There are few tall buildings and no skyscrapers, yet the main business street, the Calle Victoria, which parallels the Malecon almost the entire length, presents an array of government buildings, banks, hotels, theaters, cafés, retail shops, and office buildings larger and more substantial and elaborate than can be seen almost anywhere in cities of that size. The shops are of good size, and leave nothing to be desired in the way of assortment and quality of their stocks. Probably the most attractive of all the streets is the Avenida Brazil, which is at once a shaded boulevard, business thoroughfare, and fashionable promenade. There are trolley cars—with women conductors—and arc lights, libraries, first-class educational institutions, beautiful parks and plazas where they have public band concerts in the evenings, attractive residence districts, and near by, at Viña del Mar, there are sea bathing, tennis, racing, football, golf, country clubs, and a first-class hotel for those who are not so fortunate as to have their own houses. Only about sixty miles away (though it is farther by the railroad, which has to make a détour to get through the coast range) is the capital, Santiago, the real metropolis of the country.

“Santiago, the Andean city of the snow white crown,” as Marie Robinson Wright was moved to describe it—

“Is unique in the charm of her unconventional beauty and the rugged splendor of her surroundings. Like a queen in the giant castle that nature has given her, with walls of the imperishable granites of the Cordilleras and towers reaching to the skies, she seems created for the homage of those who gaze upon her. Her face is toward the sunset, as if in expectation of the high destiny that awaits this land of promise in the golden west of South America; and, from the snowy peaks behind her, marked clear against the blue sky, to the farthest limit westward, bordered by the boundless Pacific, there is no alien territory to limit the prospect of her fair domain. Her jewels, rare and resplendent, are the rich emerald of the Andean valleys, the matchless sapphire of Andean skies, the pure diamonds of Andean streams. Her royal robes are woven of the marvelous purple and gold of Andean sunsets, unrivaled in brilliancy, and imparting to her gracious beauty the glow of infinite loveliness, as they envelop her utterly, catching even the snowy peaks of her sovereign diadem in their magic folds.”

Nor is this in the least overdrawn. No city could be more delightfully situated. It lies in the great central valley, on a plateau forty miles long and about twenty wide, nearly two thousand feet above the level of the sea, where the climate is as perfect as that in the Pyrenees, and is almost completely enclosed by a magnificent border of mountains. Luzerne and other show places in Switzerland are mere miniatures compared with it. The level portion of the ground is highly cultivated with all sorts of fruits and crops that grow in the temperate zone and is divided into large _haciendas_ or plantations, nearly all with fine cattle and horse-breeding farms attached, and princely mansions as of feudal lords, and there are splendid avenues of giant eucalyptus along the roads and separating the fields. In the heart of the city itself is a hill called El Cerro de Santa Lucia, that rises to a height of three hundred feet and is half as big around as Central Park in New York, a spot which such a connoisseur as William E. Curtis declared he had “long held to be the prettiest place in the world.” The summit is reached by a number of winding driveways and walks, lined with trees, flowering shrubs and overhanging vines and flanked by battlemented walls and towers, picturesque beyond description; there are terraces ornamented with flower beds and fountains, and grottos, balconies, and rustic seats; all along, at intervals, are kiosks for music and refreshments; half way up is a theater where light opera and vaudeville performances are given both afternoons and evenings; a little farther on is a restaurant that is a favorite resort for breakfasting and dining out, and, best of all, from the summit there is a glorious view of the whole country around.

Across the city from Santa Lucia to the Central Railroad depot, an avenue called the Alameda de las Delicias extends for a distance of three miles. It is three hundred and fifty feet wide and all down the center is a beautiful park containing statues and monuments to Chile’s heroes. It is her hall of fame, not shut in by four walls, but placed in the midst of this most frequented of her promenades, among the trees and flowers and the fountains and lakes, where “the stories told in marble and bronze may inspire the multitude to patriotism and courage;” and, facing the driveways along the sides, are many of the handsomest of the residences. The old center of the city is marked by the famous Plaza de Armas, with a marble monument representing South America receiving her baptism of fire in the war of independence. On one side are the Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace, on another the splendid Municipal and Intendencia Buildings, low and massive, and Government Telegraph Office; on another, two long series of shops opening out on fine arcades that extend the whole length of the sidewalks from corner to corner.

Opposite the Plaza O’Higgins, a few blocks away, is the Congressional Palace, which occupies the whole square and is one of the largest and handsomest buildings in South America. In architectural design it looks somewhat like the Senate and House wings of our Capitol at Washington, only of course it is much larger than either mere wing; and in the same district is the Casa de Moneda (the Mint), in which the President and Cabinet have their offices, a massive structure as big as our Washington Treasury, and the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts.

It is around the plaza that society takes its customary stroll in the evenings and the dusky-eyed, black-haired _señoritas_, according to the Latin custom, flirt as much as they dare with the young exquisites, who frankly and boldly admire with glances more eloquent than words. Writing of this custom, which would not be tolerated in our cities, Arthur Ruhl says that—

“They are dapper and very confident young men” (these oglers), “combining in their demeanor the gallantry of their Spanish inheritance with a certain bumptiousness rather characteristically Chilean. They stare at those who pass—some in _mantos_, some in French dresses with Paris hats—and in Spanish murmur, half audibly, such observations as, ‘I like the blonde best,’ or ‘Give me the little one.’ And, as they still retain some of that simplicity which in the interior causes a stranger to be watched as though he were a camel or a calliope, they will stare even at the _gringo_, comment on the cut of his clothes or facetiously compare his blunt walking boots with their long, thin ones. They are rather irritating sometimes, especially the young officers in their smart German uniforms, and one dreams of home and a Broadway policeman marching down upon them leisurely with a night-stick and fanning them away.”

Though why he should have mentioned a “blonde” in illustrating their comments, one must wonder. Maybe it was because there are so few. As a rule their hair and eyes, if not black, are a dark, rich brown, and their complexion of the clear, cream-tinted, brunette type. “But,” he continues—

“The young women do not mind it at all.... And you will not make yourself at all popular by sympathizing, for they would only laugh and say: ‘Oh, they’re all right. That’s only their way of beginning. They’re quite sensible and nice when you come to know them.’ There are ways and ways, and in South America a girl who may not receive a formal call from a man without having her mother and half the family in the room at the same time may blandly listen to repartee that would make our maidens gasp for breath.... It is at dusk, particularly if the band is playing, or if it is Sunday, that the promenade begins round the Plaza—a row of spectators on the inside benches, on the outside young idlers and officers two or three deep—between two shuffling concentric circles, in one of which are the men, in the other the shrinking _señoritas_, two by two, or hanging on the arm of a protector. Every man who can sport a top-hat and a pair of saffron gloves, if it is Sunday, and all the women except the very austere ones, gather here and circle round in that armed neutrality of the sexes which is the tradition of their blood.”

In general style Santiago is not as modern as Valparaiso, though it is far more interesting and attractive, and is not behind in public utilities, educational facilities, and energy—or in the attractiveness of their street-car service, for here, too, the conductors are neatly uniformed women, lots of them young and good-looking. Many of the more pretentious residences are old family mansions of the Moorish, characteristically Spanish colonial type and, therefore, charming to a stranger from the north. Most of them are like those described in the chapter on Uruguay—built around a large square central court or _patio_, filled with flower-beds and palms and with galleries around the sides onto which the rooms of the upper stories open. These galleries serve the same purpose as our interior hallways. They are usually supported by substantial but graceful stone arches and piers, and are reached by handsome stairways, also of stone, leading up from the court. Very often there is a fountain and sometimes statuary, and through the big gateways when the ponderous iron-studded doors happen to be open, delicious glimpses may be caught in passing. The windows opening on the streets are usually heavily barred, and the outer walls are in many cases frescoed and tinted and ornamented with wreaths and vases of stucco. Some few of the great houses are massive stone affairs of modern construction that resemble the mansions on the fashionable residence streets of our principal northern cities.

Like all the greater South American towns, Santiago has her museums, libraries, magnificent municipal theater and places of popular amusement; and she has her clubs and racecourse and public gatherings of the fashionables, who are as elegantly dressed and smart-looking as those of Buenos Aires—though she still has her religious processions too on the great feast days, and all the ladies still wear their black, shroudlike _mantos_ to church. Disfiguring and funereal as it is, this is an observance that is still insisted on by the priests. In short, though differing from our capitals in many respects, this greatest city in Chile is obviously a metropolis and offers opportunities for sightseeing and amusements of every description that few cities in the world can surpass. And, as in Lima, there is an aristocracy here, descended directly from the old Conquistadore stock, that has retained its wealth and power in the land through all the vicissitudes of both the colonial and republican régimes.

III

The long series of groups of islands beginning with Chiloé, about two-thirds of the way down the coast, is said to be nothing more than a partly submerged section of the Western Cordillera. Above the surface of the water, for a distance of about eighty miles, they still have an average elevation of about two thousand feet. Embraced in the Chonos Archipelago, between Chiloé and the Taytao Peninsula, are more than a thousand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then come the large islands of Wellington, Madre de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, Queen Adelaide, King William’s Land, etc., each fringed by groups of little ones and all following the mainland in a graceful curve and separated from it by the Messier, Sarmiento, and Smyth Channels, which, together, extend for three hundred and sixty miles, from the Penas Gulf to the Strait of Magellan. As the steamer glides through, at times so straight are they and such is the uniformity of the shore line on either side, one fancies one’s self in a wide river in the interior of the continent; at others, when openings among the islands appear and the water stretches for miles toward the sea or far into the recesses of the Cordillera, it seems more like a great lake.

The fjordlike formations recall the more celebrated channel off the coast of Norway leading to the North Cape. Indeed, it is generally agreed by those who have seen both that there is little to choose between them, for, in both, the indentations and mountains of the coast and islands are similar in character; if there is less variety in the Chilean one, if the rainstorms are more frequent, to compensate for it there is a much greater and more attractive wealth of vegetation. From the water’s edge to a height of fourteen or fifteen hundred feet, the slopes, and even the smaller islands, are covered with an unbroken mantle of beautiful, dense, green forest that presents an astonishing contrast, in this inhospitable region, to the bleak, gray rocks and bluish-tinted ice sheets above and the pure white snow caps on the summits beyond.

In the country from Valdivia south to Smyth Channel, many of the trees, particularly in the ravines and sheltered places, are tall and shapely and their trunks and lower branches are incrusted with mosses and entwined with flowering creepers and vines, many with a sort of mistletoe that has clusters of dark-red blossoms; one of the creepers, called angel’s hair, is delicate and filmy and hangs from the branches like threads of lace, and there is an undergrowth of ferns and shrubs and bamboo. These last often shoot up as far as the tops of the trees and seem to mat them together so that they form arbors over the pathways between. Farther south and in the region of the Strait, these woods lose something of their mysterious beauty; here they are composed principally of antarctic beech, gnarled and bent by the winds, and the thicketlike undergrowth is somber and forbidding.

Emerging from the channel, for the first time the steamer encounters heavy rollers, which come dashing in through the broad gateway to the Pacific, not far to the west. Here, even in summer, it is seldom that there is neither storm nor fog, but, when it is clear enough, one can see the tempest-torn promontory of Cape Pillar, at the end of Desolation Island, the southwestern portal of the Strait. Eastward the conditions improve; the water grows smooth again and the clouds are usually lifted above the lower mountain tops; the scenery grows still more impressive than in the channel—only it is solemnly impressive now—at least, so it strikes most travelers. The Strait is much wider; the steamer is far enough away from the shore to enable one to see above the shoulders of the mountains to their summits, yet not so far that the distance renders them too indistinct; the water is steel gray, the bases and buttresses of the mountains take on a shade of purple, the summits seem whiter than ever, and over all, except during the comparatively rare intervals when the sun shines, are leaden clouds. In the center of the Strait, where the continent proper comes to a wedge-shaped point known as Cape Froward, and up to the eastern arm, only a few miles away, lies Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world.

In the jumble of ranges forming the transmagellan continuation of the great Cordillera of the Andes, the most important is that named after the scientist, Charles Darwin, who was the first to explore it, on the long western arm of the Island of Tierra del Fuego. The highest and most conspicuous happens to be the nearest to this remarkable port, and, as no better idea of the region in general could be conveyed, it seems to me, I quote from the story of a visit to Mt. Sarmiento, made by Sir Martin Conway the same summer he climbed Aconcagua, rather than attempt a description myself. He says:

“The sun was shining quite hotly and the ice was almost dazzlingly brilliant. After scrambling with difficulty onto the glacier and wandering about the moraine area, we returned toward the shore, finding an exit through the forest at a much narrower place. The air was cool, the sun bright; there were little puffs of breeze; it was the very perfection of a day for active open-air life. Yet the clouds still hung stationary on the summit of Sarmiento. We lay awhile on the shore beside the rippling waters; then rowed away in hopes of seeing our mountain’s misty veil lifted if only for a moment. The long, late midsummer sunset was at hand. A tender pink light, far fainter than the rich radiance of the Alpine glow, lay upon the surface of the glacier and empurpled its crevasses; it permeated the mist aloft. The cruel rocks, incrusted with ice, and the roof of the final precipice, with its steep ridges and icy _couloirs_, were all that could be seen. The graceful, ice-rounded foundation rocks of this and all the other mountains around slope up to the cliff and jagged _arêtes_ above and make each peak beautiful with contrasted forms, massive, yet suave of outline beneath, splintered and aspiring above. In one direction we looked along the channel of our approach, in another, for twenty miles or so, along Cockburn Channel, with a fine range of snowy peaks beside it, prolonging Sarmiento’s western range.

“The water was absolutely still; we floated with oars drawn in. Looking once more aloft, I found the mist grown thinner. The pink light crept higher and higher as the cloud dissolved. Suddenly—so suddenly that all who saw it cried out—far above this cloud, surprisingly, incredibly high, appeared a point of light like a glowing coal drawn from a furnace. The fiery glow crept down and down as though driving the mist away, till there stood before us, as it were, a mighty pillar of fire, with a wreath of mist around the base, and, down through all the wonderful pink wall and cataract of ice to the black forest and reflecting water. We had seen the final peak now—a tower of ice-crusted rock, utterly inaccessible from the western side. A little while later, the fair _couloir_ had faded away, mists had gathered and night was coming on apace. We rowed away for the steamer, but had not gone very far before a faint silver point appeared above the mist where the glowing tower had stood. The cloud curtain rolled slowly down again and all the summit crest was revealed, cold and pure. Then the southwest ridge appeared, and finally the entire mountain, like a pale ghost, illuminated by some unearthly light. A moment later the clouds rolled together once more and solid night came on; we hastened to the steamer for warmth, food, and sleep.”

VIII

PERU

Northward bound from Valparaiso to Callao, the traveler leaves behind him the last of those south temperate zone Latins who contend for the title of “Yankees of South America.” (And there is flattery in that pretension if they but knew it, for in the old strongholds of our vaunted Yankeeism much of the feverish progressiveness has subsided; in these days the title “Argentino” or “Chileno” would confer a real distinction on some of us of the North.) In Chile one leaves triumphant modernism and now enters the realm of antiquity and romance, the home of Spanish tradition and old-world stateliness. Not even on the Peninsula have the Spanish tongue, the Spanish dignity and the old Castilian ideals been preserved in their pristine charm and perfection as they have in Lima, and the three ancient seats of colonial splendor hidden away in the fastnesses of the northern Andes—Quito, Bogotá and Caracas, the capitals of the countries next in order.

Not that romance and antiquity are all that Peru and her sister republics to the north stand for to-day. If Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, which constitute the agricultural empire spurned by Spain in her days of prosperity, are, as John Barrett says in the _Independent_ for March 11, 1909, destined, with Brazil, “to become deciding factors in the food supply of mankind,” Peru and the other Andean republics have also their part to play in furnishing elements necessary for the growing commerce of the twentieth century. “The complicated social and financial life of the world,” Mr. Barrett goes on, “must have something besides food and drink. Gold and silver as a medium of exchange, and, in the arts, copper and tin as essentials in so many phases of industrial development, the other metals useful in a thousand ways in applied science, the nitrate salts for prime necessities in both peace and war—all these and much more are to-day supplied in high proportion from this part of South America.” Deprive the world of the nitrate of Chile, the copper, gold, and guano of Peru, and the silver and tin of Bolivia, and “there would occur a disturbance in our business machinery which might have very serious consequences.”

In preference to the more direct German line, the visitor should by all means make the trip northward by a “west coaster,” that cross between an Atlantic liner and a river steamboat which meanders leisurely in and out among the Pacific ports and carries a conglomerate of all types of the genus Latin American, and of all the products of his infinitely varied soil. As one writer whimsically describes it, it has all the characteristics of a house-boat, freight carrier, village gossip and market gardener. With no cause to fear rain or rough weather, the ocean here being truly “pacific,” the builders of these boats have placed all cabins on deck, and even thus they seem superfluous except as lockers for luggage, for the heat keeps one always in the open.