Chapter 7 PUNTA ARENAS THE WORLD'S JUMPING-OFF PLACE

Pleasant and Busy Life in City of Perpetual Winter-Wealthy and Well Ruled-Millions Made in Wool, Mutton and Furs-One Splendid Mansion Amid Many Corrugated Iron Buildings-Famine in Postal Cards-Jack on Horseback-Officers Found More Fun in Social Gatherings Than Out in the Wilds-Surreptitious Traffic of a Free Port.

On Board U.S.S. Louisiana, U. S. Battle Fleet,

Punta Arenas, Feb. 7.

PUNTA Arenas is known commonly as the jumping-off place of the earth. The generally accepted meaning of that characterization is that it is not only the southernmost settlement of any size of civilized people in the world, but that it is the most forlorn, dreary, desolate place that any one could find in which to live.

Indeed, before this fleet arrived here it is probable that not one person in a hundred in the United States knew where Punta Arenas was, and those who had some vague idea about it had an impression that it is one of those reformed penal colonies where the driftwood of humanity huddle together, tolerate one another because they are birds of a feather and eke out a miserable existence in trafficking with Indians, herding sheep, looting wrecks and spending their spare time in low ceilinged saloons gulping down liquor that would put knockout drops to shame.

Well, it simply isn't true! Punta Arenas is a lively city of 12,000 residents, one of the best governed in the world, with all modern improvements except trolley cars, half a dozen millionaires and scores of men worth $500,000 or more, with one residence at least that would hold its own more than favorably with the residences on Madison Avenue in the Murray Hill part of New York, with excellent schools, with a "society" that knows as well as any on earth how to wear Paris gowns and to give entertainments as finished in all the delicate niceties as could be found in any capital.

Punta Arenas isn't pretty in any sense and even the well-to-do are content to live in one-story houses with corrugated iron roofs, but it is a hustling, busy place where every comfort and luxury can be secured, and it has a pronounced twentieth century air about it. It resembles strongly a western Kansas or Nebraska town. Its climate is always cool but never seriously cold. The lowest recorded temperature in this place, which corresponds in latitude to Labrador in the Northern Hemisphere, is 20 degrees Fahrenheit above zero. The highest is 77. Why, there are two four-in-hands and one French automobile, this in a town, mind you, where there are no roads out in the country and no place except the town streets in which to drive! Any one who has seen these smart turnouts is justified in dropping into slang far enough to say that is going some!

There was good reason for a preconceived unfavorable opinion of Punta Arenas. Recently there have been several flattering accounts published of the town and its life, but they have not received a wide circulation. Such accounts as were in the books of travel, with probably one exception, were repellant. Here is what William E. Curtis said in 1888, in his book entitled "The Capitals of South America," and dedicated to Chester Alan Arthur:

"It [Punta Arenas] belongs to Chile and was formerly a penal colony; but one look at it is enough to convince the most incredulous that whoever located it did not intend the convict's life to be a happy one. It lies on a long spit that stretches out into the strait, and the English call it Sandy Point, but a better name would be Cape Desolation. Convicts are sent there no longer, but some of those who were sent thither when Chile kept the seeds and harvests of her revolutions, still remain there. There used to be a military guard there but that was withdrawn during the war with Peru and all the prisoners who would consent to enter the army got a ticket of leave. The Governor resides in what was once the barracks and horses are kept in a stockade. Hunger, decay and dreariness are inscribed upon everything-on the faces of the men as well as on the houses they live in-and the people look as discouraging as the mud.

"They say it rains in Punta Arenas every day. That is a mistake-sometimes it snows. Another misrepresentation is the published announcement that ships passing the strait always touch there. Doubtless they desire to, and it is one of the delusions of the owners that they do; but as the wind never ceases except for a few hours at a time, and the bay on which the place is located is shallow, it is only about once a week or so that a boat can land, because of the violent surf.

"The town is interesting because it is the only settlement in Patagonia and of course the only one in the strait. It is about 4,000 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 is about the middle of the way it possesses some attractions. Spread out in the mud are 250 houses, more or less, which shelter from the ceaseless storms a community of 800 or 1,000 people, representing all sorts and conditions of men from the primeval type to the pure Caucasian-convicts, traders, fugitives, wrecked seamen, deserters from all the navies in the world, Chinamen, negroes, Poles, Italians, Sandwich Islanders, wandering Jews and human driftwood of every tongue and clime cast up by the sea and absorbed in a community scarcely one of which would be willing to tell why he came there or would stay if he could get away. It is said that in Punta Arenas an interpreter for every language known to the modern world can be found, but although the place belongs to Chile, English is most generally spoken."

All that may have been true in those days, except about the rain, the wind, the shallow harbor and the impossibility of landing in a boat more than once a week and several other items.

Here is what Frank G. Carpenter said in 1900 in his book on South America, and it is the most favorable of any of the books dealing with Punta Arenas:

"The city has been cut out of the woods, and as we enter it we are reminded of the frontier settlements of our wooded Northwest. Its houses are scattered along wide streets with many recurring gaps and here and there a stray stump. The streets are a mass of black mud through which huge oxen drag heavy carts by yokes fastened to their horns. At one place the sidewalk is of concrete, at another it is of wood, and a little further on it is of mud. Many of the houses are built of sheets of corrugated iron, their walls wrinkled up like a washboard, and all have roofs of this material. A few are painted, but nearly all are of the galvanized, slaty color of the metal as it comes from the factory.

"There is plenty of building space, but when you ask the price of vacant lots you find that property is high. What in the United States would be a $50 shanty is here worth $500, and a good business corner will sell for several thousands of dollars.

"Punta Arenas has one residence which would be considered a mansion in Washington city. This house, however, is the only one of its kind in Punta Arenas. Most of the dwellings are one-story structures which in the United States could be built for from $500 to $2,000. Many of the poorer houses are occupied by rich men; indeed, Punta Arenas has as many rich men as any frontier town of its size. It has thirty-three men each of whom owns or controls from 25,000 to 2,500,000 acres of land. Each has tens of thousands of sheep, and the wool clip of some of these sheep farmers is worth more than the annual salary of the President of the United States.

"The citizens of Punta Arenas come from all parts of the world. Some of the richest people are Russians; others are Scotchmen who have come from the Falkland Islands to engage in sheep farming; among them also are treacherous Spaniards, smooth-tongued Argentines and hard-looking brigands from Chile. The lower classes are chiefly shepherds and seamen, and among them are as many rough characters as are to be found in our mining camps of the West."

That extract caused you to be more interested in the place, but still the reference to rough characters made you feel that if you were going ashore it would be better to leave your money on the ship and not go alone. When the fleet came in sight of the town all the glasses in each ship that could be spared were in constant use. You saw a gathering of dwellings, almost entirely one-story structures and all of a slate color. There was one tower in the centre of the place. The town stretched for nearly a mile and a half along a sloping hill, nearly flat in the foreground, and it extended back in a straggling way for about three-quarters of a mile. Back of the town on rising ground was a belt of burned timber, bleak and forbidding, and then came the sharp rise of the ground into a low range of mountains, eight or ten miles away and about 1,500 or 1,800 feet high, with patches of snow here and there in sheltered nooks.

"Quite a town, that!" was the general comment. The harbor contained a dozen or fifteen steamships, coasters and tugs and was alive with Chilean flags. Fully one-half of the buildings, many of them mere shacks, had the Chilean flag above them. The red, white and blue color gave bright relief to the sombre appearance of the town. That display of bunting warmed up the Americans some. Anchor was cast soon after noon and by 3 o'clock the first men were ashore. The glad hand was stretched out to them.

The visitors were surprised at the place. They found shops where everything that one could wish was to be purchased. If you wanted your fountain pen fixed all the parts necessary were to be obtained. If you wanted kodak supplies there they were. If you desired paint, brass tubes, fine olives, dog biscuit, rare wines, high grade cigars, a theatrical performance, a suit of clothes made to order, fresh meat or fish, fresh milk, diamonds, hunting supplies, books, hardware-well, everything that a reasonable person could wish was to be had at moderate prices, except furs. The furs were there by the bale, and they too were cheap when you considered the prices you would have to pay for the same product in the United States, but they were not cheap for Punta Arenas. Prices were advanced 50 per cent. on furs as soon as the first man from the fleet got ashore.

The first thing that struck the eye as the launches swung into the long landing pier was an enormous sign painted on the sea-wall saying:

SPECIAL PRICES FOR THE

AMERICAN 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 the wide 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 and cheapest 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 dray work 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 into the 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 Se?or Nogueira died, leaving his wife a millionaire. She decided to have more of the physical comforts 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. These clubs 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 the fowl 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. The guests 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 Arenas yet. 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 province with 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 interesting of 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 the church 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 make money 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 the Methodist 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, vicu?a, 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 Arenas for 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 mysterious group 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 with propriety 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.

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