Show I IN THE LAD OF FIRE Graphic Description of Tierra Del Fuego SCENES AROUXD CAPE HORN Christmas Bay Which Serves as 8 Shelter I to the StormTossed PJougher of the Seas USCWAIA Tierra del Fuego Dec 1 189l bpecial correspondence of THE SUNDAY HERALD Should you ever find yourself so desperately hard up lor a new place to visit as to choose this faraway Fire Land be sure to time your arrival In April May or Tune the autumn months in this locality which though cold as Green lands icy mountains are infinitely preferable prefer-able to the sliphtly warmer but much wetter wet-ter summertime In fact there are few summertme localities on the face of the earth which have less of summertime than this Au summertme gust and September are the worst months of the year sure to be attended by terrific gales and ceaseless storms of sleet ana snow Though fogs are rare on the Fuegoan coast the sun shows himself but at rare intervals the finest weather being what the seamen call muggy 1 e overcast and cloudy That is one reason why search as you may scarcely a picture can I be feund representing any portion of this I archipelago because there is hardly an I hour from year to year clear enough to make a photograph When Magellan and his men sailed through the straits some three hundred and seventy years ago they named the country on their left Tiara del Fcitgo Land of Fire on account oi the innumerable innumer-able HUe lircs that sprang up all along the coast at nightfall for the Indians of those days as now kept themselves from freezing freez-ing by huddling over ignited brushheaps Had they called the country Tierra del oquaLand of Water instead the name wuuld have been more appropriate for water while is tires the are maintained with difficulty thenA BANE OF THE ISLANDS falling continually in rain or snow rushing down every declivity or standing in stagnant I stag-nant pools forming swamps in every level place making peatbogs pt all the hillsides and keeping the kneedeep moss that covers the rocks saturated like sponges So excessively exces-sively cold is the climate that even in midsummer mid-summer according to the alnfanac people have Decn lost in the snow and frozen to I death a few hundred feet above sealeveL 1 Sailing down toward Cape Hrn in a I southwesterly course it is difficult to believe be-lieve that the high rugged wintry coast is uot an unbroken continent instead of a vast chain of closelying islands A nearer view discloses inlet after inlet intersecting intersect-ing the land in every direction opening into larger gulfs ana sounds behind the leaward islands Though Megellans records re-cords show tlfat ho suspected tome of the inlets might be channels running through to the ocean he did not explore any of them and for many years it was supposed that the American continent was terminated termin-ated by a single great island It remained lor later surveys to prove that there are hundreds of islands of as many sizes and fantastic shapes separated from one another an-other by deep and dangerous ford and a perfect labyrynth of sounds and bright in lots IntsThe The one large island which the Spano Portugese voyagers dubbed Land of Fire is now kuown as King Charles SouthLand South-Land or Eastern Tierra del Fuego and the boundary line between Argentine possessions pos-sessions and those of the Chilians runs straight down through the middle thus dividing It half and half BETWEEN THOSE RIVAL POWERS There are half a dozen other islands of considerable size each larger thau any of the Philippine group Cyprus Crete and most of the West Indies besides innumerable innumer-able smaller ones some of them being nothIng noth-Ing but great rocks lifting their bald heads I out of the sea All of them are mountains of more or less magnitude and evidently 1 continuation of the great Andean chain thus intersecting channels including the straight itself being gorges and ravines which the ocean has overflowed Viewed in this light the mighty Andes by far the longest c > an of mountains on the globe really terminals Staaten Land an island lying considerably farther to the southeast than even Cape Horn By the way The celebrated straits do not run as wist people suppose in an almost riiretliue east and west between the two oceans Entering from the Atantic a ship first runs more south than west until about half way through the channel who she must head almost at a right angle to her former course and keep that direction due northeast i until she emerges into the Paciflu Thus as you see the strait forman form-an angle near the middle Cape Forward being the projecting point the most southerly south-erly bit ot land on the continent Below h iclnAc f n northwest und southeast between Cap Pillar and Horn and about two hundred and twenty miles east and west from the first named cape and that called Esperito Santo while southward it lapels to little more than one hundred miles between the Horn and Slauten Islsnd Most of the islands rise straight up out of the water from one thousand to five hundred feet toward the lowering sky without with-out any intervening foothills I COVERED WITH ETEKNAL SNOW I for in this far south land as in countries countres at an equal distance north of the equator the line of perpetual winter begins not far above the sea It is hard to believe the statements of travelers that beyond these forbidding hills there are rich valleys and I grassy plains lakes rivers and beautiful scenery in short that every prospect I pleases and only man is vile in the interior inter-ior of King Charles domain Strange to say the tarther from the equator one voyages down the western side of the archiuelago the less snow ho sees and finally wheie the weather ought to be coidest it disappears allege her giving place on the heights fronting the ocean to sombre forests of evergreens or rather everyellows the livery of Antarctic beeches This lack of snow wheie snow is most expected is due to the prevailing western winds which come laden with moisture from over the limitless Pacific melting tho snow as it falls Seen from a distance there is nothing I especially striking about the island of Horn II or Hoorn whose celebrated cape is neatest I I to the south pole of any discovered land as it is the stormiest and most dreaded by mariners But interest increases with a nearer view of the high bleak cliffs that form the southern promontory which towering tow-ering to a height of 1500 feet can be distinguished dis-tinguished from the decks of passing vessels ves-sels fifty miles away Close by is a little I I group of islandsHermito high aud rugged rug-ged Wallaston Herschel and Deceit whose mountains rise in sharp peaks from J 1000 to 3000 feet high all composed of green stone in which horneblende felspar and iron are conspicuous their lower declivities de-clivities thickly clothed with dark forests It who was first the Englishman Drake I believe SIGHTED THE CAPE about the year 157S and nearly forty years later in 1G1C the Dutch navigator Scbouten named it Hoorn from his native town in Holland Near the Christmastide of 1774 Captain Cook while examining these coasts was forced to seek refuge from the stormtossed sea in a sheltered pot which he namea Christmas Sound and in the month of October of this goodyear good-year 01 the party which includes your correspondent cor-respondent following in his footsteps and those of subsequent explorers passed a wretched night rolling at anchor in the same spot The notorious promontory still keeps up its ancient reputation and made us py the usual tribute to the resistless spirit of the place When approached the weather beaten cape hid her face like a modest vir 5Jin behind a veil of mist and spray while h bleak clouds scudded across the heavens b and squalls of rain and hal accompanied by a terrific wind made it impossible to stand upon the deck that was constantly washed by sheets of spray Ice hung upon the rigging and huge billows like moving Alps with deep valleys letween came thundering toward us in an unbroken line while screaming seabirds swept round and round in narrowing circles as those birds will when a severe gale approaches One moment we were almost becalmed in the hollow of the seas the next we were on their summit caught bv unseen hands that I seemed about to lift the tiny ship in mal I cious sport and dash it to destruct on And the so as discretion seemed to be by all odds BETTER PART OF VALOR we turned our backs on the capricious cape and sought the shelter of Christmas sound till calmer weather Nobody thought of retiring on that terrible night though probably it was no worse than hundreds upon hundreds of other voyagers have experienced ex-perienced in these waters and when the mysterious sea with its dark masses and snowy crests yields up its dead a greater company will arise from this locality than from any other on the face of the earth Daylight found us in Eyrie sound with icebergs jostling one another on either hand all floating outward toward the sea Some days afterward we actually did reach Hoorn Island and went ashore though only for a moment braving a drenching in the raging surf for the satisfaction satis-faction of having it to say that our feet had touched the southernmost lands end the very jumpingoff placa of all creation I am yet too much oppressed by the horror of it by a feeling akin to what one experiences exper-iences after a nightmare to give you a lucid description of the scene My mind retails only a confused impression of bare heights desolate beyond the power of imagination im-agination to conceive terminating in awful precipices around whose summits seabirds shrieked for prey and at whose feet restless rest-less billows dashed with deafening tumult the whole a detached link of the mighty Andes the last link dropped off into an I unknown ocean surging toward an undiscovered undis-covered pole We are now at Usuwaia pronounced oohooeeah a Protestant mission station staton I on the north bank of Beagle channel which separates King Charles South Land from the southernmost islands This celebrated channel which is perhaps better known historically than any other portion of the archipelago not oniy from the accounts of fitzroy and Darwin but because on ALL PILOTS CHARTS it is marked as tho one place of safety which seamen should endeavor to reach whose ships have been wrecked in rounding round-ing the Horn is only about one hundred miles north of the cape but with many mall islands intervening It is a narrow passage hardly more than a mile across in the widest part but very deep running In early a straight line east and west 120 miles between magmficent inges of snowcapped capped mountains Its course is strewn with outlying rocks and tiny islands making mak-ing navigation impossible except for the smallest steamcraft and useless for sailing vessels Besides what doubtful good the missionaries may have accomplished for the souls of the Indians they have certainly saved the lives of many mariners who would otherwise have perished on these stormy coasts and it has come to be a matter mat-ter of course that whenever disabled ship must be abandoned in the neighborhood of I Hoorn Island as numbers are every year I the great effort of the survivors is to find their way through the labyrinth sounds and inlets to Ushuwala Early in 1SS3 tho Rev Thomas Bridges then in charge of the Protestant mission reported a marked change in the character of tho inhabitants that the Yahgans or Indians of this part of Tierra del Fuego instead of murdering unfortunate wayfarers wayfar-ers as formerly might safely be trusted by strangers either singly or in companies to pilot them to the mission station and now it is asserted with equal confidence that all the natives from Hoorn Island away up Breakneck peninsula are friendly to the whites when fairly treated The statement may bo true but i looks are an indication of character one would prefer to trust to Providence for piloting and steer clear of these savages as lar as possioie The archipelago is peopled by three distinct dis-tinct tribes of Indians who speak three entirely en-tirely different languages Near tho cen tre of the main island there is a Catholic mission which also includes the Patagonian Patagon-ian district of Punta Arenas under charge of the Jesuit Hermabas de Caridad Brothers Broth-ers of Charity from the order in Santiago de Chile We shall visit tho station in a few days and can then tell you more tit t-it Before the coming of missionaries to these islands the natives had NO RELIGION AT ALL nor any idea of a Supreme Being only a dark and gloomy faith in evil spirits which came to do them harm and must be placated and appeased Hence the wind that nearly froze their naked bodies was believed to bean be-an evil spirit smallpox which sometimes makes frightful havoc upon the islands was another and whiteskinned strangers so different from themselves were supposed sup-posed to be malicious powers in tangible I forms which must be exterminated at once All the missionaries agree on one point that these Indians never were cannibals and that they had considerable excuse for the cruelties they used to perpetrate upon all foreicners who fell into their hands The conduct of many reckless sailors has been such as to carry out the idea that they were bad spirits disguised in human form for they thought no more of shooting an Indian child or woman in wanton sport than I of killing a snake FANNIE B WARD |