| Show TUB BACK WOODS OP OF CHILE oncepcion ephion chile sent 20 1898 1 I TC just returned from a trip through r back woods of chile a region which velera ers seldom visit and of which par who have visited this part of the la would doubt the existence north clelle e Is in a desert for one miles ell south of af the peruvian frontier e are not enough trees to furnish aphes hes tor for the public schools I 1 rode freds reds of miles south ot at santiago ugh gh irrigated farms where the only 31 to be seen were those planted e the borders of the ditches and 18 only o in the neighborhood of at conion n that I 1 found wood of any size here I 1 have gone a days ride by tahi to what to is known as the frontier many vast farms farina cut out of the aher the stump filled fields reminded me ina of the newly settled regions badur bf our wooded northwest south chile if covered evered with forset it contains some W the best lond in the country and it as atao so much rain that the farms do bot require irrigation this country has haa gaea a wilderness until within recent yeara now the government is open teg up to settlement the railroads axe are being steadily extended further south mid pd new towns and villages are spring tog up along them these frontier towns remind one of ibe n ew settlements of the united states take Tein temuco uco for instance i bere I 1 spent some days last week it twelve years old and has pe people it covers about as much space as wn an amei AJner lean ican city af f the same size aize its streets bests a are re wide and filled with black ad ia and its one an and d two story houses iloh line them are wooden they ridge roots and man bof them are shanties every house has a flag and although the climate here is t as cold as that of washington v house has haa a chimney the people Op brally believe that fires are un athy althy and like the chinese rely upon owr dp clothes to keep them warm the streets cross crose one aj another iother at ht angles and in the center of the tomi wn there is a park or plaza of about 4 W acre where the military band pla plays fad d where here the people walk abbat on n y afternoon and stai star at t e ithac t 68 a club where you flod abd tb taft beust english german and achillea chillea ajr it has haa thre hotels two banach lad one german all of chien art are wan Ifert ban the hotels of towns of WW in the states it has plenty ot of so 0 o where raw alcohol is sold to to at th geow or laborers and the indians op MR than an american town of its ibar acter where the liquors axe are drunk A the spot it has catholic churches chUrcheA already our own methodist episco imi 4 people who have done so much for ration atlon in chile have a church and a school here f street scenes of temuco are differ from those of amr fro there impre queer costumed cos lre are aced ladia indiana C ernp q v lii 10 and the air of brigands brigande bri gands drive the ox carts which lumber through them each man carries a boad fifteen feet long and directs the oxen by striking them on this side and that now and then you see teams of six and eight of these beasts the oxen ar alfr the only draught staught animals exception except in gabe agthe six ragged horses which haul the two tabs cabs between the raffi railroad road station and aad the hotel it to is in oxcarts that the thousands of bushels of wheat raised near by are brought to the markets oxen everywhere do the plowing atoe abe hauling of lumber the thedra ying and everything that heavy horses or mules do with us im the method of yoking the oxen is the same here as all over chile the yoke rests on the neck just back 0 athe horns and all of the pushing or puling of the cart or plow must be done with his head the yoke la Is a heavy piece of wood so fastened that one ox cannot move without the other and so that it is impossible to swing owing it from side to side the tongue of the frontier cart is as big as a telegraph pole it is a part of the cart itself and as the oxen work they have the weight of this resting on their horns it seems cruel in the extreme and the oxen seem to me to move painfully along with protruding eyes eye as they drag their heavy loads in company with don augustine balza the government inspector of colonization I 1 made a trip into the wilderness over the thirty kilometers of new railroad which is almost finished but not yet ready for traffic the road is being built by the state to open up new lands and it is part of a system which will emt extend e nd from one end of agricultural chile to the other the road is well built with 60 pound english rails and the english 4 feet 8 gauge it will cost excluding the bridges about gold per mile the rolling stock will be american and it was in a baldwin engine and on amerlean american hand cars that we made a martof part of our journey over the line the steel bridges and there arp two each of which cst more thaya hundred thousand dollars were bought from france fu although though why america did not get the t I 1 so do not know a large num athe the t best df the present railroad ages iges 9 s having been imported from states the stations were t and a wide space fenced tn in A hr efthem them there are as yet no W abou abo abouL u 1 drifts orIf Tat rons ts the gov me J a ates te such settlements ettle ments it attea attoe tile town 0 w r lots giving g them at t to actu actual settlers the rall rail tt boomer bome thus has no chance E 10 sew st state lines of chile the ament lands are sire sold in wind land d at auctions which are Alf fent parts of the country wo anee 0 wee a year just juat now money to is 40 bt hare and valuable lands go very chi p the land is usually sold itt vf jaw acres but one pur 0 r otaw at each sale up to ac acre SAC w wants nore anore he be can the a additional ty V d party or under un der M E th aelex a q aar re sold at a time the land brings from ay AV 33 gold per acre according to its position and character char keter and the must pay only one third cash and the remainder without Inte interesting interest ln equal installments running through tea A years many of the tich rich men of oatle have become so by buying thebe lando they rapidly Ind increase rease in value and the only pro provision cislon required by the gov government is that the purchaser put put a fence about the property he buys chile has been very anxious to have immigration and she has in the past pact offered extraordinary inducements to colonists each bach male immigrant waa nix given acres of land a team of oxen a cart and a barrel of nails and boards to build him a house he ws also loaned money for his passage from europe to chile and was paid 15 a month for the first year of MB residence on the farm he received in addition 50 acres more land for each son over ten years of age but was am expected back all advances the whole amounting to about except the land within eight years from ahls arrival these terms have I 1 believe been discontinued under them great numbers of germans came into chile and today parts of the new south chile are largely german settlements the cities of valdivia Valdi vla and puerto montt situated at harbors on an the south coast are almost german cities and the most of the property pr there belongs to the eGr mans they own great wheat farms about angol and are also large towns in the region south of here and they have established tan ceries and breweries in a number af 0 places the trees of south chile tarnish furnish excel excellent rent tan bark and grest great quantities of sole leather is made at valdivia Valdi vla and shipped thence ce via axam burgh to russia there Is a great deal of bt good land here and it can be bought baught very cheap but I 1 would not advise any but those prepared to farm in a large way to come to chile labor is elle cheap and the ordinary american cannot compete with the chilean roto in prices there is room tor for our people only ws 98 proprietors arid managers such men en with a capital ot ten thousand dohty and upward better fifty tho thousand tool lars or a hundred hundert d thousand hara ars afifi can make money here in farming and land the papers of Sant teso laMO valparaiso and concepcion Concep Conce polon are full fall of mortgage foreclosures fore closures wd and at forced aale esome some of the best of the mg estates a are re h bellog ea 14 sacrificed owing to ho the extravagance of the people the probability of war with the argentine the hill fall of silver and the im oney of the country times were never so BO bardle hard here as they are now I 1 am told that tates fates which paid as b birti as 20 per i on a valuation of a few aff ago con be now bought for tm and lets les many of these farms akar rl gated twp tap big estates ward near rare are to be sold cold within the nak T x months ont a 40 afifa ato A hie other 14 0 acres they T af pf was mo ita than RA omm fual value wd w will 1 i tapi k ft I 1 interest tt it takes taked a great deal of money to stock now new farms of this size tent thear profits are proportionately arre ait it to is impossible to bd work them without money and I 1 hear of rich farmers who by the present financial conditions are anxious to borrow money at high rates of interest one ease is that of a man who owns at least worth of real estate he wants a loan of on it and will pay 10 per cent interest he cannot get the money of the banks for they are overloaded with real property and at this writing he expects to place the loan with one of the big insurance companies of new york the banks here get 10 and 11 per cent tor for money and charge commissions in ad edition for making loans ilhan iL had a talk last night with captain william S wilson an american who has bas lived out here for the past fifty years on the chances for american capital in chile captain wilson odines comes of one of the old families of washington and baltimore he is now over seventy years of age and has retired but he has in his day been one of the noted sea captains of the pacific he was thirteen when he ran away from georgetown college to go to sea and at twenty three years of age in 1849 he was in command of the ship rome of baltimore he joined our navy during the me mexican war in he came to chile as commander of tho clipper bark bella vista built in baltimore and for years had charge of this and other american vessels on this coast later on he became an officer of the chilean navy took part in the war with peru and was also a naval commander in chiles war with spain he has bai also been connected with some of the biggest mal coal mines of this coun manager and although he Is not now in active business he is well posted conall on all things chilean said bald he chile la Is poor in money only the resources of the country are great and the chances just now for safe and profitable investments are many what our capitalists who are after such things do is to invest a few hundred dollars in steamship tickets and come out here and look into the field the they should bring engineers with clemn and thus be able to tell juat juett what the tha different properties are warth wy h take tor instance this town of concepcion Concep clon it oita ln people and is one of the best cities in chile it is only eight miles from talcahuano ano a town of on the beat harbor south of san an Fran clabo it has a naval dry dock and five lines of european steamers call regularly there we have here a horse railroad which I 1 issow paying per cent dividend son on its capital of chilean or about gold this road to is for sale it can A t believe be bought for the par alue of its capital stock and the system if made an electric electr leone one would pay enormous dividends it has now ten anil miles of if track and the city will grant barters for extensions to the other streets wand and a branch could be built to talcahuano we are you know here in the center of the great coal regions of chile the screenings of the mines can tie used tor for generating the electricity and these cost here only 35 cents of your yo ur bonev a ton there ere is also a chance for a 9 team steam railroad near here continued the old sea aea captain the government and peo zile lle are anxious to have one built from fr 0 in penco on oh the coast fifteen miles kotome thenceforth thence north nort h to connect with the government go Ivern ment line at parral this would bp over mile s ip 10 all and would pay 4 well ell s t the e apul 46 toes oes through a rich liatta the government would A 1 antly a guarantee anntee per cent ceat ow on the cost af st at that is 19 whit what ther j have oft offeree ellea an in english 14 upon the plans which have already been made for the road 1 I think there is a lot of money to be made in chilean mines captain wilson went on some of our best copper mines are idle for laick lack of money to work them the ore is in sight right but there Is no money to get it out the nitrate fields are spotted with english companies who have put over into them and have taken vast fortunes fortunes out they will tell you they are losing money today but their stock has been watered again and again the coal deposits about here are very valuable and only a small part kofl of them are being worked they extend for about a hundred miles on the edge of the sea the beds sloping down under the water the cousino fortune of millions was made out of the mines at lota about twenty five miles from concepcion Concep clon and those of coronel near by which are now being worked several miles under the ocean are very valuable twenty miles away on aranco bay there is a coal property that I 1 was once asked to manage one million dollars had been spent upon it and 1000 men were at work I 1 saw at once that the work was going the wrong way and that the seam went down under the sea instead of into the land I 1 stopped the works at once and upon the investigations of the engineers the works were closed for laick lack of money the company becoming bankrupt that mine could now be bought for in gold and put into working it would produce I 1 believe I 1 was once athle manager of the big puch oco coal mines which are of the same character and which could produce tons of coal a year they are situ abed on coronel bay and were at the time I 1 had charge the property of bal I 1 men I 1 took out tons of throughout an enormous profit running coal the first year and we made as high at times as 50 per cent a year this coal region Is you know teal ly the only one on the west coast of south america and all of the ships must coal here I 1 know there are a number of good properties of this kind all that the capitalist needs to do it to bring his experts out here and investigate tig ate they can tell from these other submarine mines just what the cost will be and the probable profits these coal mines of chile are exceedingly cee interesting they are tar far different from any mines miner we have in the united states and in some respects are far more difficult to work the seam of coal which is at its best about five thick begins at the shore and runs down tinder the waters of the pacific wean cean the rock above it is slate and shale so compact that the water does not drip through e h the tunnels are so clean that you could walk through them in a dress dres suit without danger ot of getting dirty they are worked with the latest machinery 4 atta ta during my visit isit to them I 1 had seve several a which it is hard to realize cu ke place in chile cale think for ink instance tance ot riding on an electric trolley abal al train through a over a 0 mile long under the pacific oce aa ftc A of twenty miles an hour I 1 I 1 mines lighted by electricity fo ming comb of corridors and chambers anjer I 1 the waves realize that just aboa you great steamships are floating and that the coal which is being takeji out of 0 f this bed of the pacific is being od d into them picture sooth miners half naked blasting out the t 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