Part 12 (2/2)
Although cold and cheerless most of the time, yet millions of sheep are raised in this southern land and Punta Arenas is the s.h.i.+pping point. A kind of coa.r.s.e gra.s.s grows here that is nouris.h.i.+ng and sheep thrive and live for weeks alone on the open plains. Wool, hides and meat are brought to this port and s.h.i.+pped to the outside world. Of course all clothing, building material and machinery must be brought in for there are no factories in Punta Arenas.
Santiago, the capital of Chile, is located in a valley that has been called the ”Garden of South America.” This valley is seven hundred miles long, fifty or sixty miles wide and hundreds of feet above sea level. On the east are the snow-capped Andes and on the west the coast ranges. On the mountain slopes on either side are the great herds of cattle and sheep and lower down the rich fields of alfalfa and grain, fruit and flowers.
Strange to say the farming is nearly all done with oxen. I counted six yoke of oxen in a ten-acre field. Women as well as men work in the fields. The fences are made of stone but in many parts of the valley you never see a stone in the field. If they have any modern farm machinery I did not see it. All the fields are irrigated, as it seldom rains in this valley in the summer time.
Most of the best land is owned by wealthy men who live in the city.
Those who do the work are mostly Indians or half breeds, and they have but few of the comforts of life. Many of the farms are great tracts and there is a store where the worker can purchase what he needs but the prices are high and he is kept in debt. A country can never really prosper where the tillers of the soil are ignorant and have no say in the affairs of the government.
It is in this valley where most of the Chileans live. While in other parts of the country there are but two people to the square mile, here in this valley there are seventeen to the square mile. Here are most of the schools and colleges, cities, railways and manufacturing plants.
When about sixty per cent of the people are illiterate and this cla.s.s is almost entirely the laboring cla.s.s it does not look as if conditions would be changed very soon.
I saw more drinking in Chile than in any other South American country. A portion of the city of Valparaiso seems to be given over almost entirely to the liquor dealers and the people who throng that district are hard-looking folks. The f.a.g ends of civilization seem to have gathered here. This is the only city in South America where I was accosted by both men and women and they almost try to hold one up in the streets in broad daylight.
Nearly all the Chilean women dress in black. A black shawl is worn and you would think they are all dressed in mourning, but they are not. This black cloth is called a manto and all women, both rich and poor, wear them. The business portion of the city of Valparaiso is built on a narrow strip of land at the foot of a high hill.
All along there are elevators or lifts as they call them. For a couple of pennies you can step into one of these lifts and be taken up a hundred feet or more. While one lift goes up another comes down as they are always built in pairs. There are winding ways where horses and donkeys can walk up but no wheeled vehicle can be taken up or down for it is too steep.
For this reason the dairymen and venders all have donkeys or small horses. A dairyman will have a couple of large milk cans, one on either side of the beast, or perhaps a small barrel on the top of a frame or saddle. The man leads or drives the animal and they are so sure-footed that they can go up a place so steep that one not used to climbing could not make the ascent.
There are but few North Americans in Chile. I had breakfast (they call the noon meal breakfast) with the American Club. There were but twenty-five or thirty present, mostly business men. But few of these men are satisfied to stay long in Chile.
The American Y. M. C. A. is doing some good work in Valparaiso, as in all other South American cities. The rooms are well patronized and it was homelike to see the leading magazines of the United States upon the reading table. The Sunday afternoon program that I attended was well gotten up and very interesting.
While in Chile you see more to remind you of the United States than in any other South American country but I was not favorably impressed with the people. They will not compare in looks or actions with the people east of the Andes. Lack of education, culture and refinement are noticeable everywhere. Religion and morality are conspicuous by their absence and one cannot but pity those who live among them although one sees some good traits in many of them.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE SWITZERLAND OF SOUTH AMERICA--BOLIVIA
In the very heart of the South American continent there is a vast table-land nearly as large as the great Mississippi valley, that some t.i.tanic convulsion has boosted up nearly three miles in the air. This great plateau is hemmed in by mountains, the coast range on the west and the main range on the east.
These mountain peaks rise as high as twenty-two thousand feet. In these heights, two and one-half miles above sea level is Lake t.i.ticaca, which is one hundred and sixty miles long and thirty miles wide. This lake, which is the highest body of water in the western hemisphere, is fed by streams of water from the Andes and is so cold that ice is formed along the edge every night in the year although the lake itself is never frozen over. The lake has no outlet and the color of the water is a steely blue.
This lake forms the northwestern border of Bolivia. Situated as it is, including both mountains and table-land, Bolivia has been called the Switzerland of South America. It is more than twelve times as large as the state of Iowa and is the cradle of the ancient civilization that made up the world-famous Inca empire which existed many centuries ago.
The people of Bolivia today have the blood of this ancient race in their veins and they are an industrious people. Visiting a mission school in Buenos Aires I was much impressed by one young man who seemed to be the peer of the two hundred students in the school.
On talking to this young man I found that he was from Bolivia. How he heard about this mission school I have forgotten, but the story of how he tramped two hundred miles over the mountains and then across the great Argentine plains determined to reach this school and work his way through, could not be forgotten. On Sunday morning I went to the American church and this fellow was at the door as an usher and the friendly greeting and winning smile he had for everyone gave me great respect for him and his people as well.
Portions of this great Bolivian plateau are very beautiful. One noted naturalist coming from Paraguay said as he beheld this region, ”If tradition has lost the records of the place where Paradise is located the traveler who visits these regions of Bolivia feels at once the impulse to exclaim: 'Here is Eden.'”
Here grows the famous chincona tree from which we get quinine. Also the coca plant from which we get cocaine. Perhaps when the dentist pulled your tooth he used cocaine that came from this country. The natives chew the coca leaf as a stimulant. It is actually said that by the use of this leaf a man can go for many hours without food and perform feats of endurance that seem to us impossible.
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