Show KEIS FROM CHILI The Prosperity of a Convict Colony GOODBYE TO THE ANDES In the Straits of MagellanThe Southernmost Southern-most Town on the Globe Some Strange bights PCNTA ARENAS Patagonia Oct 231801 Specialcorrespondence of THE HERALD When wo rounded Capo Froward which as every school boy Knows is the southernmost point of the Western Hemisphere Hemi-sphere Capo Horn being on a tiny island 200 miles further south the usual snowstorm snow-storm prevailed for wo are months too early in these waters for a pleasure trip which should only bo mace during their brief summer time in December January or February On the right gleamed a stupenduous bluogreen glacier shining like glass between snowy mountains on the left a line of wonderful craggy peaks snowcreated all looked like stuccowork against the wintry sky or a series of gigantic images done in plaster Just ahead a dark mass of rock loomed up from the waters edge to a height of 1200 feet joined to the range by a low strip of land and that dark mass Is Cape Froward the tip end of the southern continent a place familiar enough in schoolday annals but which few of us expected to behold with our mortal eyes Directly south of it ML Sarmlonto tho most striking island mountain moun-tain of the whole archipelago rears its almost perfect pyramid TCOO feet into the blue A little farther eastward Is Mount Darwin a peak as lofty if not so famous and south of both runs DARWIN SOUND on whoso southern shore in an English mission station a few devoted men and women are striving but without pronounced pro-nounced success to Christianize the benighted be-nighted Terra del Fuegoans At dinner that day the captain happened to remark that this was our very last night within sight of the Andes for the ships course would change during the night so that those mountains would no longer be visible We felt as if ha had said that some old time friends were about to bid us a final adieu and though snow was falling and a bitter wind coating every thing with ice I stole out alone from the wellwarmed cabin where others wero waltzing to the music of zither and guitar for a last half hour with those glorious heights which for two years have been present companions perpetual delight and inseparating and an unfailing solace when dangers or homesickness assailed as-sailed From sailing duo southward we had turned to the northeast so that the sun appeared to have sunk in our wake while a halo of crimson and gold jet lingered or the distant Andes transfigured mountain now no longer barren and icy but clothed in rosy tints like a true land of the sky But not for long In less time than it take to tell it the brilliant colors faded and the becamu mora ghosts of mountains shadowy and pale wrapped in misty shrouds In the deepening twilight tnej seemed to be keeping tryst with ONE WHO LOVED THEM WELL standing on tiptoe and peering one over the shoulders of another to return my mute farewell till darkness hid them from view The following morning wo found ourselves at anchor off the coast of the nineteenth provinca of Chili opposite Punta Pun-ta Arenas the southernmost city on tao face of the earth the home of the penguin the tea lion and the guanaco where wind and storm and cold prevail during the greater part of the year And here wo disembarked dis-embarked armed and equipped with sundry sun-dry letters of introduction to the consul the governor and other persons in authority author-ity purposing to spend three or four weeks until the next steamer of the line comes along and picks us UD in exploring what we can of Southern Patagonia and the islands of Terra del Fuego The site of Punta Arenas which U Spanish for Sandy Point was certainly not chosen for its beauty It occupies a long spit extending ex-tending out into the strait bacScd by mossy fields and low hills covered with charred timber and behind these rises a range of loftier hills covered with perpetual perpet-ual snow though their altitude is barely 1000 feet Looking on a map of the world you will see that the town is considerably nearer to the South Pole than any other on the globe nearer even than the Capo of Good Hope or any inhabited island altogether alto-gether too near for any sort of comfort for when it is not snowing in the strait It is always raining high winds NEVER CEASE THEIR HOWLING and a raging surf in the shallow bay prevents pre-vents boats from landing about five days out of every seven The captains book says that squalls off the land are so very strong here as almost to lay ships on their beam ends and arc known to seamen by the Patagonian name of williwauas Soon as the locality is approached sails ore closely reefed and all light gear made secure for the williwauas usually como on without the slightest warning and for the moment blow with the fury of a hurricane How did it happen that a town ever grew in so distant and desolate a spot Nearly half a century ago in 1943 I think the Chilian government looking around for the most forsaken and cheerless place where human beings could possibly exist to which they might banish certain political offenders offend-ers chose this remote corner of Patagonia because from it there scorned no way of escape but in speedy death and immediately immedi-ately afterwards the penal colony of Port Famine which had long occupied the site of San Felipe the old Spanish town which Sarmiento founded was removed to this point When the prisoners most of whom were men of intelligence and education were driven from their northern homes a thousand miles away they left behind all traces of civilization as well as all hopes of return Hero they had no neighbors but THE WILD AND WARLIKE TRIBES OF PATAGONIA PATA-GONIA and the savages of Tierra del Fuegowhilo on the west and south the dreary wastes of the Pacific stretched away half the width of the world on the north a great untrod den wildernesstrad on the east an impasse blo wall of snowclad mountains The history of their early hardships and struggles for existence will never be known Nobody dreamed that they would survive generation after generation much less that they could elbow their way through such a sea of discouragements and by and by compel the mother country to acknowledge her castaways as valued citizens citi-zens Naturally their first care was to construct con-struct homes of some sort for many of them bad been accompanied into exile by their tenderly reared wives and families Except for the lack of tools they had no great difficulty in building houses from the trees of the surrounding forest Shell fish are abundant hereabouts and they found the finest celery and mushrooms growing spontaneously ALL KINDS OP VEGETABLES CAX BE GROWN By experimenting they soon ascertained that certain vegetables notably potatoes cabbage cauliflower and lettuce can be profitably grown during the short summertime summer-time if given very careful attentionS attention-S Their earliest caro was also to establish friendly relations with the Patagonian Indians In-dians with whom they commenced the purchase pur-chase of hides and furs to sell to passing vessels In this way the desolate sand spit began to bo known as a trading post and certain ships anchored regularly In the little harbor the English ana French being particularly par-ticularly anxious to secure supplies of celery cel-ery and mushrooms for which they paid good prices From time to time other prisoners pris-oners were added and though the new arrivals ar-rivals were not always agreeable companions compan-ions there Is in numbers not only strength Increased opportunities Gold was discovered dis-covered In paying quantities and In duo time the convicts organized themselves into a town which they named Punta Arenas under certain rules and regulations regula-tions Later on a largo quantity of COAL WAS rOUND and that discovery marked a now era In the life of the lonesome colony They lost no time in communicating the important fact to passing vessels their only way of advertising ad-vertising Some Peruvian warships wore the first to purchase the commodity and before long Punta Arenas became known to all European ana American vessels In these waters as a convenient place to obtain supplies As the condition of the colony grew better and better the land east of the town for a distance of several miles was divided into farms for the raising of cattle horses poultry and such vegetables as will grow in this latitude Wheat will not mature ma-ture but hardy grasses ware introduced from Germany and the cattle of the section became noted as among the finest la tho world fat round and sleek with particu larly soft velvety hair A church was built coating three thousand hardearned dollars followed by a schoolhouse commo dious enough to hold all the children By this time CHILI BEGAN TO TEEI PKOCD of her distant colony and to pay go much unwelcome attention that the liberty of tha exiles was moro and more restricted A rather handsome government building was erected by order of the presidontalso anew cuatol or jail and the settlement was put under military control with forty additional soldiers In uniform ostensibly to do police duty and bo ready for attacks from the longfriendly Indians At length in 1877 Injudicious severity of a federal governor gover-nor of that day provoked revolt among the convicts whoso numbers had been no many times augmented by reinforcements of all classes of criminals from every prison in Chili that the respectable pioneers to whom belonged all the credit of prosperity were an unconsidered minority The desperate des-perate revolters overcame theirkeopersset fire to the houses and forced all the officials and peaceable inhabitants to fly to the forests for-ests For a time PAXDE3IONICM PREVAILED until by some fortunate accident a Chilian warvessel reached Sandy Point while disorder dis-order was allis height when the insurgents were speedily overpowered and the ring leaders executed It happened that the weather continued unusually mild for this climate so that the hocsoless refugees among whom were many women and young childrensuffered less than might havo been expected while new homes were being constructed con-structed After this no moro convicts were Bent to Punta Arenas Now that tao mall steamers plying between Europe and the west coast of South America had adopted this route through the strait of Magellan bringing rapid increase of traffic the paternal pa-ternal government recognized its Importance L Import-ance as a station of call and supply In lids it made liberal grants of land to Immigrants I Immi-grants and sent out a new governor with I 300 settlers Tlmoar for building purposes I Was taken along and plenty of supplies to I last until the immigrants could clear and 1 cultivate farms for themselves During i the war with Peru when ChiLi found herself r her-self in need of all the soldiers she could muster the military guard was withdrawn from the old convict station all the prisoners r prison-ers who would consent to FIGHT THE PERUVIANS got an honorable discharge and ticketof leave and marched gaily away with their late keepers to cut the throat of theii neighbors In 1S03 the population of Punta Arenas was hardly two hundred In 1is it was 2000 and now It is little moro than half that number In 1SS3 the district was organized into a province of Chili its nineteenth nine-teenth and now it is no disgrace though somewhat inconvenient to bo a Punta Arenian A wellknown Washington newspaperman newspaper-man who lately visited Sandy Point says of it itThe The town is Interesting because It is the only settlement In Patagonia and of course the only one In tho strait It is about 4000 miles from the southernmost town on the west coast of South America to the first port on the eastern coast a voyage which ordinarily requires fifteen days and as Punta Arenas i about midway mid-way of course IT POSSESSES SOME ATTRACTIONS There are a few decent people hero ship agents and traders who came for business reasons a consul or two and among them on Irish physician Dr Fenton who is the host and oracle sought for by every stranger who arrives Occasionally some yachting party stops hero on its voyage around the world or a manofwar cruising from one ocean to the other and steamers bound from Europe to the Pacific ports pass every day or two so that communication is kept up with thereat of the universeond the people who live at this antipodes where the sun is seen in the north and the Fourth of July comes in the depth of winter win-ter are pretty well informed as to affairs at the other end of the globe The emotions that como with the contemplation that you are about as far from anywhere as yon can possibly go are novel hut In the midst ol them you are comforted by the other fact that the WORLD 13 SOT SO LARGE A3 IT LOOK3 TO BE for hero is a man who used to live whore you coma from and another who once worked in the office where you are employed employ-ed There is a news stand In Punta Arenas Are-nas where you can purchase New York and London papers often three or four months old but still fresh to the long voyager and shops in which Paris confectionery and other luxuries of life can bo had at Patagonian Pata-gonian prices How docs the place look Well there Is a sandy beach in front of a high ridge of hills with some rising ground intervening Three or four hundred houses are set in the mud and slush along this beach and on the rising ground behind it mostly onostory built of wood without regularity yet disposed dis-posed In lines so as to for streets and a miserable mis-erable attempt at a plaza There is a fort a church a custom house and one or two other buildings not emitting the postodco at which every traveler in this region drops letters to faraway friends simply because they will bear the nearest possible postmarks post-marks to the South Pole The governor now resides in what was once THE CONVICT BARRACKS and horses are corralled in what used to bo the stockade Adjoining tho town are desolate des-olate windswept fields covered with the wet spongy moss peculiar to Patagonia the low hills back of thorn are blackened by charred timber and the range of mountains moun-tains beyond though not more than 1000 feet high are brrled In perpetual snow There Is a long rickety wharf In the foreground fore-ground over whiehyou must pick your way with care to avoid the sudden plunge into the icy water beneath and in the roadstead a number of vessels are always anchored coal barges Argentine and Chilian gunboats gun-boats French Gorman and Italian snips and perhaps n great English steamer or dispatch dis-patch boat As before remarked It Is always al-ways either snowing or raining at Punts Arenas mud or slush is always ankle deep and you might search the world over to find a more dreary desolate and altogether uninviting un-inviting place Among its thousand or moro inhabitants it is said that an interpreter inter-preter for every modern language of the world may bo found Certainly a more POLYGLOT COMMUNITY was never gotten together Though tha Zk s place belongs to Chili English Is the language lan-guage most generally spoken and there are Chinamen Germans Poles Swedes branch Sxviss Italians Americans No roes Portuguese primeval Indians Yankees Yan-kees human flotsam and jetsam representing represent-ing all sorts and ccnditions of men deserters desert-ers from all navies convicts fugitives from justice and shipwrecked mariners many of whom would not be willing to tell you where they came from what their true names were in somo other part of the world and most of whom would not remain another minute if they could help it There are a few good women in the settlement but as for most of the females heropoor thingsl 1 drinking lighting swearing creatures crea-tures of every nationalitythe least said about them the better Directly opposite Punta Arenas just across the narrow strait Is the largest island of the Tierra del Fuego group twothirds of which on the western side now belongs to Chili while the Argentine government claims the remainder re-mainder Only on the Australian coast could one find a settlement so COMPLETELY ISOLATED from its neighbors On the Chilian side the nearest permanent inhabitants are on the Island of Chiloo fully 700 miles distant in a straight line and a good dcalfartherby the only practicable route On tho Argentine Argen-tine side there is a miserable little settlement settle-ment at the mouth of the Santa Cruz river where the government of that big republic his thought best to hoist their pretty blue and white banner in order to assert its soy ereignity over the worthless wastes of southeastern Patagonia It contains only half a dozen wooden sheds where a few disconsolate soldiers pass their weary days in longing for the more genial climate of Buenos Ayres It is 400 miles between that place and this and no communication is kept up between them Therefore for all practicable purposes the nearest civilized neighbors to the lonesome Punta Arcnians are the English colonists on the Falkland Islands where in spite of the inhospitable soil and climate a number of thrifty Britons Brit-ons have somehow managed to attain to tolerable prosperity chiefly by sheep farming farm-ing But with an interval between of 500 miles of the stormiest ocean on the globe mutual intercourse is neither frequent nor easy FAUXIB B WAED |