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CHILE
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Clissold
Chilean scrap-book.
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L-16
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
By the same author:
WHIRLWIND
BERNARDO O HIGGINS
Director Supremo de Chile
CHILEAN
SCRAP-BOOK
by
STEPHEN CLISSOLD
FREDERICK A. PRAEGER
NEW YORK
Published in the United States of America in 1952
by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers*
105 West 4.0th Street, New York 18, N.Y,
All rights reserved
BOOKS THAT MATTER
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 52-12389
Printed in Great Britain
To my wife
MAJA
whom I first met in Chile
this scrap-book is dedicated
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to Don Eugenic Pereira Salas, Don Jorje Elliott,
Professor Robin Humphreys, and particularly to Mr Oswald Hardy
Evans, for their kindness in reading through the manuscript of this
book and for making many valuable suggestions. I would also like
to thank Mr T. P. Jones and the Servicio de Difusion Cultural of
the University of Chile for their assistance in procuring photographs,
and my brother, Cmdr P. C. H. Clissold, RNR, for once again
preparing the maps. Finally, I make due acknowledgment to the
Society of Authors as literary representative of the R. B. Cun
ningham Graham Estate for permission to include an extract from
R. B. Cunningham Graham s Pedro de Valdivia.
s. c.
CONTENTS
Introduction page i
Chapter i The Fertile Desert 4
2 The Nitrate King and his Heirs 20
3 Rotos and Revolutionaries 33
4 Norte Chico 47
5 Aconcagua and the Andes 65
6 The Central Valley 73
7 Santiago 88
8 Valparaiso 107
9 Vina del Mar 136
10 Robinson Crusoe s Island 146
11 Chilian, Concepcion and the New Industrial Zone 166
12 Araucania Epic and Epilogue 185
1 3 The Region of the Lakes 218
14 The Island of CHloe 23 3
15 Aysen Province 245
16 The Straits of Magellan 259
17 Tierra del Fuego 286
Conclusion 305
Index 309
LIST OF PLATES
BERNARDO o mcGiNS Frontispiece
Director Supremo de Chile
i CHTJQUICAMATA facing page 64
Copper mine in the northern desert
ZAPALLAR 64
H THE HUASO 65
At a fiesta
At home
m CENTRAL CHILE 80
An inquilino s home
Typical pasture land, with Cordillera in background
IV VALPARAISO 8 1
The old town on the cerros
SANTIAGO 8 1
View from the Cerro Santa Lucia
V A VIEW OF THE COMMODORE^ TENT
AT THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ l6o
From an engraving in Ansons Voyage Round the
World
VI CONCEPCION l6l
The University City
PUERTO MONTT l6l
The fishing village ofAngelmo
VH SCENES PROM ARAUCANIAN LIFE 192
From engravings in Frezier s Voyage to the South Sea
vm ARAUCANIAN COUPLE facing page 193
Yesterday. From a nineteenth-century print by Claude Gay
Today. Cautin Province
IX THE REGION OF THE LAKES 208
Lake Todos los Santos with Volcdn Osorno in the distance
Mount Tronador, The Thunderer
X ISLAND OF CfflLOE 209
The port of Castro
TRADING WITH THE INDIANS 209
From The Araucanians by Edmond Reuel Smith
XI SOUTHERN CHILE 256
The Channels
Laguna San Rafael, with iceberg
XH SOUTHERN CHILE 257
Monkey-Puzzles 9 growing on the slopes of an
active volcano
Forest ofAraucarias or Monkey-Puzzles 9
Xm AN ESTANCIA IN THE ULTIMA ESPERANZA DISTRICT 272
GLACIER O HIGGINS, SOUTHERN CHILE
XIV CORDILLERA DE PAINE, SOUTHERN CHILE 273
ONE OF THE FEW SURVIVING ALACALOOF FAMILIES
MAPS
FOUR SECTIONAL MAPS OF CHILE Front and back endpapers
INTRODUCTION
CHILE, FOR MOST OF us, is little more than a name on the
map a name, moreover, of which none can tell with
certainty the origin. Some declare that it derives from an
Indian word, curiously akin to our own chilly , meaning cold .
Others hold the more poetic belief that it was called after the
characteristic cry of birds. Others again trace its origin back to an
Indian phrase meaning where the land ends . Many other learned
and ingenious hypotheses have been suggested. But surely, if we
might take aptness as the criterion, Chile must be acknowledged
to be pre-eminently where the land ends . For throughout its
entire extent it is nothing less than one continuous shelf, seldom
more than a hundred miles in width, poised between the massive
Cordillera of the Andes and the immensity of the Pacific Ocean.
With the possible exception of Egypt, no country is so remarkable,
so freakish, in its geographical structure. The conquistadores com
pared its shape to that of a sword. To our more urbanized imagina
tion it suggests ribbon development on a continental scale, a ribbon
stretching for nearly two and a half thousand miles, bleached by
tropical suns in the north, and frayed into innumerable, wind
swept shreds of islands and fjords in the south. Between the two
ends of this ribbon are to be found an extraordinary variety of
landscape and climate.
The inhabitants of Chile show a far greater measure of homo
geneity than the differences of environment would lead us to expect.
The population is essentially a mestizo one, the Indian element pre
ponderating in the country, the European in the towns. You could
live for years in Santiago or Valparaiso without encountering any
reminder of the aboriginal population beyond the dark-eyed maid
who brings your meals or the dusky navvies at work on the
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
never-ending road repairs. The remnants of the pure native races are
mostly confined to special reservations and are fast moving towards
assimilation or extinction. Chile, one is confidently assured, has no
Indian problem. The country feels more in common with white
Uruguay and Argentina than with the Indo-American republics
of Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia and Ecuador.
This absence, or at least denial, of the Indian element in the
character of the nation may perhaps account for that lack of dis
tinctive local character and colour which sometimes disappoints
the visitor to Chile. The Indians of Peru, Bolivia or Ecuador may
be backward and squalid, but they add a strikingly vivid note to
the life of their country. Their economic poverty is offset by the
richness of their popular art and the skill of their traditional crafts,
their melancholy relieved by the elaborate celebrations of their
fiestas and the gaiety of brilliant costume. It is sometimes even
claimed that these countries will one day evolve distinctive political
and social forms as Mexico has to some extent already evolved
them more fully expressive of their true Indo-American character.
In Chile, there is little or nothing of all this. Its tones are more
sober, more apt to please us by recalling scenes and customs already
familiar, rather than to astonish us by the fantastic and colourful
exuberance which the words South America conjure up. Nor is
there much to attract us in the way of archaeological remains or
architectural treasures. The remoteness and poverty of the country
during the days of the Spanish Empire and the recurrence of
devastating earthquakes have seen to that. Yet Chile is anything but
an uninteresting country. Its astonishing and infinitely varied scenery
alone is proof against this. The history of the country, too, and die
many strange and forceful characters who have formed it, contain
the true stuff of romance. To us, dais romance makes a special
appeal, since so many of the threads of which it is woven lead
across the seas to the shores of England, Scotland and Ireland, to
bygone friends and enemies across the channel, and to the broad
lands of the United States.
In colonial times the country was always referred to as the
Kingdom of Chile. Why a kingdom, we wonder for who could
name a single Chilean king? If we care to press our inquiries further,
INTRODUCTION
we shall find that, in a roundabout way, it was to England that
Chile owed her royal standing. "When the Emperor Charles V
betrothed his son Philip to Queen Mary of England he gave him
the tide of King of Chile so that the prince s rank should not be
inferior to hers. The conquistadores came to Chile in quest of gold
and silver. The country yielded these and many other precious
metals besides. But it is in other ways as well that Chile has enriched
the world. We owe to her our delicious strawberries, and perhaps
the potato as well. We owe, too, through the adventures of the
English seamen and buccaneers who harried her coasts, the story of
Robinson Crusoe and the ballad of the Ancient Mariner. With the
wars of independence against Spain a new chapter is opened. At the
call of a Chilean patriot leader of Irish descent, British and American
volunteers flocked to man the navy of independent Chile. Many
of them stayed on to found Chilean families and make their
fortunes in the country s expanding industry and commerce. The
New World, it seemed, was being discovered afresh, and this time
not by the subjects of the Spanish King.
The world, we are often told, is growing smaller. Modern
methods of communication are bringing the remotest countries to
our doorstep and making Esldmoes, Afghans, and Hottentots as
familiar to us as our neighbours. But is this really so? An under
standing of other peoples and other countries is not borne to us
automatically on the wings of aeroplanes or the crest of wireless
waves. It can only come as the outcome of a constant and deliberate
process of rediscovery. A hundred years ago, scores of books of
travel, memoirs, description and Latin American history issued
from busy Anglo-Saxon "pens. Since then, the young republics
have grown so fast that our understanding has not always kept pace
with them. For all their links of commerce and history, and the
debt which they owe to European culture and to American tech
nical skill, they remain strangers to us. We need to explore them
again with shrewd eyes and an open mind. In Chile, where there
are so many stout Anglo-Saxon sign-posts to guide us, and so many
byways curiously winding into our own history, the course of
rediscovery should be a rewarding one.
Chapter One
The Fertile Desert
To THE TRAVELLER approaching down the Pacific coast from
the Panama Canal, Chile extends but a bleak and sullen
welcome. Can this, he wonders, be the fertile province won
for Spain by the old conquistador Pedro de Valdivia the land
famed for its gay Mediterranean climate, its fruits, its choice wines?
Stretching away southwards between the ocean and the great wall
of the Andes, a seemingly endless belt of tawny sand, rock and
mountain unfurls itself, more absolute and terrifying in its uncom
promising aridity than the Sahara. The first glimpse of a strange
land usually elates; but the sight of this grim desert oppresses the
mind with a sense of singular desolation. There is no chain of palm-
fringed oases, no stately, slow-moving caravan, no crumbling
pyramid to redeem its dreariness. This desert suggests rather a vast
primordial slag-heap dumped down by some indifferent creator on
a distant shore and shunned by man ever since. It is only when the
rays of the rising or setting sun kindle its sombre surface into the
most gorgeous and improbable pink, purple, blue, crimson and
orange that we feel the compelling fascination which all deserts
exert. Then we may grow aware, too, that this is a magic desert, a
waste land possessed of infinite riches which men have given their
lives to discover and whole armies have fought to secure. Like
Swift s broomstick, by a capricious kind of fate, destined to make
other things dean and be nasty itself , it fertilizes other lands out of
the barrenness of its own soil. The very lack of rain which means
that no vegetation can grow, nor animal life exist, has led to the
formation of chemicals which elsewhere are washed out of the
earth and lost. These are the famous Chilean nitrate deposits.
If only the conquistadores could have suspected this as they
trudged along over those same nitrate deserts which were to make
THE FERTILE DESERT
the fortune of later generations! The search for gold was ever a
powerful motive in Spanish exploration and conquest. Almagro,
Francisco Pkarro s comrade-in-arms and kter rival, who led the
first Spanish expedition to Chile in 1535, was litde interested in
acquiring more riches for himself, but eager to find the means of
rewarding his less fortunate friends and retainers. Pizarro, for his
part, was glad to see him go, as he wished to consolidate his hold
on Cuzco, the wealthy capital of the Inca empire. The Indian princes
themselves, secretly meditating revolt and anxious to lure away as
many Spanish soldiers as possible, also urged him on with tales of
the great riches which would be his in Chile. Few men, surely,
have thus ever set out on the discovery of a great country as a
result of such varied and largely discreditable calculations! The
rigours of Almagro s passage of the snowy Cordillera were so
appalling that when he at length decided to withdraw from Chile,
he did so across the northern deserts. How he managed to bring
his army, fully armed and equipped, across those forbidding wastes,
even if we assume them to have been less arid than they are today,
must always rank as a miracle of endurance and courage. His
casualties numbered twenty horses, an unrecorded number of
Indian auxiliaries, and only one Spaniard, drowned ironically
enough whilst attempting to cross one of the few existing rivers.
Small bands of Spaniards had previously succeeded in making their
way across the desert to join him in Chile, and from them Almagr6
learnt the route and drew his lessons. He dispatched his men, well
supplied with guanaco bladders fUled with water, in relays of groups
numbering not more than eight men, who were to make their
way from one water-hole to the next, whilst his one ship sailed up
the coast to protect their flank from attack by hostile tribes. Thus
the discoverers of Chile returned in safety or rather, as far as their
veteran commander and his companions were concerned to the
cruel death awaiting them at the hands of their brother Christians.
Though the experience of Alrnagro and his companions had
. dispelled the legend of the untold wealth of Chile, another expedi
tion set out in 1540 under Pedro de Valdivia who succeeded in
carrying out the effective conquest and colonization of the country.
It was a conquest, however, which the Araucanian Indians in the
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
south were stubbornly to dispute for over three centuries and which
was to cost the first governor his life. 1 Although a number of gold
and silver mines were, after all, discovered later on and provided
the funds with which to purchase the tools, livestock, clothes and
other essentials for the colonists, and to pay for the armies constantly
required on the southern frontier, Chile was at first one of the
poorest, besides being one of the remotest, of Spain s possessions.
Valdivia found the greatest difficulty in attracting colonists and had
recourse to the most ingenious forms of bluff. On returning from
his distant outpost to the viceregal capital, he could not disguise the
fact that his clothes were in tatters and his face marked with care
and fatigue. But he took good care that covetous eyes should note
that the trappings of his horse were of the finest silver and that the
beast was even shod with the same precious metal which, he non
chalantly boasted, was as common as iron in the new province.
From this incessant quest for wealth arise many of the myths and
legends in which Chile s desert territories abound. There men have
always dreamed of stumbling on some hidden treasure which would
make their fortune overnight. Had not the richest mines in America
been discovered by humble folk in the most unexpected of ways
Guanajuato by a party of muleteers, Potosi by an Indian pursuing a
llama? Who could tell what treasures still await discovery beneath
the crust of the vast uncharted northern deserts? Hearsay and legend
are constantly being borne out by facts which none can dispute and
which incontestably point to the existence of the coveted wealth.
Yet how often has such treasure been finally located and secured?
As elusive as the desert mirage, it lies always just beyond the grasp
of those who seek it and has more often led them to their doom
than to their fortune. Terrifying and mysterious beings stand guard
over it a fox or formidable dog maybe, or more often a fabulous
bird known as the dicanto. The eyes of this creature glitter with a
dazzling metallic brilliance and a golden or silver effulgence arises
from the flutter of its wings as it flits from rock to rock. The alicanto
carrnot fly. It is weighed down with the precious metal on which it
battens. Yet it ever eludes capture by vanishing into a hole or crack
THE FERTILE DESERT
in the rock, and may lure the intruder to his death from some un
suspected craggy height. 2 Then there is the carbundo, whose body is
shaped like a husk of maize and glitters dazzlingly, and the phantom
miner or larreterito who makes long-abandoned mines to re-echo
with his ghostly hammer blows. Many of these myths are accom
panied by a wealth of picturesque detail. Tolopampa, we are told,
is an enchanted city which sometimes appears at night in the midst
ofthepampa to the north of the town of Freirina. The glitter of its
lights is reflected in the waters of a lake or river, and the desert
silence is broken by the barking of dogs, the crowing of cocks and
all the bustle of a thriving city. Tolopampa takes its name from the
princess who lives in a sumptuous palace under the care of a servant
called the Giant Miner or Big Feet (Pata Larga) on account of the
great footprints which this creature leaves in the sand as it goes
through the desert in search of treasure for its mistress. Lucky the
man who sees the Giant Miner, for he, too, will surely come upon
treasure.
Of all the beliefs in the existence of treasure trove and lost mines,
none is more typical or persistent than the story of Huasicima. It is
a legend of relatively recent origin and is still the subject of serious
discussion in journals of repute. 3 Its origin goes back to 1870, when
an old Peruvian miner from the province of Tarapaca lost his way
in the desert not far from the coast and reappeared some days kter
with stones containing a high silver content which he bartered in
Huara and in the neighbouring nitrate workings. Neither direct
questioning nor exhaustive inquiries could elicit the old man s
secret. Attempts to shadow his movements were equally un
successful. From time to time he would vanish and reappear some
days later with a fresh supply of the wonderful stones. He died
without revealing his secret.
For the next twenty years a number of fruitless efforts were made
to discover the mine. Then one day two workmen who had missed
their train from Agua Santa to Iquique decided to take a short cut
across the desert. Night overtook them as they were entering a pass
through the hills and at dawn they woke to find that they had
pitched their camp near the mouth of an abandoned mine. Their
amazement knew no bounds when they discovered that the stones
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
which lay around them were rich in silver. They hurried back in
excitement to Agua Santa where the heads of the oficina, convinced
that the men had stumbled on the lost mines of Huasicima, hastily
organized an expedition. The two workers accompanied the expedi
tion as guides, but for all their exertions, they could never retrace
the route they had previously followed.
Not long after, in 1898, a clerk engaged in the newly-constructed
oficina of Transito set out for Iquique and found himself surprised
by the dreaded coastal mist known as the camanchaca. There was
nothing for it but to wrap himself up in his cloak and get what
sleep he could until morning. Then, taking a couple of stones from
the pile which had perforce served him as a pillow, and throwing
them into his saddle-bag as a souvenir of his adventure, he went
on his way to Iquique. It was only later, after his return to the
oficina, that he happened to show the stones to the company s
analyst and learnt to his amazement that they were of almost pure
silver. But try as he would, he could never again find the spot
where he had been when the camanchaca overtook him.
The fame of the lost silver mine now spread far and wide as a
result of these tantalizing incidents, and the pampa was crossed and
recrossed by all types of prospectors seeking to retrace die steps of
their fortunate predecessors. But the desert kept its secret and the
prospectors gradually abandoned the search in discouragement.
Then suddenly, in 1902, an incident occurred which more than
revived the former interest. A Sr. Miguel Hernandez, of Pisagua,
came across the mysterious mine in broad daylight whilst on his
way from the oficina Rancagua to Caleta Buena. So positive was
he of the identity of his find that he resolved not to leave the spot
until he had left landmarks which could not fail to guide him back
with a fuHy equipped expedition. But to raise an unmistakable land
mark in the midst of the desert is not as simple as it sounds.
Hernandez did his best. He traced patterns on the hillside, heaped
stones together, and to make absolutely certain, drove a stout stick
into the ground and stuck an old tin can on top of it. Then, full of
elation, he rode off and had the satisfaction of finding that, as he
had thought, the sample stones he had taken with him were rich
in silver. But once again the desert was to play its old trick. Search
THE FERTILE DESERT
as he could, Hernandez never caught another glimpse of the hillside
with the patterns on it, the little piles of stone, or the stick with the
old tin can.
Three years passed, and then it seemed that a fisherman had
suddenly solved the mystery. At all events he would return from
excursions into the desert with a couple of sacks of silver in his
little boat. He became rich overnight and announced that he would
form a company to exploit the mine commercially. But sudden
wealth, excitement and indulgence proved too much for the man.
He fell sick and died in hospital without breathing a word of his
secret. The year of his death a bank clerk from Iquique by the name
of Ricardo Solari claimed to catch an unmistakable glimpse of
Hernandez s landmarks before the camanchaca fell and hid them for
ever from his sight. Other curious and tantalizing clues followed,
including even a photograph of the mine complete with Hernandez s
pile of stones and tin can which was taken by a French traveller
and only identified years later by chance as none other than that
of the fabulous Huasicima.
Has the last really been heard of this strange story? By plotting
the itineraries of the previous travellers who claim to have found it,
we find that the approximate point of intersection lies somewhere
in the region of 20 05 south by 70 oo west, in the curiously
named Pampa Perdiz. 4 But who is likely to stumble across it now?
In those parts the old ofidnas are being abandoned and the nomad
population of the desert is ebbing. The few who remain have given
up the search. They have other things to worry about, other hopes
and ambitions. For the desert now yields a treasure more in
exhaustible and precious than the yield of any fabulous mine the
white gold of nitrate.
The nitrate ports in the north of Chjle are little urban islands
separated from each other by wastes of sand or water. They have
names which admirably suggest the scorched and britde flintiness
of the desert Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta. Some date back to
remote antiquity; others are the creation of the nitrate boom of the
last century. Even the newest of them give an impression of a certain
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
longevity, as if their forced growth and feverish activity under a
tropical sun had aged them prematurely. They have seen countless
sudden fortunes made or lost and witnessed many dramas of private
life and public affairs.
Arica, Chile s most northerly port, was for years an apple of
international discord and there are said to be some who still refuse
to reconcile themselves to the plebiscite award which included this
once Peruvian town within the frontiers of Chile. 5 Even today, it
remains linked by railway to the neighbouring Peruvian town of
Tacna, whilst visitors from Chile must reach it by sea or air, or else
jog along the dusty road from Iquique. Arica seems to slumber in
its isolation with a dignified and slightly aggrieved sense of aristo
cratic detachment, whilst politicians promise it a new era of pros
perity when once the projected transcontinental railway which is
to link it with Santos in Brazil has been completed. But this is all
a fair dream of the future, and Arica seems to prefer its dreams of
the past. Life can be pleasant enough in Arica. The climate is un
expectedly benign, there are pleasant, excursions to be made in the
fertile Azapa and Lluta valleys, and a comfortable if old-fashioned
hotel looking out over the Pacific. The church of San Marcos,
where doves nest lazily in the belfry, is a curious structure made
entirely of iron. It was built, heaven knows why, by Eiffel, the
most spectacular engineer of the day. Then, before the Chilean
troops captured the town, the great key which had been used to
do the riveting and later ceremoniously preserved in the church,
was cast into the sea lest the Chileans should dismantle the building^
and remove it as a trophy of war. There is, too, the romantic cliff
known as the Morro to be admired and explored for relics of the
celebrated action in which the Chilean forces scaled the height
during the War of the Pacific and drove the Peruvian defenders
headlong into the sea. At its base yawns a gloomy cavern known, as
the Inca s Cave, the entrance so the legend runs of a secret under
ground passage burrowing its way under the desert and beneath
the foothills of the Andes until it emerges in the very palace of the
Incas at Cuzco! 6
Not far from the town is the ancient Indian cemetery of La
Lisera where ancient earthenware pots and vessels may still be found.
10
THE FERTILE DESERT
A number of mummies, their faces covered with clay on which some
rude attempts seem to have been made at portraiture of the de
ceased, have also been brought to light. What races, then, inhabited
Chile s inhospitable northern coasts in ancient times? Archaeologists
can tell us little about them. One race, that of the Changes, must
have attained at least some level of primitive culture. They were
remarkably skilled at chipping their arrow-heads and fish-hooks
from chalcedony and even rock crystal. At some parts of the coast,
as at Taltal, the diversity of types of stone implements discovered
suggests the confluence of several different Indian cultures.
Two hundred kilometres to the south lies Iquique, once the
thriving centre of the nitrate industry. A few traces of its vanished
golden age may still be seen. The abundance and relative cheapness
of the whisky, tea and other scarce goods displayed in the shop-
windows now no doubt the product, as in Arica, of the flourishing
smuggling trade carried on over the border recall the opulence of
the boom days when Iquique consumed more champagne per head
of the population than any other city in the world! The most
famous artists and musicians were engaged to enliven the leisure
hours of this community of cosmopolitan adventurers, industrialists,
and engineers. Sarah Bernhardt played to packed audiences in the
now crumbling opera house; the Doyle Carte Company carne all
die way from England to give them their season of Gilbert and
Sullivan. But however brilliant the performance, the lights in the
auditorium were never turned down, for had not most of the
audience come to display or admire the still more dazzling brilliance
of their bejewelled women-folk? Not far from the opera house
stood the palatial headquarters of the Britannia* masonic lodge, now
transferred to Santiago, and the spacious English Club, where the
few dozen business men who are all that remain of the once mighty
British colony still gather to talk wistfully, as they sip their gin-
and-tonic or their pisco sour, of the good old days. On a shelf high
above the long bar stands a fine array of challenge cups and trophies
those of the rowing and shooting clubs, the cricket and football
leagues, the tennis tournaments and the other sporting events which
have now died out for lack of competitors. Numbers have dwindled
and tastes changed. Most residents of Iquique, British no less than
ii
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Chilean, seem now to prefer to spend their leisure hours on the
magnificent beaches which stretch away from the town to the
peninsula of Cavancha.
To the Chileans, Iquique stands above all else for the glorious
memory of one of the most famous naval engagements in their
history, when the Chilean frigate Esmeralda fought the Peruvian
ironclad, the Huascar. Hopelessly outclassed from the first, the
Esmeralda was finally rammed by her opponent, but her captain,
Arturo Prat, leapt aboard the Huascar where he fell fighting
heroically. Prat has now become the most revered figure in the
annals of his country s naval history. He was undoubtedly a very-
brave man, and his countrymen are right to be proud of him. Yet
there is something about the fervour of Chile s cult of her hero
which somehow leaves the foreigner a little cold. Perhaps the
stylized official pictures are to blame; for it is hard to think of a
man who looks so strikingly like an old-fashioned advertisement
for Players Navy Cut as a creature of flesh and blood, warmed
with the generous flame of valour and self-sacrifice. Or perhaps it
is the cause in which he died that gives us pause; for we can muster
little enthusiasm today for that fratricidal struggle for die possession
of the nitrate fields a struggle, if ever there was one, which seems
to bear out the Marxian thesis that wars are fought for motives of
barefaced economic gain. But does a man cease to be a hero when
we doubt the justice of the cause for which he gave his life? Some
would unhesitatingly answer yes. In Peru, the history books now
teach school-children that Prat did not board the Huascar but was
knocked off the bridge of his ship by the mere shock of the col
lision and fell on to die deck of the enemy where he was igno-
miniously cut to pieces. But we who need take no sides in this
wrangle can forget the photographs and the text-books and re
member Arturo Prat for what he undoubtedly was a fearless and
gallant officer.
Between Iquique and Antofagasta the coast continues bleak and
deserted except for one small but thriving port. This is Tocopilla,
famous for its magnificent sea-fishing and still prosperous through
the handling of nitrate from the great oficinas of Pedro de Valdivia
and Maria Elena. More shipping is frequendy to be seen in its
12
THE FERTILE DESERT
harbour than in Antofagasta or even Valparaiso. Antofagasta itself,
the chief city of the northern desert provinces, is built on the
gendy sloping flank of the desert, as if its whole layout had been
tilted up to give the newcomer an idea of what the town had to
offer him in the way of comfort, beauty and entertainment. Truth
to tell, Antofagasta* s attractions are but modest, though some local
patriots claim that it is the finest city in the country, and that they
would not exchange its equable climate, its lido, its races and its
round of social engagements with the officers of the garrison, for
the charms of the capital itself. But most people look upon Anto
fagasta as a place where fortunes are to be made as soon as possible
before retiring to more favoured spots. Though modern, the town
wears an air of spurious antiquity, for its houses of wood and
corrugated iron have been exposed to the onslaught of fierce sun
shine and the still fiercer timber-ants. It seems to be worn and
wasted through its incessant struggle against the desert. The whole
town has been bodily imposed upon a hostile nature. Everything
you set eyes upon has been imported, from the houses themselves
and the material with which they are built, to the paving of the
streets, the food and other goods in the shops, to the very soil which
nourishes the scanty greenery of the gardens. The central plaza is a
triumph of carefully nurtured luxuriance. Birds twitter amongst
the branches of its imported trees, swans glide gracefully on the
surface of its litde artificial lake, and even a peacock struts amongst
the constantly watered foliage.
The population of Antofagasta partakes of this same imported,
eclectic and cosmopolitan character. There is a fair-sized English
community, engaged for the most part in the administration of the
railways linking the Chilean port with La Paz in Bolivia and the
more recently constructed line to Salto, in the Argentine. The
latter railway, it is said, will open up hitherto land-locked areas of
the Argentine and bring renewed prosperity to Antofagasta, but
there are so far few signs of that promise being fulfilled. More
numerous than the British are tie Yugoslavs who control much of
the city s lesser commerce. You can walk into a book-shop or a
grocer s store and listen to an animated conversation carried on in
die dialect of the fisher-folk from the islands of the Adriatic. The
13
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Spanish have a magnificent club in the heart of the city, whilst a
large building in the outskirts suggests by its oriental ideographs
that it is the centre of the Chinese or Japanese community. An
inscription, carved in gigantic letters upon the ruddy crust of the
hills behind the town, in memory of Bernardo O Higgins recalls
the son of the Irish-born Viceroy of Peru who became Chile s
leading figure in the war of independence against Spain. 7 It is a
name which we shall often meet with as we journey through Chile.
The settlements of the interior are of two kinds; the modern
qfidnas which have grown up round the nitrate workings and the
copper mines, and the small towns and villages of the oases. Many-
of the latter are of ancient foundation and pronounced Indian
character. Before the coming of the Spaniards, the Incas held sway
over the desert (where the remains of their roads can still be seen)
which they found an excellent place for relegating the political
prisoners of the day the troublesome subject races of the Bolivian
plateau. These forced transfers of population known as mitimais
were a characteristic feature of Inca rule. It is that practice, no doubt,
which has given the predominantly Bolivian character to so many
of the remote settlements in the desert, and made the ethnologist s
task in Northern Chile such a puzzling one. It probably accounts,
too, for the prevalence of the picturesque Indian fiestas such as the
ritual dances in honour of Our Lady of the Rocks which attract
thousands of pilgrims every October to the remote Andean valley
of Livilcar. 8 A rather different origin is ascribed by legend to another
famous desert shrine that of La Tirana, some fifty miles east of
Iquique. Many of the Indians brought by Almagro as hostages on
his journey of discovery into Chile are said to have escaped and
taken refuge there under an Inca princess whose merciless rule won
her the tide of The Tyrant. This princess later married a Christian
and embraced the Catholic faith, whereupon her pagan subjects
rose in anger and killed her. Missionaries subsequently introduced
the cult of Our Lady into this pagan stronghold and the new faith
merged the ancient Indian rites into the remarkable ceremonial
songs and dances which have persisted down to the present day. 9
14
THE FERTILE DESERT
The whole vast desert contains but one river whose waters find
their way to the ocean. This is the Loa, which flows through the
fertile vale where the ancient town of Calama stands. The old
maps of the eighteenth century showed other rivers crossing the
desert. "Were these hut the outcome of imagination, based on hear
say and travellers tales i Once, we know, there were woods and
cultivated lands, where there is now nothing but the sterility of the
desert, and amongst them stood the cities and fortresses whose
remains can be seen today. Perhaps these ruins would have remained
entirely forgotten, or at least disregarded, had not the discovery of
nitrate sent men roaming again through these wastes. Amongst the
host of cosmopolitan adventurers and technicians who flocked to
those parts in the last century to seek their fortunes was z gringo 10
or Englishman called Richard Latcham. In the course of his work
on a new railway, Latcham became fascinated by the mysterious
ruins of the desert and decided to devote his life to archaeological
research. Although an occasional scientific expedition sets out to
explore the pampa from time to time and new tombs and ruins are
brought to light, Latcham s Arqueologia de la Region Atacamena
still tells us most of what is known about the civilization of this
vanished race. n
The civilization of the Atacamenos was, it seems, of great anti
quity and immense longevity, with origins probably dating back
to the neolithic age. It was flourishing before the birth of Christ
and reached its zenith not long before the Normans came to Britain.
Its ruin was sealed by the invasions, in relatively quick succession,
of the Incas and the Spaniards. *The Atacamenos were a people,*
Latcham tells us, who drew their livelihood from agriculture and
the breeding of llamas, and, in the coastal region, from fishing as
well. They spun and wove the wool from their flocks, made graceful
basket-work and pottery of fair quality, worked mines and knew
the use of metals, at least during the final pre-Inca epoch, producing
a bronze as hard as steel. Some of their weapons and tools were
made of copper or bronze and they used silver and, to a lesser
degree, gold, for their ornaments. They were great travellers and
traders. They roamed the desert with their flocks of llamas, from
the coast to far inland, crossing the Cordillera and penetrating into
15
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the plateaux and bleak uplands to peddle their wares. They spoke a
language of their own which up to now has not been discovered
to have affinity with any other known tongue.
"Was this Atacamenian civilization doomed to ultimate destruc
tion, we may wonder, by inexorable climatic changes which slowly
shrouded their fields and pastures and cities beneath a thickening
pall of sand? It seems not unlikely. In other parts of the northern
desert, whole forests have been discovered buried under the sand,
forming timber-mines which are now exploited for fuel. Or
perhaps decline set in with the breakdown of the admirable and
elaborate irrigation system, the ruins of which still exist to amaze
and challenge our age of technology. Unlike the Incas who wor
shipped the sun, the Atacamefios held water as their supreme
divinity. Where there is water, the soil is of extraordinary fertility,
as Pico with its famous oranges, Toconao with its succulent pears,
oranges, peaches and lemons, and San Pedro de Atacama with its
three alfalfa crops a year, bear witness. There is water in plenty,
the experts tell us, beneath the dry crust of the desert if only we
drill far enough. From time to time enterprising engineers make
surveys of some less forbidding comer of the desert, and the Chilean
press writes with sanguine vagueness of its potential develtipment.
Why could not Chile s desert become a second Arizona, which
American engineers are steadily reclaiming for agricultural use by
tapping the great reserves of water deep down beneath the arid
crust?
Another and even more ambitious scheme has sometimes been
mooted. High up on the Andean plateau, beyond the frontiers of
Chile, are die great lakes of Titicaca, Poopo and Coipasa, whose
exploitation for irrigation purposes and industrial power has long
been of interest to engineers. Twenty million horse-power of
hydraulic energy to be shared out between Chile, Bolivia and Peru,
and the coastal deserts transformed into a vast garden rich in
cotton, sugar and all manner of tropical fruits that would surely
be a venture in inter- American co-operation to stir the imagination 1
The technicians assure us that it is perfectly possible if only the
politicians can agree amongst themselves. Bolivia has set a high price
upon the life-giving waters of her lakes; her statesmen still dream
16
NOTES
of an outlet to the Pacific, either Arica itself (which Chile would
never agree to cede) or a strip of territory north of the Chilean
town where she might build her own port. An arrangement along
these lines has been discussed between La Paz and Santiago, and
Washington is believed to look favourably on it and even be pre
pared to help finance it. But Chile is attached to her desert. Angry
voices are raised in protest at the suggestion that she should part
with a slice of it that the whole might be made fertile. The soil of
Chile, they declare, is sacred, even though it be sterile; why not
develop instead the vast backward regions in the south? Besides,
arid though it is, the desert still retains a unique wealth of its own,
the exploitation of which forms a curious chapter in the history of
the country, and deserves one to itself in this scrap-book."
NOTES
1 Alonso de Ercilla, the Spanish captain who chronicled the heroic deeds
of the conquistadores and of their Indian foes in Bis epic poem La Araucana,
declares that Valdivia, slothful and negligent, incredulous, remiss and
careless*, fell into the fatal ambush because he was more intent on making
a detour to visit a newly-discovered mine than on taking the normal
military precautions for the security of his troop. The riches hidden beneath
the soil of Chile, exclaims the poet-moralist, were already providing
temptations which were to prove her inhabitants tindoing:
*Oh insatiable greed of mortals,
Beginning and end of all our ills !*
A Jesuit chronicler goes still further and relates the improbable story that
Valdivia was done to death by the Indians pouring molten gold down his
throat.
2 For this and many other interesting accounts of Chilean folk-lore, see
Julio Vicuna Cifuentes, Mitos y Supersticiones (Santiago 1947).
3 The following account is taken from an article in the Rjevista de Education
for July 1948.
4 The name has nothing to do with the Spanish, word perdiz, a partridge,
C 17
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
but is a corruption of the appropriately named pampa perdida the lost
pampa (sandy waste).
5 There is a voluminous bibliography, Chilean and Peruvian, on this
dispute. An authoritative and impartial study is Tacna and Arica by W. J.
Denis (Yale University Press 1931).
6 Mme Blavatskaya, who visited these parts in the last century, was a firm
believer in the existence of this tunnel, the entrance to which she held
to be indicated by certain hieroglyphics carved on the surface of the Morro
and rendered visible only when the sun s rays struck them at a certain angle.
This tunnel was alleged to lead to the lost treasure chambers of the Incas.
*We had in our possession, Mme Blavatskaya declared, an accurate plan
of the tunnel, the sepulchre, the great treasure chamber, and the hidden,
pivoted doors. It was given us by an old Peruvian, but if we had ever
thought of profiting from the secret it would have required the co-operation
of the Peruvian and Bolivian Governments on an extensive scale.
7 The reader must accustom himself as best he can to the incongruities and
intricacies of Chilean nomenclature. If he scans the newspapers, he will
come across many blunt Anglo-Saxon surnames, prefixed by less familiar
Christian names; Auguson Edwards, Marmaduke Grove, Horacio Walker.
The custom of the children adding their mother s surname to that of their
father often increases the incongruous effect and is highly confusing to the
foreigner. Thus, if a Senor Jones marries a Senorita Perez and has a daughter
whom they christen Carmen, the girl becomes Carmen Jones Perez. If,
in the course of time, Carmen marries a Senor Ivanovitch (which she may
well do if she lives in Antofagasta) she will then be known as Senora Carmen
Jones Perez de Ivanovitch. Let us suppose that a son is born to this couple
and that (as some Chileans think, it chic to do) they give him the English
name of Charlie; the boy is then Charlie Ivanovitch Jones. Thus, to the
Chileans, there is nothing particularly surprising in the national hero having
the apparently foreign sounding name of Bernardo O Higgins.
8 The shrine of Nuestra Senora de las Penas is situated in the impressive
Livilcar gully, in the cordillera of the Andes near the Peruvian frontier, on
the spot where the Virgin is said to have miraculously appeared to an
Indian muleteer in the year 1642. The main fiesta takes place each October,
followed by a smaller one on December 10, and attracts some four thousand
pilgrims. The complicated pattern of liturgy, music and dance which com
prise it forms the subject of an interesting monograph by Carlos Lavin,
Nuestra Senora de Las Penas, published under the auspices of the Instituto
de Investigaciones Musicales, of the University of Chile.
18
NOTES
9 See Carlos Lavin, La Tirana, Fiesta Ritual del Norte de Chile (Santiago
10 How this curious word, which is common all over Latin America,
first came into use, nobody can say with any certainty, though there have
been many guesses. Some maintain that it derives from the refrain Green
Grow the Rushes-O*, sung by the British troops which once entered
Buenos Aires and held that town for a short time. It is interesting to note
that Chilean folk-lore has its own version of this curious and esoteric song:
Friend, tell me your One! Though I am not your friend I will tell you;
One is for the Pure Virgin who gave birth in Bethlehem;
Two for the two tables of Moses;
Three for the Three Marys;
Four for the Four Evangelists;
Five for the Five Wounds;
Six for the Six Candles;
Seven for the Seven Sacraments;
Eight for the Eight Delights;
Nine for the Nine Months;
Ten for the Ten Commandments;
Eleven for the Eleven Thousand Virgins;
Twelve for the Twelve Apostles.* (See Cifucntes, op. at.)
11 The pioneer work done by Alcide d Orbigny and Max Uhle is still
of considerable value. For more recent investigations see Wendell C.
Bennet, The Atacameno* (Handbook of South American Indians, Vol. n,
Smithsonian Institute Bulletin 143, Washington 1946), and Junius Bird
Excavations in N. Chile (Anthropological Papers of the American Museums
of Natural History, Vol. XXXVffl, Part IV, 1943).
Chapter Two
The Nitrate King and his Heirs
THE SPANIARDS HAD known of the existence of nitrate or
saltpetre and used it for the manufacture of gunpowder
and of the fireworks which enliven an American fiesta. Its
exploitation had been largely entrusted to the Jesuits, though a
vigorous contraband trade in it was carried on as well. No one
suspected that it was to be found in such abundance in the desert
until an adventurous prospector by the name of Jose Santos Ossa,
who had started out in search of silver, noticed that the white
rocky substance on the ground where he had lit his camp fire
spluttered and crackled strangely and gave off a blue flame when
heated. This he at first airily dismissed as a sort of petrified salt .
Then, recognizing it for what it was, he wept with joy and excite
ment at the knowledge that his fortune was assured. It only remained
to secure the necessary financial backing for its exploitation. Chilean
and British capitalists, such as Gibbs & Co, one of the great com
mercial houses of Chile, and wealthy magnates like Agustin
Edwards and Francisco Puelma were quick to grasp the vast possi
bilities of the find. The new city of Antofagasta began to arise on
the site of the miserable Indian hamlet of La Chimba; and the desert
was forced to yield up its wealth.
The extraordinary value of nitrate as a fertilizer was not im
mediately realized, although the similar properties of guano, the
deposit formed by the droppings of sea-birds, had long been known.
Ossa himself soon turned his back on the sources of the new wealth
which he had discovered and lost his life in an expedition in search
of fresh supplies of guano. Exactly who was the first to use nitrate
as a fertilizer it is not easy to say. Tradition gives the following
picturesque if improbable story. Two simple-minded inhabitants
of Camina, in the province of Tarapaca, are said to have had an
20
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
experience similar to that of Ossa and to have been terrified at
the sight of the caliche around their camp-fire beginning to burn.
Such a sinister phenomenon they could only attribute to the work
of the Evil One, and hurried back to confide their disturbing secret
to the parish priest of Camina. The priest was evidently a man of
resolution and a certain scientific curiosity, for he set out forthwith
for the scene of these strange happenings with a bottle of holy
water and a gang of Indians whom he made dig up some specimens
of the magic rock and carry it back to his home for further examina
tion. Investigation showed that it contained nitrate of soda which
he knew to be used in the manufacture of gunpowder. As the priest
was a man of peace, he threw away the specimens in disgust amongst
the shrubs of his garden. Some weeks later, he noticed to his
astonishment that the shrubs had started to grow at an unpre
cedented rate. The priest thereupon procured some more of the
caliche which he dug into his garden and found that it did in fact
act as the most remarkable fertilizer. The good priest lost Htde time
in sharing this discovery with his flock, and in time the properties
of the nitrate caliche became common knowledge.
Whether it came about in this picturesque way or not, the dis
covery started a scramble in which not only individual adventurers,
but whole nations at length joined. Until then, no one had bothered
to define the precise boundaries of Bolivia, Peru and Chile, as the
frontier territory of the three republics was composed of apparently
useless desert. The constitution of the Chilean republic vaguely
declared that the northern frontier was formed by the Atacama
desert, and left it at that. If a more precise delimitation was required,
a whale-bone stuck upright into the ground near the river Salado
and known as the Hueso Parado was traditionally held to mark
the boundary. Now, all at once, each side hastened to establish
claims to the lion s share of the nitrate desert. Imperialism, it soon
appeared, was no monopoly of the great powers. Neither Peru,
nor Chile, nor Bolivia deemed themselves too weak, too anarchical,
or too youthful for a display of imperialistic acquisitiveness and
fratricidal rivalry.
Chile s armoury of legal weapons in the dispute was not im
pressive. 1 Even her most fervent apologists are hard put to it to
21
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
find sound juridical justification for her territorial aggrandisement.
But she could invoke other telling arguments. In the first place,
there was the indisputable fact that Chilean capital, Chilean enter
prise and Chilean citizens were actively opening up an area in
which Bolivia showed little interest or capacity for exploiting.
Moreover and this was an argument which the powerful British
and other foreign interests were quick to appreciate Chile offered
a stable government which seemed relatively well disposed towards
the foreign capitalist, in marked contrast to the anarchy and inept
xenophobia of Bolivia, By 1857, when Chilean troops calmly
occupied the Bay of Mejillones, the best anchorage on the disputed
coast which Simon Bolivar had marked out as the future port of
Bolivia, it was clear that Chile meant business. An attempt to com
promise by Chile and Bolivia agreeing to share the customs dues
in their respective parts of the disputed areas made matters worse
rather than better. Chile placed orders for two new cruisers to be
built in England. A party of Bolivian rebels living in exile in Val
paraiso set sail from that port and attempted to seize Antofagasta
with the connivance, the Bolivian government alleged, of the
Chilean authorities. Then, as a crowning act of folly, Bolivia set
about irrevocably antagonizing foreign interests by attempting to
levy sudden additional taxes on the foreign nitrate companies.
When they demurred, the Bolivian government ordered the con
fiscation of the entire equipment and possessions of the leading
nitrate company of Antofagasta and the imprisonment of its
manager, Mr Hicks. This was the signal for Chile to act. A Chilean
expeditionary force was landed and proceeded to drive the Bolivian
garrison out of Antofagasta. Once conscious of her own strength
and the vulnerability of her rivals, Chile deckred war, too, on Peru.
* * *
In 1875, whilst the Chilean armies were grappling with Bolivians
and Peruvians for the possession of the nitrate fields, folk in England
were more interested (if they were interested at all in foreign
affairs) in how the British forces were settling accounts with the
Zulus and the Afghans. And perhaps, for most of Queen Victoria s
subjects, the contending parties in these various conflicts seemed
22
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
each as barbarous and remote as the other. But there was one
Englishman at least who was quick to take a very different view.
John Thomas North, 2 a young engineer who had first visited Chile
ten years previously and speedily acquired a fortune and a for
midable reputation for business acumen, saw in the Pacific War
a heaven-sent opportunity for acquiring a stake in the momentarily
paralysed nitrate industry and thereby making a fabulous fortune
for himself. North, whose affability cloaked a relentless energy and
a rare skill in driving hard bargains, was already the prototype of
the self-made man. He had arrived in Chile with no assets beyond
his engineer s diploma, a letter of introduction to a kinsman in
Valparaiso, .20 in his pocket and boundless confidence in his
capacity to make good. He had started with a job on the railways
at 1 20 pesos a month. Within two years he had won a reputation
for clock-work efficiency which brought him an offer of unexpected
promotion the management of the workshops in the important
nitrate oficina at Santa Rita near Iquique. Here North found wider
scope for his energies. He set about importing new machinery
which resulted in a steep rise in production. Then, setting up as a
dealer in nitrate on his own account, he bought up a stock of
nitrate from the Chilean government and resold it to a London firm
at a profit of well over 100 per cent. From that minute North
never looked back. His searching gaze ranged the fertile desert
and the changing markets, alighting here on some unsuspected
opportunity, there on some defect or weakness crying for redress.
Shortage of water put a constant brake on operations; North built
plant for converting sea-water into fresh and acquired tankers to
bring additional supplies from Peru. Loading was held up through
inadequate port facilities; he built up a flotilla of lighters. Sales were
not what they might be because people were still krgely ignorant
of the wonderful properties of nitrate; so he returned to England
to organize a gigantic propaganda campaign and arouse the en
thusiasm of the British investor.
Lesser men might have been appalled by the anarchy and material
destruction which the wax brought to the nitrate fields. The dis
heartening spectacle merely confirmed North s resolution and
deepened his infectious bonhomie. Though he had never interested
23
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
himself greatly in the life and traditions of the Chilean people, nor
had even bothered to learn their language, he had been careful to
keep on good, and wherever possible, cordial terms with them.
He had been shrewd enough to realize, too, that Chile would offer
a more stable and honest administration, and prove more civilized
and co-operative than backward Bolivia was ever likely to be.
It was improbable that a Chilean dictator would arise and be foolish
enough to lay hands on a worthy company manager like Mr Hicks.
It was almost certain that she would respect the rights of the foreign
nitrate interests and honour any commitments incurred towards
them. Chile deserved to win the war. It was right and proper and
generally desirable that she should do so, and it was in the best
interests of the foreign nitrate companies to do whatever they could
to help her.
True to these convictions, North set about purchasing all the
Peruvian nitrate bonds, which had now fallen to an insignificant
fraction of their former value. Then he took ship and hastened out
to the scene of hostilities. Perhaps there was something of the
frustrated soldier beneath the affable exterior of this phenomenally
successful man of commerce. Contemporaries speak of the military
quality of the discipline he enforced in his business, and the man
whose life had been devoted to commerce and finance always chose
to hear himself referred to by the honorary rank of Colonel which
a gracious Queen was kter to confer upon him. Back in Anto-
fagasta, North threw himself with zest into the task of mobilizing
his company s resources on behalf of the Chilean military authorities.
The flotilla of lighters and tankers was pressed into service. Mr Hicks
and his colleagues hastened to give what tangible proof they could
of the gratitude due to a liberating army. And the Chilean govern
ment, too, once hostilities were brought to a successful conclusion
and the Bolivians expelled for good and all from Antofagasta and
the Peruvians pushed back to the northern borders of the desert,
knew how to show gratitude and recall past benefits. Vice-Admiral
Patricio Lynch, a Chilean friend of North s who had once served
with the British Navy in the Chinese opium-war, gave him the
right of sale of a stock of captured Peruvian guano which brought
him a profit of four million francs. Moreover, as North had anti-
24
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
cipated, the Chilean government assumed the commitments of
the Peruvian government in the captured territories and declared
her readiness to honour the bonds issued in respect of the nitrate
fields. North, and those who had had the acumen and courage to
draw the logical consequences of his convictions, discovered the
staggering fact that their personal fortunes had been increased
almost a hundredfold.
North returned to England to organize the new companies
which were to exploit the concessions granted or confirmed by the
Chilean government. Now indeed men could speak of him as the
Nitrate King. The borders of his kingdom were still expanding
daily and were buttressed by every type of subsidiary company and
reserve. The Nitrate Railway Company had to be acquired and
expanded, and a fresh company formed to exploit the rich coal-
seams in the south which would ensure its running. As every article
of food and every other necessity of life had to be imported into
the desert settlements, the Nitrate Provision Supply Company was
started with its own sources in the south of Chile. Finally, to cement
together all this vast edifice of capitalist enterprise, the Bank of
Tarapaca and London was founded with the co-operation of Lord
Rothschild.
Whilst the Nitrate King ruled his rich domains in Chile, the net
work of his commercial alliances and connections was steadily in
creasing abroad. His ventures were bold and reaped bold rewards.
Spain, a conservative country and reluctant client, was wooed with
the gift of a shipload of nitrate for experimental purposes and
became an assiduous customer. In one year alone 1888 no less
than .20,000 was spent by North s companies on publicity a
tremendous figure for those days. The Nitrate King was for ever
reinforcing the moral and commercial foundations of his kingdom,
which now showed the first signs of being imperilled by its very
success. Already whispers could be heard in Chile of the menace
of gringo capitalist imperialism. Men were beginning to look with
astonishment and envy at the foreigner who had known how to
wrest a fortune from their deserts and asked whether their country
was not being reduced to the level of an exploited colony. The
slogan of Chile for the Chileans was launched and began to find
25
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
an echo in the pronouncements of Chile s new and reformist
President Balmaceda.
North, meanwhile, was on his third trip back to England, where
he was planning the formation of a new shipping company and
other vast schemes. His return to Chile the final visit which he
was to pay to that country was performed on a truly regal scale.
The send-off was a farewell party and fancy-dress ball at the Hotel
Metropole to which no less than nine hundred guests were invited
and which is said to have cost not a penny less than -10,000. The
Nitrate King or the Colonel, as we should perhaps call him, as
he himself would prefer presided in the guise of King Henry VIII,
a role for which his increasing corpulence and autocratic leanings
peculiarly suited him. Yet he had never been one to surround
himself with sycophants and courtiers. The party which accom
panied him on his last trip to Chile was composed, in addition to
the members of his family and attendants, mainly of journalists
the most eminent of journalists, of course Vizetelly of the Financial
Times, Melton Prior, the brilliant artist reporter of the Illustrated
London News, and the veteran William Russell, greatest of war
correspondents whose dispatches from the Crimea had stirred the
conscience of England more than thirty years before and whose
reports from the Chilean nitrate fields might be expected at least
to arouse sympathy and admiration for the triumphs of capitalist
enterprise. For was not the Colonel s return to Chile to be some
thing of a military campaign as well as a glittering triumphal
progress? His enemies were raising their voices louder and louder
and the cries of * Chile for the Chileans were becoming more and
more insistent. The Colonel loaded the hold of his ship, the s.s.
Galkia, with gifts of peace more potent than weapons of war a
brightly burnished fire-engine, complete with a set of uniforms
and the instruments of a brass band, for his faithful British followers
in Iquique; a pair of the finest thoroughbreds for the aristocratic
but recalcitrant President; a replica in silver of the capstan of
Arturo Prat s famous ship, the EsmeraUa* The latter gift, mounted
by Messrs Elkington as a shield, with relievos of great artistic
excellence representing the incidents of the combat , was the most
princely and subtly flattering of all. 3
26
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
On reaching Chile, North was informed that President Balmaceda
had just completed a demonstrative tour of the nitrate fields where
he had delivered a number of strongly worded speeches intimating
the government s intention to expropriate the great foreign com
panies. The Colonel did not appear unduly perturbed. He amused
himself by visiting his coal mines at Arauco and giving his journalist
friends an opportunity of describing how the great man had re
visited the scenes of his earlier labours, where he had once toiled
for a mere 120 pesos a month, and how he still liked to drive the
locomotives with his own hands. The President was enjoying a
short rest in his villa at Vina del Mar, and there North determined
to beard him. The President and the millionaire vied with each
other in amiability and in exchanging assurances of their mutual
respect and of their intention to respect the other s legitimate in
terests. Balmaceda courteously declined the gift of the thorough
breds for himself but accepted them for the state stables. The silver
capstan was to be presented later with greater ceremony in Santiago.
Other gifts were bestowed on the eager crowd of courtiers and
cadgers who dogged his footsteps and laid siege to the apartments
where he lodged. The doors and passages of the hotel , William
Russell wrote, were blocked by gaping petitioners and his mail-
bags were sure to be heavy with their prayers, supplications and
requests. Women, old and young, with and without children, sat
on the steps, each with a written statement of "a most urgent and
deserving case**. They rustled past you in their bkck mantas and
thronged the staircases and waylaid the doors, and it needed much
craft and subtlety to evade them in the corridors and lobbies.
North s progress through the Republic of Chile recalled that of an
Inca prince, borne through his domains, dispensing favours and
settling disputes and claims as he went.
President Balmaceda, too, had his devotees. Mr Egan, the United
States Minister, was his fervent admirer, and he had a great follow
ing amongst the poor whose lot he set out to improve by a vigorous
programme of public works. 4 He built new roads and bridges,
opened scores of new schools. Finally, he let it be known that he
intended to break the power of the State within the State in the
northern pampas, c We cannot consent that this rich and extensive
27
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
region should become a foreign factory,* he had declared defiantly
during his tour of the nitrate regions. The President began to prove
as good as his word and his words had been violent. He was
preparing legislation to regulate the sale of land in such a way as
to ensure that the greater part remained in Chilean hands. Despite
a sharp diplomatic protest made in Santiago, he was planning to put
an end to the monopoly of the British owned Nitrate Railway
Company. There was no knowing, in short, what inroads he might
not make into the Nitrate King s domains unless he were stopped.
But stopped he was. In a gesture which seemed to be a deliberate
challenge to a trial of strength, North announced the purchase
from a Chilean owner of the unexploited nitrate rights in the area
of Laguna. The Chilean government objected that the price
equivalent to ^110,000 paid for it was shamefully inadequate.
But the deal went through and, sure enough, the market value of
the new holdings was soon placed at ^800,000. Then, leaving the
scene of so many glittering triumphs, North left Chile for good
and returned to England. Events, he felt convinced, were working
for him and would ensure the overthrow of his adversary the
President, and the consolidation of his vast interests in the country.
In this he was not mistaken North never made mistakes. In
January 1891 Capt Jorge Montt mobilized the fleet in open revolt
against President Balmaceda, and civil war broke out.
Chilean historians tend to depict the conflict in terms of a con
stitutional dispute between a reformist but autocratic President and
a conservative but legally constituted Congress, which controlled
the purse-strings of the national treasury and appealed to arms when
the President sought to flout that traditional and decisive right.
Was the Civil War fought in Chile, then, on basically the same issue
as the Civil War in England two and a half centuries before? Or
did great financial interests have a more sinister and decisive say? 5
Contemporary records are tantalizingly discreet. The Colonel,
we learn, remained apparently and surprisingly unconcerned in
Chile s internal strife, and busied himself with fresh schemes in
Belgium, Egypt and elsewhere. He died suddenly, in possession
of a fortune which defied computation, in 1896. But his old rival
had already tragically predeceased him. Using Valparaiso as a base,
28
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
the Congress Party had launched an expeditionary force which
established itself in the north of jChile, where it trained and re-
equipped until judging itself strong enough to strike one decisive
blow at Central Chile and the capital. The unfortunate President,
forced at length to acknowledge defeat, took his own life.
With the re-establishment of peace and the triumph of the
Congress Party favourable to the great foreign companies, the
nitrate industry entered the period of its most flamboyant pros
perity. More exports passed through Iquique than any other port
in the Republic. In one by-product alone iodine the industry
had a commodity of scarcely less value than the nitrate itself. The
old war-cry of Chile for the Chileans was drowned beneath the
ceaseless clatter of the oficinas and the busy chuffing of the loco
motives. Within little more than ten years of the death of Bal-
maceda, only 15 per cent of the country s nitrate exploitation re
mained in Chilean hands.
The first world war, by vastly increasing the demand for nitrate
for the manufacture of explosives, gave further impetus to the
industry. But it also foreshadowed its eclipse. Germany, deprived
of her normal sources from overseas, set about the manufacture of
synthetic products. By 1920, Chile s share of the world s production
of fertilizers had fallen firom nearly two-thirds to one-third. In ten
years time it had sunk to half that figure. In the meantime, the
industry was being revolutionized by new technical methods. The
primitive process had been for the caliche or hard crust to be broken
up into small scraps and dissolved in copper boiling vats. The re
sulting product was then drawn off into other vats where it was
left to set and crystallize into the white dust that is the commercially
valuable nitrate of sodium. The Shanks process, as it was called,
bad the disadvantage that it could usefully be applied only to
superior ores containing at least 15 per cent of pure nitrate. Then,
in 1926, the new Guggenheim process which permitted the treat
ment of caliche bearing as little as half that nitrate content, was
introduced. More recently still, a new method of treatment known
as the Butterfly Process has been introduced into Prosperidad and
29
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
other ofidnas, and represents a notable technical advance. If, how
ever, it is to meet the challenge of its synthetic nitrate competitors
effectively, the whole industry needs to be thoroughly modernized.
Though still an important national activity which gives employ
ment to some twenty-eight thousand workers and produces one-
quarter of the country s foreign earnings, Chilean nitrate is no
longer the inexhaustible source of wealth of bygone years. The
realm of the Nitrate King has dwindled and what inheritance
remains has passed to Uncle Sam.
More important in Chile s economy today is the production of
copper, 90 per cent of which is also in American hands. Copper
has been rained in Chile since time immemorial. The history of
Chuquicamata, now one of the greatest copper mines in the world,
stretches back to pre-Spanish and even pre-Inca times, for tradition
tells of the crude smelter erected by the Indians and copper orna
ments have been found in nearby desert tombs. During the first
century of Chilean independence, the Chuquicamata mines were
worked with varying degrees of success. Then, in 1913, the Guggen
heim interests stepped in to organic the Chile Exploration Com
pany (later to become a subsidiary of the Anaconda Copper
Mining Company), constructed a power plant at Tocopilla,
87 miles away, and built the modern crushing, leaching and refining
plant at Chuquicamata. The mine is an open pit hollowed out of
the arid folds of the Andes and has the appearance of a gigantic
amphitheatre. 60,000 tons of ore can be treated in a day, and the
mine s reserves are considered to be virtually inexhaustible. New
veins of even richer quality have recently been discovered at some
depth, beneath the surface, and a vast new plant is now being
installed to work them. Not much smaller than Chuquicamata is
the Potrerillos mine belonging to the Andes Copper Company,
perched more than 10,000 feet up on the western slopes of the
Cordillera. The other great North American mining company
Braden Copper (itself a subsidiary of the Kennecott Copper Cor
poration) controls the El Teniente mines only a few dozen miles
from Santiago, and Sewell, with its fantastic mountain location,
still farther to the south.
This control of Chile s key industries by United States interests
30
THE NITRATE KING AND HIS HEIRS
has not unnaturally aroused certain misgivings and revived the old
slogan of Chile for the Chileans . The Communists, in particular,
have made great play with Yanqui capitalist imperialism* and their
propaganda invariably depicts Chile as an exploited American
colony . Even non-Communists find it disturbing that important
enterprises like Chuquicamata should enjoy a position almost
tantamount to that of a state within a state. 6 But there is much to
be said on the other side. Without the employment of foreign
capital, Chile s mineral wealth would have remained largely un-
exploited and the country been denied a tremendously valuable
source of wealth. The Chilean treasury receives about 1,100 million
pesos a year from American mining enterprises, whilst a further
450 million is paid out in wages to workers. The latter, moreover,
enjoy a standard of Hving far higher than anywhere else in the
country. The bad old days of the ruthless exploitation of the
workers under the merciless conditions of the desert are passed.
The Chuquicamata and Potrerillos mines, for example, like the
nitrate ofidnas of Maria Elena and Valdivia, are models of en
lightened organization. They provide their employees with facilities
in the way of social and welfare services, hospitals, clubs, swimming-
baths and libraries far in advance of anything elsewhere in the
republic. Whether such measures, however progressive, can provide
a complete answer to Chile s pressing social problems is another
question. The northern deserts, with their mines and industries,
have wrought changes in the economic and social structure of the
country and launched movements which have acquired a formidable
momentum of their own. Whither, we wonder, will they lead
to a gradual improvement in existing conditions, or to a radical
transformation of ownership and administration? Much harsh and
bitter poverty remains, and even where its burden has been eased,
the temper born of suffering and discontent still smoulders on. Is
Chile, we may wonder, ripe for revolution?
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
NOTES
1 The case for Peru is given by Sir C. R. Markham in The War Between
Peru and Chile, 1879-1882 (London 1882). For an impartial outline see
R A. Kirkpatrick s Latin America (Cambridge 1938), Ch. XXI.
2 An excellent study of North is contained in Enrique Bunster s collection
of essays, El Bombardeo de Valparaiso (Santiago 1948).
3 See W. H. Russell s A Visit to Chile and the Nitrate Fields of Tarapacd
(London 1890).
4 Chilean opinion, especially left wing opinion, has now come to regard
Balmaceda as a national hero, and a statue was unveiled in his honour in
Santiago in 1949. M. H. Hervey s Dark Days in Chile provides a con
temporary interpretation of the civil war favourable to the President.
5 Much still remains to be done to elucidate this interesting question.
See M. Osgood Hardy, British Nitrates and the Balmaceda Revolution*,
Pacific Historical Rwkw, Vol. XVHI.
6 Chuauicamata Estado Yanaui (Santiago 1926) by Ricardo Latcham, son
of the Richard Latcham mentioned in Chapter I.
Chapter Three
Rotos and Revolutionaries
WE ARE ALL familiar with the appearance of slums, even
of rural slums, but the aspect of a desert slum is something
not easily imagined. Slums are the product of over
crowding; how then can they exist in the vast emptiness of the
desert? We think of them as housing the teeming multitudes of the
poor; but one poverty-stricken and slatternly Emily is enough to
reduce the sublime austerity of the wilderness into something mean,
sordid and petty. The squatter s shack with its encircling litter of
rusty tins, rags, old bones and excrement, affronts us by its very
wantonness. City life is an essential feature of our civilization and
we expect to find ugliness in its slum sediment no less than beauty
on its brilliant surface. But the desert is not the domain of man.
In its virgin state it is nothing but an immense void nature re
duced to the elements of light and heat, sand and rock. When man
sets foot upon it, we might have hoped that it would have been to
bring some of the comforts and graces of life. Instead, we find too
often that he has brought nothing but the unsightly marks of his
degradation. He may construct, as he likes to boast, his islands of
civilization in the ocean of the desert. But each island is rimmed
with a drab expanse of foreshore strewn with a flotsam and jetsam
of its own. The Chilean desert slum is based on the shack, as the
European urban slum is based on the tenement. The shack is con
structed from whatever comes first to hand fragments of corru
gated iron, discoloured and often rusted through, tattered hides,
odd planks and boards, a tin pkte filched from some derelict
vehicle anything, in short, which lies abandoned or has been
washed up on this desert shore all anchored together against the
chance of some sudden gale by chunks of rock propped up against
the sides of the shanty and weighing down its roof.
D 33
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Such is the dwelling of the Chilean worker, not only in the
desert but, with little improvement, throughout the length and
breadth of the country as a whole. No wonder that the owner of
such a home is known as a roto or ragged one. Such is the name
by which the Chilean worker is popularly known both inside and
outside the country. In its original sense, the word had rather the
meaning of motley* or queerly clad . Cervantes describes his Don
Quixote as roto. The same epithet was applied to Pedro de Valdivia
by the rich citizens of Lima who gazed with amazement and con
tempt at the ragged, curiously patched attire of the man who
claimed to have conquered a new province. In many ways, the
great conquistador was the prototype of the Chilean roto of today.
He was a rough man of the people, never at ease amongst fine folk
despite the honours and tide of nobility received from, the Crown,
a man of strong passions and coarse habits, given to the character
istic roto vices of gambling and drinking, yet withal generous,
immensely courageous and possessed of an astonishing capacity
for hard work and physical endurance. The colonists whom he
brought with him to Chile gradually came to be known in their
turn as rotos too. And with good cause. Marino de Lobero, a con
temporary chronicler, tells us that *the Spaniards spent seven years
in this (half-naked) condition, their clothes becoming as scanty as
their provisions, for their finest and bravest apparel was made from
the hides of dogs*. Even today, there seems to be a chronic shortage
of clothes in Chile. The touts who lounge at the street-corners and
outside the smart Santiago hotels and whisper furtively to the
passer-by, are not leering out improper suggestions but offering
to buy up old clothes. These urban clothes-dealers, no less than their
tattered countrymen toiling in field or factory, are the sordid heirs
of a venerable national tradition.
Roto, then, was once synonymous with Chilean. Even though
the term has now become restricted to a narrow class sense, the
roto still remains his country s most characteristic and genuine
representative. There have been moments when he has stepped
forward to play a decisive part in his country s history. Such, for
instance, was the celebrated battle of Yungay, commemorated
today by a monument to the roto in one of the main squares of
34
ROTOS AND REVOLUTIONARIES
Santiago and by the celebration of the Day of the Rota on every
January 20. For the most part, however, his sterling qualities have
been recognized more by foreigners than by his own countrymen.
Cochrane, who commanded Chile s fleet in the war of independence,
was full of praise for the fighting spirit of his crews. Henry Meiggs,
the famous American builder of railways, swore that with good
pay, fair treatment, and enough porotos (beans), the Chilean workers
are the best in the world . Henry Swinglehurst, a Manchester-born
iron-merchant who came to settle in Valparaiso, even went so far
as to compose a laudatory song in the rotos honour:
He s the man who loads your table
With the things that God suppEes,
And he toils while he is able
Till he just lies down and dies.
He s a man of strength and muscle
He s the backbone of the land;
You can t break him in a tussle,
He is Nature raw and grand. 1
The roto has a country cousin the huaso. This term comes from
an Indian word denoting a man on horseback, and is an appropriate
name for the Chilean labourer who is as inseparable from his mount
as is the Argentine gaucho. His weapon is the lasso, which was
used with great effect in the battle of Maipu, when the local huasos
rallied to the help of the patriot forces, dragging the Spanish officers
from their horses and even hauling off and capturing the cannons
by the same means. In normal times, however, the huaso is a man
of peace, conservative, feudal-minded and submissive to his
masters the unkempt, grinning Verdejo of the popular cartoons.
Racially, he is of the same stock as the roto, for both have a stronger
admixture of Indian blood than the more European population
of the towns. Socially, too, they belong to the same class that of
the under-privileged. When the huaso is uprooted from the land
and drifts to the city or the nitrate ofidna, he speedily acquires the
rota s more radical and revolutionary outlook.
The roto is prone to seek relaxation from his heavy toil in gambling
35
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and drink. His carousels, like his feats of physical prowess, are in
the epic tradition of his forebears, the Araucanian warriors. The week
end does not give him time enough to sleep off their effects. He is
apt to take Monday too so apt that Chileans think of the week s
work as beginning on Tuesday and speak indulgently of the feast-
day of San Limes Saint Monday. The observation of this custom
costs the nation dear, for it means a high rate of absenteeism in
industry and a serious reduction of working hours per week. 2
Coupled with his vitamin-deficient diet, these excesses undermine
his normally strong physique and lead to the spread of disease.
When the wine mounts to his head, the roto becomes reckless and
quarrelsome, quick to reach for his corvo, the villainous in-curving
knife he carries ready at his side. He will attack his comrade, leaving
him disembowelled or at least disfigured, for a trifle. Sometimes a
duel to the death will be fought with elaborate ceremonial. The roto
takes off his sash and binds his left leg to that of his opponent.
Then, wrapping the jacket or poncho over the left arm to act as a
shield, the two men fight on until one or the other falls fatally
wounded to the ground. Only then will the victor sever the band
which links him to his opponent with a final nonchalant slash. 3
Sometimes the roto will leave Chile to wander off in search of a
fortune or a fight. No less than thirty thousand Chileans found their
way to California during the great gold rush and the lawless violence
of these Chilean devils soon became proverbial. Kotos have even
wandered as far afield as South Africa, and old newspaper head
lines tell the story of how one espoused the cause of the Boers with
such fervour that he altogether refused to recognize defeat. After
Lord Roberts had entered Johannesburg in triumph, the Chilean
volunteer tore down the Union Jack in broad daylight, to the great
scandal of the British. There were other Chileans, too, fighting as
volunteers on the British side.
It is the realization of this streak of violence in the roto s character
which causes all signs of social unrest to be viewed with such alarm
in Chile and makes the ruling classes so terrified of permitting him
the slightest taste of political power. *The situation suggests the
plight of Russia with its stubbornly maintained autocracy and its
eventual swing to the Left, writes a profound student of
36
ROTOS AND REVOLUTIONARIES
contemporary Chile, 4 *or the pent-up forces of unrest in Mexico
If revolt is finally forced, the excesses in Mexico will pale in com
parison. The Chilean roto, as every Chilean knows, would recognize
no bounds to his violence. It is doubtful if any leaders could hold
him in check/
The immediate effect of the discovery of nitrate in the north of
Chile was to postpone rather than precipitate a crisis. Surplus labour
from the length and breadth of the land was readily absorbed in the
nitrate fields. There could be no question of unemployment. But
soon the appeal of the north, with the relatively high wages and
liberty of choice which it offered to the agricultural worker, drew off
more and more men from the great estates of Central and Southern
Chile. A new proletariat was created which had broken with the
old way of life and its semi-feudal ties. The hard conditions of the
desert under which these men laboured and the complete absence of
the simple comforts and interests of normal life, even of family ties,
predisposed them to the acceptance of radical doctrines and violent
action. The desert became the ideal forcing-ground for revolu
tionaries. 5
The first decade of the twentieth century was marked through
out Chile by a series of strikes in ominous crescendo first, in
Santiago, next in Valparaiso, where all shipping was paralysed,
then, in 1905, the Red Week*, provoked by the speculation of the
ganaderos. Next year, the strike movement spread to the north and
culminated in the great strike of 1907, in which 10,000 workers
came out, many of them trekking across the desert to converge
upon Iquique. Though peaceful and orderly in its inception, the
great strike moved inevitably to its tragic climax of bloodshed.
Attempts to arbitrate broke down, the military took control, and
the workers were forced back to their ojuinas with the loss of
163 dead and some 127 wounded.
The tragic outcome of the great strike exercised a profound effect
on future developments. On the one side, by opening the eyes of
the public to the just grievances of the miners and to their deter
mination to use force if necessary to secure their rights, it prepared
37
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the way for the introduction of labour legislation. On the other,
it gave an added impetus, and more clearly revolutionary direction,
to the incipient trade union movement. The Gran Federacion
Obrera had, in fact, been formed shortly before the outbreak of the
great strike, largely on the initiative of the romantic pioneer of the
Chilean working-class movement, Luis Emilio Recabarren. An air
of mystery still envelops the personality of this self-taught printer s
apprentice who threw his energies into the founding of trade unions,
friendly societies and schemes for popular education, and so won the
allegiance of the workers that they sent him to Congress as their
deputy for Antofagasta in 1921. Twice his enemies attempted to
have his mandate annulled, but found themselves gradually forced
to respect the revolutionary for his quiet but intense sincerity, and
for his singular freedom from the clap-trap of the professional
rabble-rouser. His fame spread beyond the frontiers of Chile. He
visited the Argentine, Europe and finally the Soviet Union. The
development of the synthetic nitrate industry during the First
World War had led to unemployment and discontent in Chile.
The workers looked with interest and hope to the gigantic revolu
tionary experiment taking pkce in Soviet Russia. In a gesture of
fervent if ill-informed enthusiasm, the Federacion Obrera Chilena
declared its adhesion to the Communist International. Recabarren
resolved to go to Russia and study Communism at first hand.
What exactly he saw there and how it impressed his profoundly
humane spirit we shall probably never know. The disillusionment
must have been bitter. Shortly after his return to Chile, he collapsed
under a nervous crisis and blew his brains out on December 18,
1924. There are still some today who refuse to believe that he took
his own life and cherish the legend that he fell a victim, to his
political enemies.
Recabarren s death threw the Chilean Communists into dismay
and confusion. Some declared themselves followers of Trotsky,
and it was all that Elias Lafertte, the new head of the Party, could
do to keep it from disintegrating altogether. Lafertte, like Reca
barren, was a warm-hearted man of the people who had been
known to rally the flagging attention of a mass political meeting
by suddenly performing the Chilean national dance, the cueca,
38
ROTOS AND REVOLUTIONARIES
with consummate skill before the astonished crowds. But he was
scarcely the man to impose a ruthless Marxist control upon the
revolutionary forces which were clearly active in Chile during the
early twenties. Another and more compelling figure had now
arisen to win the first place in the affections and hopes of the
masses. Arturo Alessandri, the idol of the workers and of all who
wished to see a reformed and more democratic Chile, had never
been and never could be a Communist Alessandri was a born
demagogue, an orator and dynamic man of action of the caudillo
type which had often appeared in other South American republics
but seldom in Chilean politics. Grandson of the first Italian Minister
accredited to the Chilean Republic, he had been brought up in the
conservative tradition until 1915, when, at the age of forty-seven,
he had suddenly espoused the cause of the workers and won
election as the Senator for Tarapaca. The desert, with its population
of r oto workers and its climate of ruthlessness and restless action,
claimed him for its own.
Five years kter Alessandri was elected to supreme office as
President of the Republic, but to the day of his death he remained
known as the Lion of Tarapaca. Once installed in the presidential
palace in Santiago, Alessandri embarked on a series of tremendous
battles with Chile s formidable conservative, capitalist and clerical
interests. The Senate, as might be expected, was solidly against
him. The incompetence, corruption and interminable jockeying for
places amongst the political groups of his own Liberal Alliance
were scarcely less serious handicaps. After four years of turmoil,
he was driven into exile by a military coup, but returned, amidst
even greater popular enthusiasm, six months later. The old con
stitution which had enabled the country to be governed by an
aristocratic oligarchy for over ninety years was superseded in 1925
by a new one which gave greater executive powers to the President
of the Republic and effected the separation of Church and State.
In a brief period of six months, the Lion s irresistible energy forced
through a great body of social legislation which not even the
dictatorial regime of Alessandri s former War Minister, Colonel
Ibanez, who ousted him, dared reverse. Chile still owes to the Lion
of Tarapaca a whole series of notable reforms which live on long
39
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
after their author s innovating zeal had cooled. When, six years
later, Alessandri again returned to office, it was no longer as the
hope of roios and revolutionaries, but as the candidate of the
country s middle and conservative classes the gilded canaille he
had once so vehemently denounced.
The Communists, all this time, had found the wind taken out of
their sails by the achievements of Alessandri s administration.
Ibanez, his successor, soon made it clear that he, too, intended to
carry through reforms in his own way and crush the Communists
as well. The followers of Recabarren and Lafertte found themselves
caught between the hammer of official persecution and the anvil
of strict conformity to the Moscow pattern. The 8th National
Congress held at the end of 1928 declared itself in favour of the
thorough bolshevization of the Party and the elimination of demo
cratic elements from the former days of Recabarren. Contreras
Labarca, an able, unemotional organizer, took over the secretary
ship of the Party. Alberdi, the Argentine Communist leader, arrived
in Chile to superintend its reorganization. He was the first of a long
and varied line of foreign instructors whose differing characters,
records and subsequent destinies mirrored the astonishing gyrations
of Soviet policy. 6
In 1931, Ibanez was ousted from power, but the Communists
had little to do with his overthrow. They remained hostile, too,
to the brief interlude of Socialist and Liberal experimentation which
followed. Official persecution had reduced the Central Committee
to three men whose authority was constantly challenged by the
local committee for Santiago. But though the fortunes of the Party
as such remained at a low ebb, Marxism continued to make progress
in intellectual circles and particularly in the universities. A new
instructor arrived in Chile Uralsky, a former agitator from Spain
and himself an ex-Trotskyist who had once led a demonstration in
person against Stalin in the Red Square in Moscow and had only
saved his skin by a complete recantation. Once he had set foot in
Chile, Uralsky assumed the name of Juan de Dios, vigorously
reasserted the doctrine of class warfare and declared that all col-
40
ROTOS AND REVOLUTIONARIES
kboration with other parties must end. The Party now put forward
its own candidate for the presidency and broke away from the
Left wing trade unions to form organizations of its own. But the
failure of this policy was soon demonstrated by the fact that
Lafertte, the Communist candidate, polled a mere four thousand
votes at the presidential election. Uralsky disappeared as mysteriously
as he had come. On his return to Moscow his whole work was
resubmitted to merciless criticism, he was brought to trial, pro
secuted by Vishinsky and finally executed.
Meanwhile, an instructor of a very different type had been sent
to Chile. This was Manuel Cassone a young, fair-haired, rosy-
cheeked citizen of Ecuador, whose athletic appearance and attach
ment to his elegant wife Magda would lead no one to guess that
he had passed with distinction through the training schools of
Moscow. Cassone had to lead the Chilean Communist Party back
from the unsuccessful experiment in doctrinaire exclusivism to the
new policy of rapprochement with all groups and classes prepared
to oppose the menacing spread of Nazism. Cassone s interpreta
tion of his instruction was significant. Instead of seeking an afliance
with the corrupt* bourgois parties, he sought contact instead as
Communists proceeded to do in other Latin American countries
with the new type of military democracies* through whose help
the established order might be overthrown. But Chile had never
been favourable soil for the South American caudillo. The only
candidate who approached the role was the now familiar and
discredited ex-dictator, General Ibanez. So the rosy-faced stranger
from Ecuador began to frequent the General s tertulias. In the course
of time, the country was amazed to note the appearance of a
Communist manifesto pledging support for the General s can
didature for the Presidency. Ibanez s other supporters were followers
of the Chilean Nazi leader, Jorge Gonzalez von Marees. The
Chilean Communists thus have the distinction of anticipating the
Stalin-Ribbentrop pact by several years. But it seems that their
attempt was ill-timed. Cassone was recalled to Ecuador where he
was later found dead on the shore at Guayaquil in mysterious cir
cumstances. The beautiful widow Magda attached her fortunes to
the Chilean Communist Party and herself to the person of an
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
apocalyptic Chilean poet. The attempt to link up with the military
democracies* was abandoned and the Chilean Communists em
barked on their Popular Front policy.
The moving spirit behind these developments was the Comin
tern s new instructor Eudocio Rabinez, a brilliant and erudite
Peruvian scholar whose report on The Communist Movement in
Latin America* had made a great impression at the Seventh Con
gress of the Comintern. Rabinez installed himself in Santiago s
comfortable Hotel Crillon and began to reorganize the Party,
whose gates he threw open for the first time to intellectuals of
standing, and whose influence he extended through the purchase
of newspapers and radio stations. Under his guidance, the Party
began to develop a strong national and patriotic line. The Peruvian
taught the Communists to show the Chilean flag at their meetings
and strike up the national anthem instead of their revolutionary
songs. On his initiative the Party ceased to be a narrow sectarian
clique and began to win strategic positions in the social and in
tellectual no-man s-land of Chile. Then Rabinez was transferred
for a short time to Spain, where it seems he came to grief in the
troubled waters of its internal factions. On his return to Chile the
scene had already changed and the instructor found himself
firmly ousted by Contreras Labarca, Fonseca, the Youth leader,
and other Chilean Communists. Another star had arisen in the
Marxist firmament Vittorio Codovilla, the Italian-born Argentine
agitator. Henceforth, the Chilean Communists tended to look to
Buenos Aires for guidance. And guidance was urgently needed,
for now after the outbreak of the world war and the passing of the
temporary embarrassment of the Hider-Stalin pact, Chile seemed
firmly committed to the Popular Front policy, and for the first time
in its history, the Communist Party found itself with three seats in
the cabinet of President Gonzalez Videla, and a nation-wide in
fluence. But once again the fair wind of fortune was veering. The
strikes in the coal-fields and the activities of Slav agitators in 1947
threw the country into alarm. The Communists were dropped
from the Government. After prolonged battles in Press and parlia
ment, members of the Communist Party were disenfranchised and
their organized activities firmly suppressed. The most prominent
42
ROTOS AND REVOLUTIONARIES
Communist leaders in the country found, themselves relegated to
the remote and unsalubrious town of Pisagua in the northern
deserts. It seemed that the wheel of destiny had completed its circle
and that the revolutionary movement which had been born under
the scorching sun of the nitrate desert had at length been repulsed
and driven back to perish of impotence where it began.
Had it not been for the brief and somewhat tarnished spell of
fame which this now desolate little town enjoyed during the year
1948 we should scarcely have needed to give it a mention in these
pages. There is something foetid and malodorous about the very
name of Pisagua which might predispose one to accept the legend,
sedulously fostered by Communist propaganda, of its horrors
as a concentration camp. But Pisagua has known no horrors save
those of its own dreary abandonment and solitude. Once it had
resounded with the bustle and prosperity of a thriving port. It
used to boast its consuls and its Cosmopolitan Club, and from
its harbour sailed the first vessel to bear a cargo of Chilean nitrate
to Europe. When William Russell visited it in 1889 he found
plenty to admire and interest him; 1 am not speaking of the plants
or of ferns, strange enough in composition and distribution,
of the geological formations, of the railway clambering boldly to
the sky-line with its trains of passengers, provisions and materials,
up a mountain which looks as steep as the side of a house, and
vanishing on the pampas beyond, nor of the trains coming down in
well-ordered procession laden with cargoes of nitrate sacks, nor of
the activity and bustle in the railway terminus, where customs
officers are weighing and officials are testing the nitrate bags accu
mulated in huge blocks by the wharves in readiness for shipment
I am alluding to the town itself. The streets of Pisagua, consisting
of wooden houses, follow the line of the shore. Stores full of ready-
made clothes, konmongery, agricultural implements, refreshment
saloons, two banks, merchants offices and lao&egas lie at the foot
of the mountains which rise, almost from the street, behind a chain
of scarped bilk 500 or 600 feet high. A railway runs from the
Customs House pier to the station, a Tamericaine, through the street
43
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
The names over the shops are German, Italian, English. Russell
might have added that the sacks of nitrate were carried through the
surf to the lighters on rafts or balsas composed of inflated seal
skins a picturesque and antiquated method, but a very practicable
one.
Slowly, Pisagua sank into decay. Its inhabitants who, in 1907,
numbered more than four thousand, had dwindled by 1943 to less
than three hundred. Then, one day at the close of 1947, its strange
new population began to arrive. They were a motley crowd, these
men of Pisagua workers and peasants, professional men, clerks,
a civil servant or two. There were women amongst them Blanca
Sanchez, the Pasionaria of the Lota coal-fields, for one and the
boredom and drabness of the pkce did not arrest the natural circle
of marriages and births. The children born in this desert exile
were christened (despite the displeasure of the authorities) with
strange and defiant names Libertad, Lenin, Pisagua, Lota. The
days must have dragged by drearily for the men of Pisagua. There
was no possibility of finding work to do. Even the district judge
was not bothered with a single case to try in the course of a whole
year. The town boasted but one store run by a patient Chinaman.
There was a plaza, a pier, a few score of houses, a pagoda where
the Chinese colony once met for worship and opium smoking and
where the Pasionaria now held her political court, barracks for the
troops and the carabineros, and a gaol for non-political offenders,
mostly a group of confirmed homosexuals. The men of Pisagua
would spend the day as best they could talking, playing chess,
forming study groups, complaining about the food to a Parlia
mentary Commission sent to inquire into their welfare, proudly
reciting passages from the Ode to the Men of Pisagua which Chile s
leading poet, Pablo Neruda, himself a Communist, had composed
in their honour. Outside, men began to speak in shocked tones of
the horrors of this Chilean Buchenwald or Auschwitz. Occa
sionally, an internee would attempt to escape and make his way
across the desert back to liberty. At length, at the beginning of 1949,
Pisagua began to lose its inhabitants as suddenly as it had received
them. The Men of Pisagua were allowed to return to their homes
and enjoy their fame as martyrs, whilst solitude and silence descended
44
NOTES
once again upon the little port with its abandoned plaza and
crumbling pier, its Chinese storekeeper and its idle judge, its
carabineros and its homosexual gaol-birds.
NOTES
1 Valparaiso Songs by H. E. Swinglehurst (London 1911).
2 According to the results of an Inquiry made in 1943 into the habits of
workers in 1,770 different factories, 66,140 workers were found to be in
the habit of sleeping off the effects of their drinking bouts for a period of
twenty-four hours; 41,177 were not fit enough to go back to work on
Mondays; and 18,964 stayed away on Tuesdays as well. Legislation laying
down a series of ingenious penalties and inducements has endeavoured to
Emit Monday absenteeism but has not achieved more than a very partial
success.
3 Another indication of the Chilean rotors propensity to violence is to be
found in the traditional ballads (now dying out), derived from the Spanish
romancero, in which the most bloodthirsty themes are the most popular
and often make their original European prototypes seem pale and insipid
by comparison; the ballad of Delgadiw, for instance, which rektes the
incestuous passion of a king for his own daughter and how he starved her
to death, and Blanca Flor y Filomena, a still more lurid version of the
classical fable of Procne and Philomela (see J. Vicuna Ci&entes, Romances
Populates y Vulgares, Santiago 1912). Whole cycles are devoted to the exploits
of the bandits Perquenco and Luis Ortiz. The more recent ballads often have
authentic murders as their themes which are treated with all the blood
curdling relish of Grand GuignoL The Communiste have been quick to
exploit topical popular ballads for political propaganda. Abraham Jesus
Brito, the most famous of these modem minstrels who died in 1945, has
composed ballads commemorating Recabarren, Mr Henry Wallace, the
Defence of Stalingrad, a surgical operation on Hitler s throat, the Chilean
earthquakes of 1938, the Chicago Martyrs, the Russian "liberation* of
Estonia, Chile s heavy-weight champions, Pablo Neruda, and a host of
other subjects.
4 G. M. McBride, CUkLand and Society (New York 1936)* an in
valuable and penetrating analysis of Chile s basic problems.
45
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
5 For a good account of the development of the Labour Movement in
Chile see Julio Lagos Valenzuela, Bosquejo Historko del Movimiento Obrero
en Chile (Santiago 1941).
6 This account of the vicissitudes of the Chilean Communist Party is
based on an article published in La Nadon, Santiago, June n, 1948.
Chapter Four
Norte Chico
Y I IHB PROVINCES OF Tarapaca and Atacama, which together
I comprise Chile s vast desert regions, are generally known as
JL the Norte Grande the Great North whilst the neigh
bouring province of Coquimbo is called the Norte Chico or Little
North. This is a frontier zone, a land of transition between the
desert and the fertile vale of Central Chile. Of recent years a number
of irrigation schemes have been called into being to push back, or
at least to arrest, the desert s enveloping fringe, and there is talk
of vaster projects to come. But how much good soil must already
have been engulfed since the white man first set foot in Chile!
Copiapo, capital of the Atacama province and once a flourishing
mining centre which claims to possess the first railway ever built
in a South American Republic, 1 was founded in the eighteenth
century under the name of San Francisco de la Selva Saint Francis
of the Forest. Deforestation must have followed quickly, for tke
timber was ruthlessly exploited for the4abour of the mines. Huasco
valley, the next fertile strip to the south, must have been thickly
wooded too. Paitanas, the Indians called it, and the word means
in their tongue the place of thick trunks . This valley is of great
fertility, famous for its wines and delicious dried fruit The vivid
greenery of its vegetation makes a gay contrast to the tawny grey
of the desert which surrounds it To Don Ambrosio O Higgins, the
great Spanish viceroy who founded a town there a century and a
half ago, it must have recalled the emerald isle where he had spent
his boyhood. He christened it Vallenar a name which the curious
traveller may recognize as the hispanic version of the viceroy s
native Ballenary.
Not many miles of desert separate Vallenar from the province of
Coquimbo. The scrub which covers the rolling hills of the Norte
47
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Chico grows thicker as one advances towards the south, and over
this open steppe-country roam flocks of goats whose pastors, in the
course of their perennial wanderings, have come upon the rich
mineral deposits which have made the wealth of the region. The
shepherd of the Norte Chico is prospector and often miner as well.
There is not one of them but dreams of becoming another Juan
Godoy, the Indian goatherd who discovered the rich silver mines
of Chanarcillo in 1832. This is the region which made Chile famous
as a mining country long before the wealth of the northern deserts
was tapped. In bygone years, the Chilean miners formed a special
caste possessing their own peculiarities of character and dress.
*A peculiar race of men in their habits,* Charles Darwin described
them, Living for weeks together in the most desolate spots, when
they descend to the villages on feast days there is no extravagance
into which they do not run. They sometimes gain a considerable
sum, and then, like sailors with prize money, they try how soon
they can contrive to squander it. They drink excessively, buy
quantities of clothes, and in a few days return penniless to their
miserable abodes, there to work harder than a beast of burden/
The strength and powers of endurance of these miners, specially of
the apires who carried up the loads of ore from the heart of the
mine, were proverbial. More than one English traveller has related
how he tried to lift the load from the ground and found himself
unable to do so still less to think of climbing the long shaft ladders
with its full weight on his shoulders. The miner s attire was dis
tinctive. Darwin observes that he wears a long shirt of some dark
coloured baize, with a leathern apron; the whole being fastened
round his waist by a bright-coloured sash. His trousers are very
broad, and his small cap of scarlet cloth is made to fit the head
closely. This cap was adorned with a long tassel worn hanging over
the ear or down the back. The trousers reached only to the knee,
and the stockings to the ankle, leaving the feet bare inside his
sandals. Into the tightly bound sash was thrust the miner s knife
and tobacco pouch. The whole costume was completed by a
cloak, often of costly workmanship, which must have given the
finishing touch to his picturesque and brigand-like appearance.
In the folds of the austere hill-country where the miners toil
48
NORTE CHICO
nestle valleys of luxuriant fertility, like richly sculptured foliage at
the base of some rough-hewn column. The country seems to have
the Delights of the Golden Age/ wrote the enraptured traveller
Frezier over two centuries ago. 2 The Winters are warm and the
sharp North Winds never blow there; the heat of the Summer is
always tempered by refreshing Winds, which come to moderate
the Heat about noon; so that all the Year is no other than a happy
Union of Spring and Autumn, which seem to join Hands to reign
there together in order to produce at once both Fruit and Flowers/
Even the English buccaneers who came to plunder La Serena were
moved to admiration at its favoured climate and luscious fruits.
Gold and silver seemed almost as abundant and as easily obtained.
* We found by the seaside/ we read in Hakluyt s account of Drake s
famous expedition, *a Spaniard lying fast asleep who had lying
by him thirteen bars of silver which weighed 4,000 ducats Spanish.
We took the silver and left the man/ The ghost of this unfortunate
soldier is still said to haunt the coast in an eternal quest for the
missing treasure. Other legends tell of victims who lost their lives
as well as their gold, or of castaways set adrift in tiny boats to
become the wandering Jews of the ocean. La Serena, the chief town
of the region, has its own legend, too, which rektes how long ago
a youth called Juan Soldado lived there and fell in love with the
daughter of a neighbouring cacique. Juan was a Christian and poor
at that, so the Indian forbade his daughter to marry. But the young
couple eloped and were on the point of being married in the parish
church when the caciques men rode up, clearly bent on having their
blood. Then a wonderful thing happened. As the Indians were
about to cross the threshold, the church disappeared, and with it,
the whole city. Neither Juan Soldado nor his bride nor the city
was ever seen again, and a new town was built in due course some
miles away from the enchanted spot. But sometimes at night the
magic lights could be seen faindy gleaming, and on Good Fridays
the whole city would become visible from afar off, but gradually
fade from view again as one approached.
There is nothing ethereal or romantic about the modern city of
La Serena. It combines an atmosphere of old-fashioned dignity and
leisure with a rather complacent sense of its present importance as
E 49
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
a prosperous provincial centre. From the gende slope of the valley
in which it lies, La Serena looks out upon the ocean and the bust
ling port of Coquimbo, a few miles away, as if content to leave the
transaction of its mercantile affairs to its more plebeian amanuensis.
A number of important industrial plants have sprung up not far
off; a cement works called after the legendary Juan Soldado, the
new iron works at El Romeral, financed by the United States
Ex-Imbank, the large copper-smelting works at Paipote. La Serena
seems to tolerate such ventures gladly enough, but her real pride
remains in the unrivalled agricultural products of the region, her
glory in the annual stock fair of Penuelas. The genius of the place
as of the great families who have their roots there lies in the ability
to harmonize disparate elements desert with fertile land, mining
with agriculture, traditionalism with initiative, narrow regionalism
with national patriotism.
It is surely no mere chance that President Gabriel Gonzalez
Videla, whose home is La Serena, should enjoy this ability to a
marked degree. The personality and political career of the President
admirably reflect the spirit of this province with its tendency to
blend the thrusting, restless nature of the north with the more staid
and conservative outlook of Central Chile. Nqw one facet, now the
other is turned to illumine his high office. Carried to power with
the help of the Communists, and as leader of the Popular Front,
he shakes them off and bans their party in the interests of national
stability. The hidden tutelage of another powerful force the
Masons is shaken off in like manner, 3 Once he has become an
outstanding national figure and the master of the highly centralized
machinery of government in Santiago, he comes out boldly for a
policy of decentralization and greater regional autonomy. No
wonder that La Serena faces the future with complacency. The
President, who is so imbued with her spirit, will not forget to repay
his debt.
La Serena has been the home, too, of some of the most distin
guished of Chilean gringo families. The founder of the well-known
Edwards family was a ship s doctor who, according to one story,
deserted his ship, the whaler Backhouse, and was hidden by his girl
in a chest which is still said to be in die possession of the family.
50
NORTE CHICO
Another version has it that he nobly came ashore to help fight an
epidemic. At all events, Edwards ended up by marrying Dona
Isabel Ossandon, the daughter of a respectable La Serena family,
and taking a prominent place in the social and business life of this
province. Mr George Edwards must have become Chileanized
before many years had passed Darwin, who met him there in
1835, refers to him as an English resident well known for his
hospitality , but soon slips into the way of calling him Don Jose
(in error for Don Jorje). 4 The ex-ship s doctor soon gave up his
profession for the more promising prospects of commerce. Or
perhaps he was forced to abandon his practice through the jealousy
of a local Chilean colleague who wrote to complain to the authori
ties; 1 am almost without a mouthful of food, for with the novelty
of an English physician, everyone prefers him/ Don Jorje s ad
ventures into the world of business were not, however, altogether
happy, and when he died, his four sons were left to fend very much
for themselves. The three eldest had been given an education in
England or the States, but the younger Agustfn picked up what
he could in the local elementary school and then, at the age of
fourteen, set out on his wanderings through Chile and soon gave
proof of extraordinary business acumen. Some of his biographers
declare that he had shown his mettle whilst still in the nursery
when he used to save up his pocket money to buy hens whose
eggs he sold to his mama and purchased more hens with the
proceeds. At all events, he set his feet on the path to fortune at an
early age and never looked back. By 1867 tie was in a position to
found the Banco Edwards, which was the first bank in Chile to
issue its own notes thick and durable wads soon dubbed by the
public Edwards blankets and is still today one of the great
banking houses of Chile. The insurance company which he also
started is still flourishing and its general manager is one of his
descendants. But the real basis of the first Agustfn Edwards fortune
was copper. From Copiapo, the products of the copper mines were
shipped to their markets overseas. Agustfn did not fail to note that
die price paid for this copper was exceptionally low. He set about
accumulating stocks of tie metal and piles of ruddy copper bars
were soon rising on the quay-side. When scarcity began to send
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the market prices up, Agustin started selling. At the time of his
death in 1878, The Times published an obituary describing him as
the richest copper magnate in the world. The Edwards family had
taken its pkce amongst the most wealthy and influential of the
country.
Even more famous than the first Agustin Edwards was his name
sake who died in 1941 after a remarkable career as industrialist,
banker, newspaper proprietor, statesman, diplomat and writer.
Though born to the ease and security which inherited wealth
confers, Don Agustin showed a remarkable versatility and vitality
which sent him as a deputy to Congress at the age of 22, and not
long after, as Minister and then as Ambassador to Great Britain.
Periods of office as Minister of the Interior, Minister for Foreign
Affairs, and President of the Assembly of the League of Nations
and participation in innumerable international congresses completed
the political side of a career which also included extensive banking
and industrial ventures, the introduction of modern journalistic
enterprises into Chile (the powerful Mercuric* of Santiago was
founded by him and is still owned in large part by his family) and
the writing of numerous historical and other works. 5
Hidden in the folds of the hills some twenty-five miles from
La Serena, where many families still manage to gain a livelihood
from working the rich alluvial gold deposits, stands the famous
shrine of Andacollo, with its lavishly adorned and miracle-working
image of the Virgin and its myriad ex-votos of gold and silver.
Hither, every year on the feast of St Stephen, thousands of pilgrims
flock to visit the shrine and to perform the strange dances of tradi
tion. Here the scene recalls the colourful popular life of Mexico and
Bolivia. But the shrine is Chilean, and the legends, superstitions and
jocose anecdotes associated with the place are wholly characteristic
of the Chilean temperament. Legend has it that the whereabouts
of the image was first revealed to a poor Indian, Collo, by the
Blessed Virgin herself who exhorted him in these words: Go,
Collo, go, and search in the woods where you will find treasure
52
NORTE CHICO
Anda, Collo, Andal The Indian did as he was bid and, sure enough,
discovered a wooden image which less credulous investigators
believe to have probably been hidden there some years before by
the Spanish colonists fleeing from the Indians who had descended
upon the city to sack it. At all events, whatever its o^gin, the
image soon revealed a notable power to perform miracles and its
fame spread far and wide.
The Lady of Andacollo is not one to dispense her favours in
discriminately. She shows a nice sense of discernment amongst the
innumerable petitions presented to her and a sometimes disconcert
ing lack of conventionality in the granting or withholding of her
blessings. Once, we are told, a certain gentleman who had lost his
entire fortune in unsuccessful mining ventures hastened in despair
to the shrine of the Virgin to beg advice and guidance. The Blessed
Virgin obligingly suggested lending him the coronet of precious
diamonds which she wore on her brow to help restore his shattered
fortunes. The gentleman accepted the loan with gratitude and,
indeed, within two years regained his wealth and, brought back the
jewels. Curiously enough, no one had even so much as noticed
that the coronet had been missing! Another tradition records a
contrary case of gross ingratitude and its just punishment. A kdy
from La Serena, stricken with blindness, besought the Virgin to
restore her sight and pledged a pair of golden ear-rings as an ex-voto.
The miracle was performed, and the ear-rings handed over as
promised. But the kdy was tactless enough to boast to her wonder
ing friends that she had regained her sight thanks to the pair of
golden ear-rings which she had given to Our Lady of Andacollo .
A few days kter she awoke to find herself as blind as before, with
the ear-rings under her pillow. 6
Our Lady of Andacollo, in short, can always be counted upon
to put the presumptuous in their place and deal kindly with the
poor, the simple and the unfortunate. Perhaps this is what has
endeared her so greatly to the Chileans. There is something sin-
gukrly disarming about the story of the tipsy roto, caught by a
careless carabinero with a bottle of aguardiente tinder his arm, who
swore bkck and blue that the bottle had contained nothing but
water when he had left home, and that if it had been turned into
53
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
alcohol on the way then it must have been yet another miracle of
the Blessed Virgin of Andacollo!
An hour s drive from La Serena, up the beautiful and fertile vale
of Elqui, stands the little town of Vicuna. Here, in 1889, was born
Chile s most famous poetess, Lucila Godoy, better known under her
pen-name of Gabriela Mistral. Lucila s parents were folk of modest
means but of a certain refinement. Her father planted a garden in
front of their little house that his daughter so he declared should
learn to love the beauty of flowers as soon as she was old enough
to love anything. For he was a poet and a schoolmaster, and Lucila
was destined to the same life. Early pictures show her as a girl of
regular, firmly moulded features, not of striking beauty, but of
touching freshness and unusual sensibility beneath the grave
matter-of-factness of the young teacher. So she must have appeared
at the time of the youthful idyll which, with its ecstasy, its doubts
and its disillusionment, and the final poignancy of its tragic epilogue,
was to become the central feature of the poet s emotional life and
the source of her most moving lyrical inspiration. The lover was a
young man who held a rather prosaic job as clerk in a local railway
office. We can trace the course of the story in Gabriela s moving
lyrics the first mysterious awareness of love, its wonder and ecstasy,
the questionings and pangs of jealousy, separation, despair, the final
break with its aftermath of intolerable emptiness, the tormented
wrestling of the soul with God. Then, before time had yet been
able to heal the wound, came the terrible knowledge that die loved
one was no more, that he sleeps the eternal, troubled slumber of
the suicide in the graveyard at Coquimbo, his skull shattered by a
bullet. Yet empty and meaningless as it had now become, life must
somehow go on. There was the daily bread to be earned and the
great call of the teacher s mission to be obeyed. Gabriela Mistral was
becoming known. She found a good friend in Aguirre Cerda, the
Minister of Education who kter became President of the Republic.
Recognition came to her suddenly. She found herself acclaimed
one of her country s leading poets and courted and admired in the
other countries of Latin America. The Republic of Chile, ever an
54
NORTH CHICO
enlightened patron of letters or simply aware, may be, of the value
of cultural propaganda, sent her abroad with consular rank. Gabriela
Mistral could now devote herself to the abiding interests of her
life education, in its national and international aspects, and the
cult of literature. Two great sources of inspiration have since been
added to her muse. She has become the poet of childhood, and the
prophet of the destiny of the American republics. Her work was
crowned with the award of the Nobel Prize in 1945, and her name
enshrined in a legend which the passing of the years is unlikely to
dim.
Yet in all her sojourns in strange and beautiful lands, Gabriela
Mistral still reserves her warmest words of admiration and affection
for her birthplace the beautiful vale of Elqui in the Norte Chico:
*a heroic slash in the mass of mountains, but so short as to be little
more than a green-banked torrent. Tiny as it is, one can come to
love it as perfection itself. It contains in perfection all that one can
wish from a land in which to dwell light, water, wine and fruit.
And what fruit! The tongue which has once tasted the juice of its
peaches and the mouth which has savoured its purple figs will
never seek sweetness elsewhere. The vale of Elqui is spangled with
little villages. Seen from above, the villages with their score and a
half of white cottages half hidden by the trees, give it something
of the appearance of a necklace which has come unthread/
The valley of La Ligua, not many miles to the south but already
within the boundaries of the province of Aconcagua (and so, strictly
speaking, outside the Norte Chico), is scarcely less favoured than
Elqui, and memorable too though for very different reasons on
account of another remarkable woman. Indeed, if the average
Chilean were asked to name the two most famous women which
his country had produced, he would almost certainly reply Gabriela
Mistral and La Quintrala. No figure has fkmed its way into the
popular imagination, giving birth to innumerable legends, stories
and plays, in quite the same way as the Quintrala. 7 If Santiago
possessed its Madame Tussaud s, the Quintrala would assuredly
be the star turn in the Chamber of Horrors, and rotos and bourgeois
55
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
alike would flock to gaze in horrified ecstasy at the likeness of the
demoniacal creature flogging her Indian slaves to death, dispatching
a tiresome lover with a shrewdly aimed dagger thrust, or taunting
the image of the crucified Christ Himself.
No one knows for certain how the mistress of the great estates of
La Ligua acquired the name by which she is popularly known.
Perhaps it was a playful variation on her Christian name, Catalina
(if one could dare to be playful with such a monster) ; or it might
have been a nickname suggested by the scarlet-berried parasite,
whose embrace deals death and destruction to the trees of the Chilean
forests. As to her ancestry, there is less mystery. In the veins of
Dona Cata1i.ua. de los Rios y Lisperguer flowed the turbulent blood
of Spanish and German adventurers and of Indian princes. On her
mother s side she was descended from, one of Valdivia s original
band of conquistadores, Bartolome Blumen, who changed his
teutonic name to Flores and married the daughter of the Indian
cacique of Talagante, and from the Lisperguers, another powerful
and immensely wealthy German family. On her father s side, as
the Bishop of Santiago took care to inform the King in a letter of
unavailing protest, *she is descended from one of the concubines
of the Governor Valdivia, first Conqueror of this Kingdom, Maria
de Encio by name, who is this lady s grandmother, and who was
kter married off to a certain delos Rios. This Maria de Encio slew
her husband as he was sleeping his siesta by pouring quicksilver
into his ears. Dona Catalina (the mother of this lady now living of
whom we speak) sought to poison the Governor Rivera. She was
a cruel kdy, for she whipped her stepdaughter to death and herself
killed an Indian from whom she had obtained the herbs with which
she wished to poison the said Governor s drinking water. The
Dona Catalina of whom we now treat killed her own father with
poison which she administered to him in a chicken when he lay
sick/
Every form of violence and crime was thus already in the
Quintrala s blood and she soon began to show herself worthy of
her heritage. And this Dona Catalina,* continued the Bishop,
also killed a knight of the Order of St John, a few years ago,
inveigling him to come to her by means of a letter so that she might
56
NORTE CHICO
have wicked intercourse of Hm that night, of whose death the
Audiencia is well informed. And to hide the atrocity of Ms murder
she induced a negro slave to declare that it was he who killed
him, so that he should be condemned to death. The same negro
was hung. Remonstrances by the Church only served to inflame
rather than to curb her passions. She sought to kill Don Juan de La
Fuente Loarte, schoolmaster of the Holy Church and Vicar General
of this Bishop, running upon him with a knife when he sought to
restrain her licentiousness. Matrimony proved as powerless as the
admonitions of the Church to curb the Quintrak s passions. She
lost no time in dominating her husband and making of Mm, as
Vicuna Mackenna puts it, not a spouse but an accomplice*. Neither
husband nor the son that was born to them seem to have survived
long, and Dona Catalina was soon left alone to rule her vast estates
with despotic power. Within a few years, La Ligua became notorious
throughout the land for the brutalities inflicted on the wretched
serfs by their demented mistress. At length the Indians could bear
the tyranny no longer. They fled in terror from the Quintrala s
estates. But she had the kw on her side Dona Catalina always
saw to that and the wretches were hunted down and brought
back to face punishments calculated to scare all would-be deserters
into obedience. Never again did they dare to challenge the will or
whim of their formidable mistress.
The Quintrala also possessed a sumptuous house in Santiago and
thither she would repair for a spell of licentious gaiety when the
pleasures of flogging the Indian serfs on her country estates began to
paU. At one time her Santiago residence is said to have housed the
image of the crucified Christ known for its peculiarly dolorous
expression as El Cristo de la Agonia. This image was famous for
surviving the great earthquake of May 13, 1647, when most of
Santiago including the church where it was kept was brought to
the ground. The only mishap suffered by the Cristo de la Agoma
was to have its crown of thorns forced down over its head deep
on to the neck, in which position it may still be seen today. Every
year, on the anniversary of the disaster, the image is carried through
the streets of Santiago a practice which has also won for it the
name of El Senor del Mayo. Tradition rektes one of the most
57
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
notorious and impious exploits of the Quintrala in connection with
this image. "When according to one version of the legend she
persisted in her slave-whipping pastimes in its presence, or
according to another in shamelessly appearing before it in an
outrageous decollete the sacred image turned its gaze upon her
in wrathful rebuke. But the Quintrala, already accustomed to
assaulting parish priests and shouting down bishops, was in no way
abashed by the miracle. She merely summoned her servants and
ordered them to remove the image with the classic remark: 1 won t
have any man making long faces at me in my own house.* Only on
her death-bed does she seem to have made her peace and a death
bed peace as lavish and magnificent as the turbulent wickedness of
her Kfe with the Church. She had long outlived her old enemy,
Bishop Salcedo of Santiago, whose appeal for the appointment of
a special commission of inquiry to examine the long list of the
Qtrintrak s misdeeds was delayed by her friends at court for a good
thirty years. When at last she died, feared, wicked and wealthy to
the end, her body was accorded funeral rites of extraordinary
magnificence and the Church was left sufficient funds to pay for
twenty-five thousand masses to be said for the good of her soul.
Nor did the Quintrala fail to make amends to the Cristo de la Agonia.
She bequeathed enough money to pay the expenses of his annual
outing in the Santiago May processions for many years to
come.
The misdeeds of the Quintrala would never have lived on in
legend had it not been for the chance that their perpetrator had
been born a woman and not a man. The typical conquistador had
not a little of the Quintrala spirit in his make-up. Later, the same
qualities often produced the caudillo of the newly liberated republic,
or the flamboyant type of South American dictator-politician of
later years. Chile has had the good fortune to remain far freer from
this scourge than her neighbours. There has been a stability, a
moderation, a tradition of respect for law and for the dignity of
office, rather than devotion to the individual who holds it, that has
an almost Anglo-Saxon quality about it. There have of course
58
NORTE CHICO
been lapses, interruptions and colourful exceptions to this general
trend, but on the whole the Chilean seems to prefer to seek excite
ment from the bottle or the gaming table rather than from the
posturings of the political demagogue.
Chile s relative immunity from the caudlllo was not achieved at
once, nor by mere chance. It was primarily the work of one man,
Diego Portales, probably the greatest political genius that Chile has
produced and a figure to be compared in stature with Bolivar,
Sarmiento, San Martin and the greatest of South America. 8
Portales was a man entirely devoid of personal ambitions or
doctrinaire fanaticism. He had started out as a merchant and had
been repeatedly brought to the verge of bankruptcy by the anarchy
which the first taste of independence had brought to the young
republic in the beginning of the nineteenth century. Then he had
been placed in charge of the state tobacco monopoly, the profits
from which it was hoped would pay off the interest on the British
loan which had so largely helped to finance the war of independence.
The tobacco monopoly failed in its objective, but Portales had been
insensibly drawn from commerce to politics. By sheer force of
character, by hard work, by an implacable insistence on efficiency
and honesty in the administration and the suppression of every
attempt at revolt, Portales soon achieved an incredible ascendency
over his fellow citizens. He steadfastly refused to stand for the
Presidency; he remained a Minister, whose aim it was as he strove
to make it that of every citizen to assist and strengthen the legiti
mate seat of supreme power. When order had been brought into
the finances and the administration, when the partisans and ad
versaries of the now exiled O Higgins had been forced to stop their
bickering, and the jealous provinces to make peace with the capital,
Portales felt that the foundations of the new State had been laid.
He resigned his office and went to live in the valley of La Ligua,
hard by the Quintrala s old estates. Then, when anarchy again
threatened to undo his work, he once more accepted office, re
solutely pursued the trouble-makers even to the point of declaring
war on Peru where they had found support and encouragement.
He was at the height of his power when he was treacherously seized
and done to death by a clique of rebellious officers. The spirit of
59
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the Quintrala, of intolerable and futile caudillimo, had struck him
down. But it could not undo his work. A strong, authoritarian,
centralistic Chilean State had been called into being, based on the
authority of an oligarchic but not unenlightened landed class.
Portales was a practical man of action, not given to the pompous
phrase of the constitutional lawyer. He did not often commit his
ideological views to writing. But when he was still in private
commerce in Lima, before his astonishing political career had
begun, he wrote to a friend as follows: A republic is the system
which we must adopt. But do you know what I understand by it
for these countries? A strong, centralized government composed
of men who are real models of patriotism and virtue, so that the
citizens can be led along the path of order and virtue. When once
they have acquired some morality, then let us have a completely
liberal government, free and full of ideals in which all the citizens
can take part. This is what I think, and every man of moderate
views will think the same/ These are wise words, which Portales
went far towards converting into political reality. It is more
difficult to tell when a country has reached the second stage and is
ripe for the more liberal and democratic government a govern
ment fit for citizens who have all acquired some morality*.
The sun-drenched valley of La Ligua, then, has been the home
both of a Portales and of a Quintrala. If the figure of the Great
Minister sheds light on the Chile of today, it is the Quintrala who
reveals its shadows. To say that Chile cherishes a Quintrala cult
would perhaps be too much. But an intense and morbid interest
certainly exists amongst all classes of the community for this
memorable and frightening woman. Could we fully probe and
explore the subconscious mind of a nation as a psychoanalyst
probes that of an individual patient, what disturbing complexes
might not be revealed! Then we might meet with a convincing
explanation as to why the agreeable Chilean character conies to
have such a strong undercurrent of violence, liable to burst to the
surface in drastic and disconcerting fashion, and why the number
of murders committed in the country every year is ten times
60
NOTES
greater than the number committed in Great Britain, though Chile s
population is but one-tenth that of Britain.
A few miles from the valley of La Ligua stands the exquisite little
town of Zapallar, the most beautiful and exclusive of Chile s sea
side resorts. Too fax away from the capital to be visited by the week
end tripper, the seclusion of its woods, its comfortable villas, and its
blossom-laden gardens are only tasted by the discerning and
leisured motorist. But not many summers ago, Zapallar was the
scene of one of those senseless and savage episodes which periodically
break the calm of Chilean life, A highly respectable doctor from
the inland town of Los Andes had arrived there with his family to
spend a few days* holiday. Some trifling quarrel occurred on the
beach between his children and those of one of the Zapallar resi
dents, a congressman of wealth and influence. The grown-ups
joined in, relatives and friends took sides, the congressman gave
chase in his car, tried to manoeuvre the doctor off the corniche road
to certain death, and when that failed, attacked him with a knife
and left his body mutilated and almost lifeless on the shore. In the
meantime, his womenfolk had carried out an assault on the doctor s
rooms and with meticulous and vindictive spite slashed into tiny
pieces every stitch of clothing in the possession of the unfortunate
holiday-makers. Hie children s tiff had culminated in an outburst
of brutal violence which would have done credit to the Quintrala
herself. Perhaps some mysterious and malevolent emanation of her
spirit still lingers on there to infect the lush profusion of flower and
fruit, and the very brilliance of the clear sunshine, with something
of its own evil.
NOTES
1 The railway connecting Copiapo with the port of Caldera was opened
to public traffic on July 29, 1851. British Guiana, however, anticipated
Chile s initiative by several years, and the Demerara. Railway Company
had several miles of track in commission between Georgetown and Mahaica
before the Copiapo railway was completed.
2 At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Frezier was sent out to the
6l
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Pacific by the French Government, then at peace with Spain but already
anticipating a renewal of hostilities. He was instructed to see as much as
he could of the Spanish colonies and, in particular, to bring back all possible
information regarding the strength and location of their coastal fortifica
tions. This enterprising and enlightened spy did all this and far more.
His Voyage to the South Sea and along the coasts of Chile and Peru in the years
1712, 1713 and 1714 (English edition published in 1717) contains delightful
descriptions of Chile as well as much useful information. Frezier, moreover,
brought back specimens of plants and fruits, including the Chilean straw
berry which, crossed with the smaller indigenous species of Europe, became
the ancestor of our present garden strawberry.
3 The influence of Freemasonry in Chile has been considerable. The
movement for South American independence at the beginning of the last
century undoubtedly owed much to it. The arch-conspirator Francisco
Miranda was quick to see how the Lodges could be used to form a secret
international organization binding together men devoted to the cause of
national liberation. His ideas were taken up by San Martin and other
South Americans who formed the Logia Lautaro (named after the Arau-
canian leader) in Buenos Aires for this very purpose. A few years later, a
branch of the Logia Lautaro was formed on San Martin s initiative in
Santiago and by good fortune the statutes of this Lodge have been preserved
amongst Bernardo O Higgins papers and give us a clear picture of what it
set out to do. The preamble of the statutes states that This Society has been
established for the purpose of grouping together American gentlemen who,
distinguished by the liberality of ideas and the fervour of their patriotic zeal,
should work together systematically and methodically for the independence
and well-being of America, devoting to this most noble end all their
strength, their influence, their faculties and talents, loyally sustaining one
another, kbouring honourably and proceeoling with justice under the
following conditions . . . . The latter include clauses (No. 9) laying down
that if one of the brothers should be elected Head of State, he should reach
no decision in matters of grave importance without first consulting the
opinion of the Lodge, and (No. n) that no senior appointments should be
made in the offices of State, judicature, church or army, without the prior
approval of the Lodge. The Lodge, in short, was to be the secret power
behind the new governments replacing the old colonial administration and
constituting a supra-national and all-powerful organization. Its contribu
tion to the cause of Latin American independence was incalculable, and its
influence certainly helped to bind together and enlighten the aristocratic
oligarchy who became the hereditary rulers of Chile. Some historians (see
62
NOTES
F. de Encina, Historia de Chile., Vol. 7, pp. 405 et seq.) hold that no real
continuity exists between present-day masonry and the celebrated Logia
Lautaro which they maintain to have been an irregular body formed ten
years before the first Chilean masonic lodge proper, the Filantropia Chikna,
whose name indicates its concern with less controversial affairs. Another
scholar, Dr Rene Garcia Valenzuela finds, in his learned work El ongeti
aparente de la franc-masoneria en Chile y la Respectable Logia simbolica Filan
tropia Chilena, that however political the basis of the Logias lautarinas may
have been, one can always discern partially in or behind them the ideology,
organization and terminology of masonry*. Difficult as it therefore is to
arrive at the truth regarding the real aims and scope of an organization
where secrecy is strictly enforced, it would seem certain at least that many,
if not most, of the Presidents of the Republic have been Masons and that
at some time in the careers of the more resolute of them, conflict has arisen
over the brotherhood s claim to their allegiance as expressed in Clause 9
of the statutes of the Logia Lautaro. Thus, President Ibanez was called to
account by the Masons for his dictatorial disregard of the Constitution,
President Alessandri for the needlessly bloody suppression of an abortive
coup in 1938, and President Gonzalez Videla for his Law in Defence of
Democracy designed to deprive the Communists of civic rights. The
dispute between Gonzalez Videla and the Masons led to lively polemics and
the publication in the press of voluminous correspondence between the
President of the Republic and the Grand Master who made no secret of his
disapproval of the erring brother s policy on the grounds that Masonry
believes that the lot of mankind should be bettered by education of a con
structive nature, and not by repressive measures*. That the Masons should
have taken up the cudgels on behalf of the Communist Party is instructive,
and raises the question of what relations exist between these two powerful
and largely secret organizations. The issue was discussed in the Fourteenth
National Conference of the Chilean Communist Party in May 1947, when
a number of speakers drew attention to the infiltration of Masons into the
Party. * We do not oppose Masonry as an institution,* a spokesman of the
Party declared. We dissent from its idealist philosophy; but this does not
prevent us from co-operation with it in all mass organizations for the
defence of the democratic order. But, he went on, with regard to joining
the Party, we have laid down that it is incompatible to be both a Mason
and a Communist*.
4 Voyage of the Beagle , Everyman Edition.
5 A. Edwards My Native Land (London 1928) still provides what is
probably the best all-round account of Chile available in English.
63
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
6 Luis Durand, Presenda de Chile (Santiago 1942), a collection of essays
giving a useful insight into the character of Chile and its inhabitants.
7 Vicuna Mackenna s La Quintrala; episodio Hhtorico-Social still remains
the best work on the subject. Amongst the other remarkable and violent
female characters who have left their mark on Chilean history must be
numbered Lies de Suarez, the concubine and dauntless comrade-in-arms of
Pedro de Valdivia, and Catalina de Erauzo, an ex-nun who fought against
the Araucanians in the garb of a Spanish soldier and enjoyed many other
more disreputable adventures. Her life is the subject of a highly coloured
account by De Quincey and also of a play, La Monja Alferez by Juan Perez
de Mentalban, and a novel of the same tide by Raul Morales Alvarez.
8 See Portaks by F. Encina (Santiago 1934). Alberto Edwards La Fronda
Atistocrdtica also contains interesting material.
PLATE I
CHUQUTCAMATA. Copper mine in the northern desert
ZAPAUAR
PLATE II
THE HUASCX At a fiesta
THE HUASO. At home
Chapter Five
Aconcagua and the Andes
THE PROVINCE OF Aconcagua takes its name from the mighty
peak, the highest in all America, which rises behind the
rampart of the Andes in Argentine territory. Strange, we
may think, that a province should be called after a mountain beyond
the frontiers! But there is an Aconcagua river, too, which runs
through Chilean soil to the Pacific, and though the waters which
spring from the eternal snows of the great peak itself are all drained
away to the eastern side of the watershed and to the Atlantic, the
name given both to province and river is a fitting tribute to the
highest peak in the mighty range which dominates the country
throughout its great length. In Ecuador, Colombia and Peru, the
Andes cleave the world into two parts the lofty pkteau and the
low coastiand, whose respective inhabitants find it hard to live and
work together and are sometimes unable to survive in the physical
environment of the other. But in Chile the mountains do not divide
but unite. The Andes impose a surprising homogeneity and cohesion
on its widely scattered population. Except for a few outposts
amongst the Cordillera, the inhabitants of Chile live between the
Andean rampart and the ocean and are scarcely able to lose their
awareness of the mountains for a moment. Even in the bustling
streets of Valparaiso, where the voice of the sea might be expected
to drown that of the mountains, we may glance up and see the
shining summit of Aconcagua a hundred miles away. Sometimes,
in the early dawn, a strange phenomenon is visible. The sun, rising
east of the Cordillera, casts its beams against the mountain and
sends a shadow not earthwards, but tapering up darkly into the sky.
We know what the English Channel has meant in Britain s own
island history and can readily appreciate the part played by this
mountain barrier in the development of Chile. The Andes have
F 65
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
tended to isolate her from the rest of the world, and caused her to
lead a life of her own which has been little dependent on outside
ideas and resources. Now the railway, the motor car and the
aeroplane have overleapt this ancient barrier, as modern transport
has overleapt the channel. But the mountains, like our seas, have
done their work. They have provided the centuries of relative
immunity and remoteness within which differing races have fused
and grown to manhood.
Even during the centuries of Chile s remoteness, there were
moments when the bleak passes were forced by resolute men whose
advent proved a decisive turning-point in the country s history
comparable in importance to the invasions of England by the
Normans. It was over the Andes that Almagro s men came to
discover Chile, and if not to conquer it themselves, at least to
inspire Valdivia and others of their countrymen with the tales
which they brought back. Thus they opened the long and eventful
chapter of Spanish domination which was to close only with
another transandine invasion that of San Martin and his army,
which set the seal on Chile s independence.
The horror and hardship of that first crossing of the Andes by
the rival and one-time comrade of Pizarro have become legendary.
Many place-names still bear witness to the epic march: Mulas
Muertas (Dead Mules), Monte de la Pena (The Mountain of Suffer
ing) and Paso Come-Caballos (Eat-Horse Pass). The Indians who
tad-been pressed into service as carriers and auxiliaries, and who died
like flies from starvation and cold, do not appear to have received
even the courtesy of a commemorative pkce-name. The Spaniards
themselves finally reached the central valley of Chile with their
faces chapped and seared by the icy winds and with toes and
fingers missing through frost-bite. No wonder that Valdivia chose
to reach Chile across the formidable desert route, and that no
major military expedition was attempted across the Cordillera
until San Martin s triumph of foresight and endurance.
What made Almagro s ordeal so terrible was the complete kck
of preparations made for this journey into the unknown. His men,
66
ACONCAGUA AND THE ANDES
and especially the wretched Indian carriers, Bad set out with in
sufficient supplies of food and fuel, without even warm clothes to
wear, and with nothing but the haziest ideas as to the route to
follow. San Martin s achievement was of a different order. It
belongs to the characteristically modern type of complex military
operation, of which the allied landings in France in the kst war are
the supreme example, where spectacular success is the outcome of
the most intense and meticulous planning. On the smaller scale of
early nineteenth-century warfare, San Martin found himself faced
by many problems similar to those which the allied invasion chief
had to solve the special training of troops and accumulation of
war material and their safe conveyance to the battlefield over a
formidable natural obstacle. He brought to his task the same
imaginative and grandiose strategic conception, coupled with tire
less and unsparing foresight and attention to detail, which could
alone ensure success.
The base chosen by San Martin from which to launch the in
vasion was the Argentine province of Cuyo, on the eastern foothills
of the Cordillera. Until not many years before, Cuyo had been a
part of the Captaincy-General of Chile, and links of trade, culture
and family still bound it with that country and predisposed it in
favour of San Martin s great project. There was of course a danger
that the royalist forces would strike first across the mountains and
try to destroy the expedition before it was ready to set out. But
this they did not so much as attempt, and San Martin was left un
disturbed to his initial task of transforming his unruly and ill-
equipped volunteers into a striking force of a highly specialized and
novel kind. He himself was at that time but a relatively minor
figure amongst the leaders of the independence movement. It was
a hard task to win acceptance for his plans, and harder still to
obtain some at least of the essential supplies. As for the human
material at his disposal, its reshaping presented exceptional diffi
culties. The bulk of his troops consisted of brave but undisciplined
Argentine gauchos, magnificent riders but of little use as material
for the dogged infantry which was to be the backbone of the
army. So he appealed to the patriotic Cuyans to release their negro
and mulatto slaves and allow them to join up and fine infantry
6?
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
troops they made too, for they were fighting for their personal
liberty as well as for the freedom of their country. Less than one-
tenth of the army was composed of Chileans; nor were all of the
Chilean officers reliable as they included followers of the Carrera
brothers, the fiery caudillo leaders opposed to O Higgins, who were
determined to fight for independence in their own way and for
their own leader. The Army of the Andes also included a number
of British volunteers, some of whom, such as James Paroissien,
head of the army s medical services, held positions of considerable
responsibility.
The problem of supplying, equipping and training the Army
of the Andes was formidable. What could not be obtained from
Buenos Aires had to be manufactured locally. Mendoza was
transformed into one huge armed camp with its own factories and
workshops for turning out uniforms, powder, cannon balls and the
hundred and one special articles of equipment needed for crossing
the mountains. A strange friar called Luis Beltran became the army s
inspired quarter-master and invented special gun-carriages, port
able cranes and bridges for transporting the cannon over the
natural obstacles likely to be encountered. Immense stocks of food,
fodder and fuel were built up, including an abundance of onions
and Chilean peppers to counteract the effects of the dreaded puna
or mountain, sickness. More than ten thousand mules were assembled,
for the whole army was to be transported by the unromantic but
essentially practical means of mule-back across the rough passes,
the horses, like modern tanks, being carefully kept in reserve until
they were needed to go into action.
"Whilst these material preparations were in progress, San Martin
continued to wage a *cold war against the Spaniards by means of
propaganda, espionage, sabotage and every device of psychological
warfare. His aim was to weaken the enemy by fermenting guerilla
operations amongst the civil population and by demoralizing the
troops and keeping them needlessly deployed at widely separated
points along the Cordillera. San Martin was a master in the art of
deception, and handled his spies and agents with great imagination.
He succeeded in intercepting the secret instructions sent to enemy
agents in Cuyo who were then arrested and forced to send back
68
ACONCAGUA AND THE ANDES
fake information under his own instructions. Topographical in
telligence gleaned from the muleteers and carriers of tie Cordillera
was scanty, so San Martin determined to supplement it by dispatch
ing a young engineer to the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, Marco,
ostensibly on a diplomatic mission, but in reality to observe and
engrave on his wonderfully retentive memory the detailed informa
tion regarding the passes which San Martin needed. As a crowning
stratagem, San Martin invited the Araucanian chiefs whose lands
commanded the southern passes of the Cordillera to a solemn
parliament and formed an affiance with them. He resolved, he told
them, to drive out the last of the hated Spaniards from American
soil. Then he made certain that news of these doings reached the
ears of Marco, so that more troops should be dispatched to the south
whilst the army of the Andes prepared to move across the central
Uspallata pass and strike directly at the capital. These meticulously
careful preparations ensured the success of the expedition from its
start. The army, with its great baggage trains of supplies and equip
ment, moved through the bleak Andean uplands and descended
towards the coast of the Pacific without the loss of a single cannon
or a single load of ammunition. Then, emerging unexpectedly
amongst the foothills of Chacabuco, it fell upon the enemy forces
and routed them. The way stood open to the Chilean capital and
the final liberation of America. 1
Even after the great achievement of the Army of the Andes, to
cross the Cordillera remained, for the ordinary traveller, a hazardous
aad exacting enterprise. The roads over the chief passes were little
more than the crude tracks followed by muleteers, smugglers and
cattle-drovers. The traveller overtaken by nightfall or by a sudden
snow-storm might, if he were lucky, find refuge within the four
bare walls of the roughly constructed road-houses or casuchas built
by the prudent Ambrosio O Higgins to ensure the safety of the
courier service between Santiago and Buenos Aires. For the rest,
he was generally at the mercy of the haltcaste carriers whom he
had engaged to convey his baggage and who were prone, at the
smallest pretext or at none, to throw down their loads and refuse
69
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
to budge another inch until they had extorted a further exorbitant
fee. To the superstitious there were besides a thousand dreads of
fiends, supernatural monsters, and magic fires to add to the perils
of the road. Even the distant line of peaks became, at nightfall, a
ghostly file of Penitentes, the evil-doers whose repentance had come
too late to save them from the fate of being turned to stone. 2
It was not until the skill of British engineers and the hardiness of
the Chilean rotos had completed the railway over the Uspallata pass
in 1909 that the great Andes could be considered tamed and their
passage brought within the reach of the comfort-loving tourist.
The conquest of the passes has been followed by that of the
peaks. Aconcagua, for long the goal of rival English and German
alpinists, was first scaled in 1898 when Zurbriggen, the Swiss guide
brought out by E. A. Fitzgerald, reached the summit after the other
members of the expedition had been forced to give up the attempt.
For those who take an unduly romantic view of the pleasures of
mountaineering, here is Fitzgerald s account of the event:
*I gave up the fight and started to go down. I shall never forget
the descent that followed. I was so weak that my legs seemed to
fold up under me at every step, and I kept falling forward and
cutting myself on the shattered stones that covered the sides of the
mountain. I do not know how long I crawled in this miserable
plight, steering for a big patch of snow that lay in a sheltered spot,
but I should imagine that it was about an hour and a half. On
reaching the snow I lay down, and finally rolled down a great
portion of the mountainside. As I got lower my strength revived,
and the nausea I had been suffering from so acutely disappeared,
leaving me with a splitting headache. Soon after five o clock I
reached our tent. My headache was now so bad it was with great
difficulty I could see at all. Zurbriggen arrived at the tent about an
hour and a half later. He had succeeded in gaining the summit,
and had planted an ice-axe there; but he was so weak and tired
that he could scarcely talk, and lay almost stupefied by fatigue.
Though naturally and justifiably elated by his triumph, at that
moment he did not seem to care what happened to him. At night,
in fact, all hope and ambition seemed to depart, after four days
spent at that height, and that night we got Htde sleep, everyone
70
ACONCAGUA AND THE ANDES
making extraordinary noises during ids short snatches of uncon
sciousness struggling, panting and choking for breath, until at last
obliged to wake up and moisten his throat with a drop of water.
Next morning we closed up our camp, and returned. . . . Thus was
Aconcagua conquered. 3
Although mountaineering now has its devotees amongst Chileans
as well as amongst the mad gringos, it has been outstripped in popu
larity by the sport of ski-ing. At the turn of the seasons, the hoKday-
maker may find himself faced by the unusual choice between a
weekend s bathing and boating on the waters of the Pacific, or
skating and ski-ing high up in the Cordillera. The Chilean winter-
sport season is of exceptional length. It may start as early as April
and go on as kte as December. Santiago itself is within a two or
three hours* drive of the ski-ing grounds of Farellones. Those who
can afford the time generally prefer to take the train to the south of
Chile and visit the resorts of Osorno, Villarica or Llaima. There
the skier finds himself in a landscape of fantastic and enchanting
beauty, for the snowfields He on the slopes of great volcanoes and
along the verge of forests composed of massive ornamental pines
familiar to us as the monkey-puzzle and to the Chileans as the
araucaria.
Those who like to enjoy their winter-sports from the comfort
of a luxury hotel will probably prefer Portillo, whose magnificent
ski-ing grounds over nine thousand feet up in the Cordillera attract
not only Chileans and Argentines, but professional skiers from as
far away as the States and Canada. Its expensive modern hotel
stands on the shores of the two and a half mile stretch of water
known as the Inca s Lake, and within easy reach of the Transandine
Railway. The traveller on his way between Santiago and the
Argentine may find himself mingling with the cheerful crowds
dressed in ski-ing outfit and carrying rucksacks on their backs which
throng the platform at Los Andes, where amidst much puffing and
whistling, the ponderous Santiago train discharges its load of pas
sengers and freight on to the narrow-gauge line, and pauses to
gather strength for its final leap over the passes.
71
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
From PortiUo, the skier has the choice of a number of splendid
runs El Vermejo, Hermanos Clark, Plateau, or most impressive
of all to the Argentine frontier with its great statue of Christ the
Redeemer whose outstretched arms shed an invocation of eternal
peace over the sister republics. Sooner shall these mountains crumble
into dust, than Argentines and Chileans break the peace which, at
the feet of Christ the Redeemer, they have sworn to maintain. In
these glittering and majestic solitudes, there reigns a peace which
makes any challenge to these words seem unthinkable. It is only
when we descend to the cities that national passions and ambitions
raise their voices. Chile, as we shall see from a later chapter, may
have her fears and the Argentine her secret dreams, but they cannot
thrive in the pure and rarefied air of the mountains.
NOTES
1 An exciting if somewhat romanticized account of San Martin s passage
of the Andes is given in Ricardo Rojas biography El Santo de la Espada,
an excerpt from which appears in English translation in The Green Continent,
a useful anthology on Latin America edited by German Arciniegas (London
1947). See also San Martin byj. C. J. Metford (Oxford 1950).
2 A slightly different version is given by Fitzgerald in The Highest Andes
(London 1899), p. 302:
c To all who cross the Andes by the Uspallata route, the Penitentes are
pointed out as one of the wonders to be seen. This great wall of rock, cut
by time and water, presents the shapes of perpendicular pillars, and buttresses
some two thousand feet high, and is in the imagination of the beholder the
Iglesia or monastery. On the steep red slope of debris leading to its base
stands a long line of black pinnacles of rock the Penitents, the monks,
toiling in solemn procession up the steep slope to the portals above/
3 Op. rif., pp. 82 et seq.
Chapter Six
The Central Valley
WITH THE PROVINCE of Aconcagua we have already entered
the great Central Valley, the fertile province of Ercilk s
poem, with its meadows and vineyards hemmed in by
the Cordillera of the Andes and the lower coastal range of hills,
with its brilliant Mediterranean climate, and its vast country estates.
This is the zone which, until little more than a century ago, com
prised all that there was of Chile. For the Norte Chico was then
the frontier; the northern deserts were but a waste unwanted and
unclaimed; the Araucanian lands were still unconquered and un-
colonized; the Straits of Magellan not even a. convict settlement
Though Chile now covers an area of vastly greater extent, the
importance of the Central Valley still remains dominant. It is central
not only topographically, but in the social, economic and political
fields as well. With its antiquated agrarian structure and its latifundia
known as haciendas oifundos, Central Chile remains the home of the
great landed families who still rule the country, and the nation s
future largely depends on how long the traditional structure can
survive in the modern world.
We have already seen how Chile s mineral production is so
geared to the apparatus of contemporary international capitalism
that a fluctuation of a point or two in the world price of copper can
create a substantial surplus or deficit in the national budget. But in
the agricultural basis of her economy Chile remains almost feudal.
Life outside the towns shows much the same traditional pattern as
was to be seen in Russia before the First World War, or in Hungary
before the Second. In his admirable study of the Chilean agrarian
structure, 1 McBride tells us that, according to the census of 1925
(the most complete for the purposes of our inquiry), 89 per cent of
all farm land in Central Chile was taken up by some 5,396 great
73
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
estates. The remaining n per cent of the land was divided between
76,688 small holdings. In some provinces Aconcagua, for instance
as much as 98 per cent of the land was taken up by the large
latifundia. More than half the total farm land in Chile is composed
of vast estandas, 375 in number, all more than 5,000 hectares in
area and some of them many times that size. Some of the land com
prises hill-country of limited agricultural value, but even with due
allowance made for this, the size of the Chilean fundo appears
excessive. The system of large properties/ McBride writes, fitted
naturally enough into the scheme of things for the two centuries
or so in which the country was mainly a cattle land, when frontier
conditions existed and society was organized on a semi-pastoral
plan. This stage of development has now passed. Chile has become
agricultural, and the large holdings with many untiUed areas now
actually impede rational development.
How long can the old system survive in the changed conditions
of the modern world? What is likely to take its place, and will
the change be effected by violence or by peaceful evolution? The
landless agricultural proletariat must have land of their own,
McBride continues, if they are to be an asset rather than a liability
to the republic. Left landless as they are at present, they can have
little real interest in the established order; their lot will inevitably
be cast with the forces of unrest. . . . The country lives in dread of
a social upheaval. . . . The situation suggests the plight of Russia
with its stubbornly maintained autocracy and its eventual swing
to the Left, or the pent-up forces of unrest in Mexico. . . . The
Chilean landowners are face to face with the alternatives of giving
up part of their lands voluntarily and without compensation, or
losing them entirely.*
The great anachronistic estates of today first arose through the
peculiar nature of the Spanish conquest of America. Their origin
lies in the grants of land known as encomiendas or, more exactly,
grants of Indians inhabiting a certain area in return for services
rendered to the King of Spain. Once the land has been pacified
and the natives reduced to obedience, the Adelantado or Governor
74
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
must make a distribution of Indians amongst the colonists, so that
the latter may undertake the defence and protection of those Indians
which fall to their lot, instruct them in the Christian faith and
administer the sacraments to them. 2 In return for these "benefits,
the Indians were under the obligation to pay tribute to the King of
Spain. As they had no means of paying this tribute, they were
graciously permitted to discharge their obligations by manual
labour or personal service , as it was somewhat euphemistically
termed. In Chile, the Indians did not form the compact, teeming
population which the Spaniards had found in Mexico and Peru.
They lived in scattered hutments of a semi-permanent nature. The
discipline and drudgery of sustained agricultural labour were irk
some to them specially if it was the Christian conqueror who was
to reap the benefits of their toil. Some element of compulsion was
undoubtedly necessary if the handful of Europeans was to find a
secure economic basis for survival. So the encomienda system found
its original justification in economic necessity no less than in
religious and legal theory.
The treatment to which the Indians were subject varied greatly
according to locality and to the character of their encomendero* The
most gruelling kbour was in the mines. The Crown and its more
enlightened servants did what they could to safeguard the rights
of the Indians in so far as they could be regarded as Christians and
loyal vassals, but were invariably defeated by the rapacity of the
encomenderos and by the officials whose interests were identical with
those of the land-owning class. A number of codes was drawn up
of a more or less enlightened nature in an endeavour to humanize,
or at least to regulate, the type and amount of kbour exacted from
the natives. Finally, at the close of the eighteenth century, the
obligation of personal service was abolished by the reforming
Viceroy, Ambrosio O Higgins. But by that time the whole system
had become ineradicably rooted in the life of the nation. Not even
Chile s political independence from Spain, which followed a few
years kter, had much effect on the traditional pattern. Certain
features, of course, had changed with the passage of the years.
Intermarriage had blurred the old racial distinctions, and Indian and
Spaniard had been fused into a new race of mestizo or mixed blood.
75
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Amongst the agricultural labourers, the proportion of Indian blood
remained higher, whilst their masters tended to pride themselves
on their partially Spanish or sometimes on their German, British
or French ancestry. With this racial fusion had come a tempering
of the old social and economic asperities. The encomienda, with its
forced labour of Indians, had become a fundo ruled in patriarchal
guise by a master who was often in a literal, no less than a figurative,
sense, to no small extent the father of his people. Though the con
ditions of his life were still intolerably primitive, the Indian vassal
had become the inquilino or tenant of today.
His master, the hacendado, had changed too. He had found himself
increasingly attracted away from his purely rural pursuits to the
city, with its comforts and amusements, its lively and stimulating
social life, the dazzling prizes of its business and political worlds.
His education (unless he had belonged to one of the more bigoted
Catholic families) would probably have been at one of the private
foreign-owned schools in Chile English, German or French
and might have been rounded off by a tour of the capitals of
Europe. Often enough he would have attended the Catholic
University or the State University in Santiago. He might have
studied as one ironically humorous young Chilean has put it
first law, to teach us how to defend our interests, then economics
to teach us where these interests really he . And all these claims
upon his time and attention would mean that the days spent on the
family fundo grew fewer and fewer. If he was lucky enough to
have an estate within easy reach of Santiago or rich enough to have
a private plane to fly down when the mood took him, he would
still be glad to visit it for its riding and fishing, and for the delightful
opportunities it afforded him for entertaining his friends. But its
actual business management would have to be left in the hands of a
trusty administrador. Yet however efficient this bailiff might be, the
essential personal element in the relationship between hacendado
and inquilino would be weakened. The price paid by the absentee
landlord is to forfeit the traditional tribute of respect and loyalty
which is the surest safeguard against social discontent and the
ferment of revolutionary change.
No longer secure, nor even always present, in his own traditional
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
stronghold, the hacendado has tended to look for fresh allies and
new ways of buttressing his position. The Catholic Church re
mains, as ever, a mighty force on the side of the established order.
So, on the whole, is the Press. The leaders of industry and com
merce, though perhaps his rivals in the game of politics and the
competition for economic priorities, are ranged with him on the
vital issues of the day. But he has felt the need to be articulate and
to be united in a word, to organize. For more than a century now
he has found an excellent instrument to hand the Sociedad
Nacional de Agricultura, founded in 1838, which admirably com
bines facilities for agricultural research and improvement with a
tireless vigilance over his political interests. The Sociedad counts
some 8,000 members, maintains its own model farms, experimental
stations, and its own Biological Institute. It organizes stock fairs
and assists its members to acquire the best seeds and the most
attractive overseas markets for their produce. It receives State
assistance in these admirable endeavours. It also runs its own
publications and its own broadcasting station. It has palatial premises
in Santiago where a shrewd watch is kept over the interest of its
members. If a Bill likely to affect their interests is before Congress,
the Sociedad makes sure that its well-briefed spokesman will
champion them in the parliamentary debates, or sends a delegation
to wait on the President of the Republic or the responsible Minister.
Frequently the Minister of Agriculture is at the same time the
President of the Sociedad.
The inquilino, for his part, is faced with almost insuperable diffi
culties when he, too, realizes the need to become articulate and
united. In the first place, though the old ties of personal loyalty
which bind him to his master may be coming loosened, the century-
old tradition of subservience and the apathy born of ignorance and
abandonment are not easily discarded. The inqiiilino of today is
bound by his own limitations and defects rather than by the actively
repressive measures of a class enemy. Decked out in his finery
wide-brimmed hat, gay poncho, carved stirrups, and large-ro welled
spurs the Chilean huaso can cut as fine a figure as his cousin, the
77
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Argentine gaucho. 3 But the conditions under which he lives are
dominated by problems which, instead of spurring him on to seek
some solution, seem to hold him paralysed by their very gravity.
The miserable shanty which is his home is little better than the
primitive ruca wherein his Indian ancestors lived. It consists of a
single room, or sometimes of two rooms, where he and his family,
his dogs and his hens live together in squalid familiarity. The walls
of the shack are composed of rough boards or wattles, the interstices
filled with clay. The floor is of mud or, if he is fortunate, of brick,
and the door must serve the purpose, too, of window. A rough lean-
to or veranda does duty for kitchen and dining-room. There is no
sign of any sanitary arrangements. The hospitality of the inquilino
and his readiness to share his humble home with anyone in need
are proverbial. More often than not his household will consist not
only of his wife and children, but of his in-laws and some other
relatives or unattached friends as well. If there is one bed for every
two members of the household, he can reckon himself fortunate. 4
It has been estimated that Chile needs today something like
400,000 new houses if anything like a reasonable standard of living
is to be provided for her population. Such housing schemes as are
in progress seem to be found only in the cities. A few progressive
land-owners have done what they can to improve the accommoda
tion of their inquilinos, but still the problem remains virtually un
touched. Overcrowding and lack of -adequate sanitation breeds
illnesses which, for lack of even rudimentary medical attention,
lead in turn to an abnormally high death-rate, specially amongst
children. Rheumatism in its acutest form is an ailment as widespread
and almost as malevolent as the scourge of tuberculosis, typhoid
and venereal disease.
The food which falls to the lot of the inquilino is in keeping with
his wretched dwelling. It consists almost entirely of the national
dish of cazuela, something between a stew and a soup, potatoes,
bread and beans or porotos. Milk, butter, eggs, meat and vegetables
seldom pass his lips. The ration served to him on the estate where
he labours consists generally of a loaf of hard bread known as a
galleta for breakfast, or a portion of harina tostado, from, which a
sort of porridge is made, and a dish of beans or maize for lunch.
78
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
With such fare and such a home it is surely little wonder that the
inquilmo abandons himself with such recklessness to the delights
which the local wine-shop or cantina can offer. There at least he
can find in his cups a stimulant which his monotonous diet denies
him and in the company of his fellow-drinkers an escape from the
promiscuous proximity of children, fowls and dogs.
The cantina is ubiquitous in town and country alike. A medium-
sized market town like San Bernardo has no less than 360 wine
shops officially licensed one for every ninety-seven inhabitants
and perhaps the same number of unlicensed drinking places. In the
ten years between 1928 and 1938, the amount spent on alcoholic
drink has increased throughout Chile by 848 million pesos. Whereas
the price of food and all essential commodities has risen steadily,
the price of wine remains the same. The powerful wine-producing
interests have strenuously and successfully opposed all attempts to
increase the tax on wine a sure means of decreasing consumption
and reducing drunkenness. A nation-wide campaign is in fact
carried on to induce more people to drink wine and to convince
them of its beneficial dietary properties. Chile s annual production
of 350 million litres of wine works out at an average of about one-
third of a litre per adult head of the population. In France, which
has no such problem of alcoholism, the average daily consumption
is one litre. It seems, therefore, that it is not so much the actual
quantity of the wine consumed in Chile that is the trouble. Perhaps
it is rather the fatal habit of the roto or the inquilino to crowd his
drinking bouts into the few hours of the weekend, and to be as
ready to stint himself on nutritive food as he is to indulge himself
in strong drink. Chile is producing more and more wine, con
suming more and more at home, but exporting less and less abroad.
If home consumption could be reduced, export stimulated and the
resulting gain to the exchequer used to improve the inquilino s
housing and diet, perhaps a solution to Chile s problem of alcoholism
might be in sight. Perhaps something more could be done, too, to
raise the rural population from the prostration of ignorance and
illiteracy.
In theory, compulsory education prevails. But the topography
and social structure of the country are such as to make its imple-
79
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
mentation of peculiar difficulty. Some four thousand rural schools
exist, housed for the most part in cramped and ramshackle premises
little better than the inquilino s own shanty. The census of 1930
showed that on an average one out of every four adult Chileans
was unable to read or write. In some provinces, the percentage of
illiterates is between thirty and forty. This is a higher figure than
that given by the census of 1854 and shows that in the last century
the spread of education has not everywhere kept pace with the
increase of population. This is a disturbing thought. Is then the
population of Chile increasing more quickly than it is being
educated, becoming less literate as it grows more numerous? Lack
of proper schools in the country districts is also undoubtedly pro
moting another unwelcome trend the gradual depopulation of
the countryside in favour of the towns. Any country-born huaso
who has aptitudes or ambitions, however little above those of his
comrades, must gravitate to the town if his schooling is to com
prehend anything beyond elementary instruction in reading,
writing and arithmetic.
Better houses, better food, less drink, more education these are
the crying needs of the inquilino today. Where can he best look for
salvations "Where the old patriarchal relationship exists between
master and man and is coupled, as sometimes happens, with a
reforming and enlightened spirit on the part of the hacendado, his
lot is likely to undergo a welcome improvement. Some hacendados
have built reasonably good houses for their tenants, added a school
and a chapel, set aside ground for a football field or even a rough
theatre, and encouraged the men to form co-operatives and friendly
societies. But for many of the land-owning class, all serious attempts
at reform smack of revolution. Social betterment is seen as the thin
end of the wedge of social upheaval. It is a widespread though
scarcely whispered assumption that Chile s traditional social and
economic structure will last the longer if the base of the pyramid
remains composed of men who are tied by their own ignorance
and by conditions of life which allow them little energy to spare
from the struggle for existence.
80
PLATE III
CENTRAL CHILE. An inquilino s home
CENTRAL CHILE
Typical pasture land, with Cordillera in background
PLATE IV
VALPARAISO. The old town on the cepros
SANTIAGO. View from the Cerro Santa Lucia
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
The government, though not always totally unaffected by these
calculations, has been more effectively stirred by the impulse of
reform. President Aguirre Cerda, in the full flood of the Popular
Front administration, drew up a comprehensive Agrarian Reform
Plan in I944. 5 The district of San Carlos, not far from Santiago,
was set aside as an experimental zone where the new reforms were
first to be worked out in miniature. Here the government has been
building new schools with a new type of curriculum specially
related to local needs and conditions and run by a staff graduated
from a new rural teachers training college. The government has
also been co-operating with the Rockefeller Foundation to carry
out a special public health and agricultural education campaign in
the department of San Felipe in Aconcagua Province. Here a net
work of clinics has been set up in town and village in an endeavour
to reduce the mortality rate amongst children and teach the elements
of hygiene and sanitation. Inspectors work to win the inquilinas 9
confidence ani convince them of the advantage of building lava
tories and filtering their drinking water, of improving their diet by
growing vegetables and keeping poultry. Clubs have been started
amongst the villagers to arouse the interest of the young people and
break the monotony of rural life, where the alcoholic joys of the
cantlna are the only attraction.
Another interesting scheme sponsored by the government is
the Instituto del Inquilino entrusted with a general mandate for
promoting the welfare of the ingidHno everywhere within the reach
of its mobile educational teams. These teams run not only travelling
schools, but production units as well which offer the inqullino all
manner of goods ranging from sewing machines to swarms of
bees, cobblers outfits, new agricultural tools or handlooms to
packets of vegetable seed, and instruct him in their use. They do
what they can to encourage cottage industries and set up weaving
centres which supply him with wool and looms, buy up the home
spun doth, and re-sell it at cost-price in districts unable to produce
it locally. The teams organize a drive against illiteracy, distribute
free educational literature, in particular an excellent series known
as the libros del Huaso Chileno, and in conjunction with the
National Library, lend out whole sets of suitable books on general
G 81
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
subjects. An Advisory Service keeps up a varied correspondence
by post with die inquilinos and deals with a thousand queries a
week ranging from legal disputes to farming matters and intimate
personal problems.
The members of these mobile teams call themselves missionaries,
as indeed they are. Theirs is a devoted and an exacting life, for they
live simply in their caravans, bringing with them and preparing
their own food, and declining all offers of hospitality from the
hacendados. They have to steer a difficult course between the apathy
and mistrust of the labourers, suspicious of any new-fangled innova
tion from the town which might be yet another device for enslaving
them more closely to their master s will, and the distrust of the
landlord who fears anything likely to weaken the traditional
dependence of his people on himself and tends to regard all schemes
of betterment as at least a distraction from the inquilino s labours,
if not as a subde incitement to revolt. In the face of the ever-
present if dormant social conflict, the missionaries must remain
studiously neutral. They must eschew party propaganda and retain
their integrity as harbingers of progress and enlightenment. To
such men as these, Chile owes an enormous debt of gratitude.
The inquilino then is not wholly denied all hope of rising from
his century-old neglect and poverty. Here the State holds out a
helping hand to him; there, the enlightened hacendado an occasional
benevolent finger. But what he really needs, if he is ever to stand
squarely on his own feet, is a mighty thrust powerful enough to
snap the many chains which keep him prostrate. And this up-thrust,
it seems, is never likely to come from a State in which the interests
of the landlords remain paramount, still less from the philanthropy
of a handful of reformist landlords. It can only come from the force
which the inquilinos themselves are capable of mustering. To be
effective, they must organize and unite. Agriculture is so fundamental
an industry of tie country, and those who engage in it form so
great a proportion of the population (40 per cent), that could they
once learn to speak with a united voice they must be heard. The
82
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
inquilinos themselves are now beginning to realize this, as the
landlords have long realized it. That is why the social struggle in
Chile centres, in no small degree, round the question of the in-
quilinos 9 right to organize, their right to form syndicates or trade
unions of their own. The opposition of Chilean conservative circles
to all forms of trade union is violent and categorical. Nurseries of
sedition, States within a State, citadels of class hatred/ El Mercurio
dubs them. 6 The formation of trade unions amongst industrial
workers has become such a universal practice throughout the world
that the Chilean Conservatives have now come to accept it as a
necessary evil. Not so the attempts to form trade unions amongst
the agricultural workers. This strikes at the root of Chile s traditional
social order and its very whisper is more feared than the threat of
earthquake or failure of the crops.
The first hints of trouble occurred in the early twenties when, as
a result of Communist agitation and the campaign to induce
agricultural and industrial workers to make common cause, some
inquilinos began to try and band together in their own syndicates.
Conflict soon followed, and the first agricultural strikes. Here was
something altogether unheard of since the days when the Indian
serf had risen against the Conquistadores and the early colonists!
When they had been oppressed or goaded beyond endurance,
Indians had been known to abandon the estates of a Quintrala in
terror, or even to turn in fury against their overlords. But a strike
was an altogether different and more serious affair, paralysing the
whole economic life of an estate, inflicting untold loss through the
abandonment of the crops, and threatening to spread from fundo
to fundo throughout the country.
The hacendados reacted with the vigour which was to be expected
of them, dismissing the ring-leaders and appealing, through the
Sociedad de Agricultura, to the President of die Republic himself,
President Alessandri, then in his reformist phase, was sufficiently
sympathetic to the cause of the inquiUnos to issue a memorandum
in reply recommending the landlords to meet the demands of their
tenants by improving their conditions of life, building better accom
modation and more schools for them, and by guaranteeing them a
decent minimum wage. He even went so far as to advise them to
83
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
encourage the formation of workers syndicates, of a co-operative
and welfare nature, on the krge estates. At the same time he appealed
to the workers to cease their agitation and eschew trade union
organization on the lines of the industrial workers and pointed out
the deleterious results of direct action on the basic agricultural
production of the country. Such appeals for compromise and
moderation were doomed to fall on deaf ears on both sides save
with the most accommodating. In the thirties the question of the
agricultural syndicates was brought before the courts, and legal
sanction was grudgingly obtained for the first officially recognized
syndicates. The Sociedad de Agricultura redoubled its opposition,
and the President of the Republic, then the progressively minded
Aguirre Cerda, set up a mixed commission composed of repre
sentatives of landlords, workers and the State, to try and find some
basis for union. The landlords* view was embodied in a statement
issued by the Sociedad when a Bill attempting to regularize the
whole question was presented to Congress. 7
Despite the protests of the Sociedad de Agricultura, the Bill
became law in July 1947, but on closer examination it was found
to be so hedged round witi safeguards and restrictions that the
landlords seemed to have carried the day after all. In the first place,
the only types of syndicate permitted were those which could be
described as institutions of collaboration between Capital and
Labour . The kw went on to add that "organizations whose activi
ties disturb kw and order will be considered contrary to the spirit
and dispositions of this kw . The aim of these syndicates was thus
to form co-operative, educational and general welfare agencies for
the benefit of the workers and they were expressly forbidden to
exceed these functions. Drastic measures were to be taken against
any attempt by the syndicates to enforce strikes, carry out sabotage
or interfere with the right to work of the kbourers. Outside
elements (and thus agitators detailed by the Communist Party)
were denied admission to the syndicates whose members were to
be drawn entirely from kbourers on a single estate. Any attempt
to extend syndical organization to more than onefundo was for
bidden, as was the holding, for any purpose whatsoever, of any
sort of general meeting or confederation of the syndicates.
84
THE CENTRAL VALLEY
Shorn of their revolutionary sting and confined to unco-ordinated
areas, rural syndicates are thus now permitted in Chile. For the
moment, the voice of the agitator has been hushed, the Communist
Party driven underground. For the moment, too, it seems that the
hacendados have little serious ground for fear. Through their Sociedad
de Agricultura and the influence they still retain in high places,
they have shrewdly ensured that the assistance pledged to agri
culture by the government means, in effect, assistance to them
selves, rather than to the classes most in need of it the smallholder
or the inquilino. The mildest measures of reform sponsored by the
government are denounced as Marxism in disguise. The proposal
to set up inspectorates with powers similar to those of die agri
cultural committees in England to ensure that agricultural land is
not unnecessarily neglected is branded as the death-blow of private
property. Legislation designed to penalize speculation -and arrest
the fatal course of inflation is a monstrous interference with legiti
mate profit. Even the obligation imposed on the great landowners
to keep proper books and pay a very modest income tax is a
disastrous and revolutionary innovation which they are resolved to
resist to the last.
In the meantime, whilst the great landed interests set their face
steadfastly against reform, agricultural resources in the vast southern
provinces of Chiloe and Aysen still await serious attempts at
colonization and development. The desert creeps inexorably into
the cultivated lands and unregulated torrents sweep precious soil
into the sea, creating problems of soil erosion, unstudied and
scarcely heeded by a community too absorbed in other things to
take thought of safeguarding the irreplaceable riches of its fields
and forests. Less and less is heard today of the Plan for Agrarian
Reform and the breaking up of the great estates, but much of the
industrialization drive which, it is claimed, will solve the country s
difficulties and ensure a new and respected place for her in the
modern world. The great haciendas, with their antiquated social
structure and modes of production, live on survivals from a by
gone age, whilst factory chimneys rise amidst the green fields, and
die capital thrusts its tentacles ever further across the Central Valley
and into the foothills of the Cordillera.
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CHILIAN SCRAP-BOOK
NOTES
1 Chile Land and Society by G. M. McBride (New York 1936), an
excellent work to which I am indebted for much of the material contained
in this chapter.
2 Recopiladon de Leyes de los Reinos de las Indias quoted in Condidones
Economico-Sodales del Campesino Chileno by R. Marin Molina (Santiago
1947)-
3 The poncho is a half- or full-length cloak in the form of a blanket with
a slit in it, through which the wearer puts his head, leaving his arms free.
Chilean spurs bristle with forty points or more and are believed to derive
from those worn by the horsemen of Andalusia who in turn took them
from the Moors. Chilean stirrups are thick, clog-like structures devised with
the practical aim of protecting the rider s feet from the mud and thick
undergrowth of the forest ways. They are generally embellished with
elaborate carvings said to have been introduced by Bavarian craftsmen
skilled in the adornment of the woodwork of Baroque churches.
4 R. Marin Molina, op. dt.
5 Pkn Agrario published by the Ministry of Agriculture (Santiago 1945).
6 El Meratrio, May 18, 1948.
7 The statement is worth quoting in full:
It is well known that the syndicate is by the nature of its origin an in
strument of social conflict with revolutionary aims. This is why syndicalism
has been everywhere a ceaseless forcing-ground of conflicts and even of
riots in which the happiness of the workers and of their homes, no less than
the interests of their employers in production are alike sacrificed.
*The experience of Chile in this respect can be taken as conclusive. The
official sanctioning of syndicates in industry has had disastrous efiects for
the national economy. Production has been gravely disrupted and impeded
by die insatiable and restless interference of the syndicates. The force which
the latter have brought into being has given rise to laxity and lack of dis
cipline, the consequences of which can be everywhere discerned. Fin ally,
die partisan infiltration of the syndicates has affected the whole political
scene of the country and given an unnatural impetus to uncompromising
extremist groups at the expense of the true nature of the country and the
general aspiration towards orderly and peaceful evolution. No wonder
then that the prospect of passing the Bill authorizing the right to organize
syndicates amongst agrarian workers should have aroused grave anxiety in
86
NOTES
agricultural quarters. Moreover, the very nature of agricultural work,
based as it is on the closest mutual effort and understanding between land
lords and labourers, rejects the introduction of a factor making for re
sistance, hatred and estrangement. Agriculture is far more exposed and
vulnerable than is industry to the conflicts which inevitably result from
syndicalism. Not even the possible banning of strikes and the enforcement
of arbitration in disputes can mitigate this vulnerability. A note of collective
struggle has only to be introduced to break the harmony indispensable in
this rektionship of mutual trust which agricultural work demands, to put
an effective stop to activity and inflict irreparable damage to production.
In an emergency of this nature, factory industry simply suffers the loss of time
when work stops and can generally be made good. In agriculture, what is
wasted and lost are the very fruit of past labours and of capital already
invested. Agricultural work must proceed according to the changeless
programme fixed by Nature, An abandoned crop or a delay in harvesting
involve considerable losses of goods which neither the landlords nor the
community can make good in any way.
Agricultural syndicates also tend to create equally perilous social con
ditions. Contrary to what occurs in industry, the agricultural estate remains
subject, once a conflict arises, to a passive occupation on the part of the
workers in revolt which implies, apart from the risks inherent in such a
situation, a grave disregard of the rights of property. These two circum
stances, grave in all respects, constitute still more serious threats in remote
regions where it is difficult for authority to make its control felt. Agri
cultural syndicates will come to involve a forcible change in the present
nature of things, replacing the settled worker, with his roots in the soil,
his own home and plot of land, and other traditional ties, by the roving
worker who has no attachment nor home in the estate. The syndicate, by
virtue of its character as an instrument of conflict, is incompatible in fact
with the stability of interests which exist today between employer and
employee in farm work. The syndicate is, without doubt, a false and illusory
means of improvement for the workers, as experience shows. It only un
settles them and leads them astray. Their true advantage lies in their
harmony with those in whose productive activities they share, in the same
way as the advantage of the landlord lies in harmony with those who col
laborate with him/ (El Cmpesino, Ap. 1945, quoted by R. Mann Molina,
op. at.)
Chapter Seven
Santiago
SANTIAGO is A LARGE but unlovely city of nearly one and a
half million inhabitants placed in the most magnificent of
natural settings. It lies in a wide and fertile valley, surrounded
on all sides by mountains; to the west, the Cordillera de la Costa,
to the north, the range of Chacabuco, to the south, the more distant
Angostura de Paine, whilst the gigantic bulk of the Gran Muralla
Nevada, the main chain of the Andes, towers, dwarfing the city,
to the east. Against this superb background, the kyout of the city
appears unimaginative and mean. Like most of Spain s colonial
foundations, it is built on a chessboard pattern long, straight streets
intersecting each other at right angles to form symmetrical built-up
blocks known as cuadras. When Santiago was founded, every
maim was divided into four parts, one of which was allotted to a
conquistador, whilst the central cuadra was left free to form the
plaza de armas or main square. In the course of the centuries, the
(Madras have changed hands many times and been built over with
every type of edifice from the modern skyscraper to the jumble of
shops and one-storied houses in the poorer districts. And as it
expanded, the chess-board grew frayed at the edges; parks, gardens,
railways and factories were brought into being to mar its symmetry
and give it more the appearance of a European town. But the
original criss-cross pattern still prevails in the central and inter
mediate districts. Distance is still measured in cuadras, and if a stranger
asks the way he will be told to keep so many cuadras straight on, or
to turn so many madras left or right. The buildings which combine
to form the madras can be pulled down and replaced by modern
structures, but it it difficult to enlarge or displace the streets. Too
narrow now to contain the increasing flow of motor traffic, they
constitute a network of alternating one-way streets choked with
SANTIAGO
vehicles parked nose to nose at the curb, and create an atmosphere
of congestion and frustration relieved only by the glimpse of distant
mountains.
It is difficult to realize that Santiago is the venerable capital of
Chile, the centre from which its historic traditions radiate. One
can search in vain through the monotonous maze of its streets for a
touch of the picturesque, a flash of local colour, or a reminder of
past greatness more eloquent than the stereotyped gestures of its
statues. To glimpse a huaso in from the country, with his broad-
brimmed hat and his brightly coloured poncho, is a rare event. The
townsfolk, and the city they dwell in, might be taken from any
part of the continent where North American influence is strong.
Its urban architecture is competent and many of its comfortable
residential villas intelligently imitate the best in Georgian, Dutch,
Spanish Colonial and modem American styles, but there is little
beauty or originality to be found, almost no building of historical
interest for the earnest sightseer to seek out. Perhaps the earth
quakes are to blame. Perhaps the new wealth which flowed suddenly
to the capital in the great days of nitrate prosperity came at a
period when architectural taste was least enlightened. Perhaps in
Chile men always tended to look to nature for loveliness and
grandeur and contented themselves with the prosaically comfortable
in their own habitations.
Whatever the explanation may be, the fact remains that Santiago
del Nuevo Extremo, the city of Pedro de Valdivia, is aesthetically
and architecturally undistinguished. It is noisy and incredibly
dusty. The streets are filled with the incessant surge of traffic
vast, sleek, swiftly accelerating troley-buses, ramshackle motor
coaches unaccountably known as gondolas, and every variety,
colour and shape of the cumbrous buses named, with the same
singular inaptness, micros. There is busde and hurry in the streets,
but no sense of gay vivacity. There are sturdy pillar-boxes at the
street-corners, just like London pillar-boxes, but chipped and drab
instead of vociferously crimson. Nor, on the other hand, is there
that aggressive earnestness which characterizes a hustling metropolis
like Buenos Aires. There are no spacious open-air cafes where you
can drop in to rest from the hubbub and yet still keep the feel of
CHILEAN SCRA:P~BOOK
tie pulsing life of the street. The shops are for the most part bright
and well-stocked but innocent of the art of window-dressing.
Many make the patriotic vaunt that they stock only goods of
Chilean manufacture; others display the cryptic announcement
declaring that All goods in this window are of Chilean manu
facture, except those imported from abroad*. And what goods can
Chile now manufacture? Shoes, textiles, china and many types of
consumer goods. But of those products which bear the unmistak
able and characteristic stamp of their country of origin, goods which
are in the direct tradition of a people s folk-art or popular craft,
there is little or no trace. Only a few Indian stores, sandwiched
between snack-bars, banks and cosmopolitan shops, seek to lure
the tourist by a display of copper ware, ponchos, Araucanian rugs
and Chiloe blankets. This half-hearted and haphazard commercial
exploitation of local colour is all that is left to remind us of the
epic of the century-old warfare between Spaniards and the Indians
of Araucania.
The mountains, then, in their encircling, changeless grandeur,
alone exist to give significance and dignity to the life of the city.
Viewed from the slopes of the Cordillera, the chess-board with its
grey squares half hidden by the dust-haze appears a mere accident,
an irrelevant interruption in the harmony of primitive nature. To
drive out for a couple of hours from Santiago up the atrocious and
terrifying road which leads to the ski-resort of Farellones and then
to look back and view the capital shrivelled to a mere smudge
between the mountains is to see the city existence to which we are
accustomed or condemned in a new perspective, and to realize the
fortuitous hold which civilization seems to have amidst a land still
largely untamed and perhaps untamable. Whilst the city encroaches
towards the foothills of the Andes, converting green fields and
orchards into yet another line of its vast criss-cross urban symmetry,
the Cordillera stoutly maintains its bastions in the very heart of the
city; the Cerro Santa Lucia the ancient Huelen of the Indians
which rears its rocks within a few hundred yards of the Plaza de
Armas and the palace of the President of the Republic, and the
90
SANTIAGO
loftier Cerro San Cristobal, on the right bank of the Mapocho
river.
The Cerro Santa Lucia, converted from a rocky wilderness into
the lovely gardens of today by the energy and vision of Chile s
great historian of Irish descent, Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna, is the
one inspired concession which the city has made to man s aspirations
towards beauty. It has something of the appearance of an immense
and carefully tended rock-garden. A host of gardeners wielding
immensely long hose-pipes keep it fresh and green amidst the dusty
heat of a Chilean summer. At its foot stands a boulder bearing an
inscription taken from a letter sent by Pedro de Valdivia in 1545
to the Emperor Charles V extolling the virtues of the newly-
discovered land and urging the monarch to send settlers to it:
*. . . And let the merchants and other folk who wish to come
and settle here be told to come. For this land is such that there
is none better in all the world for living and residing in; this
I say because it is flat, very healthy and pleasant; it has no
more than four months of winter, and even then it is only when
the moon is at quarter that it rains a day or two, and on all
the other days the sunshine is so fine that there is no need to
draw near a fire. The summer is so temperate, with such
delightful breezes, that a man can be out in the sun all day
without suffering ill effects. It abounds in pastures and fields
and in yielding every kind of livestock and plant imaginable;
much fine wood for building houses and an infinity of fire
wood for use in them, and mines very rich in gold, the whole
land being full of it. And wherever men may wish to take
land, there they will find a place to sow, and the wherewithal
to build, and water, wood and grass for their beasts; so that
it seems God made it on purpose to be able to hold all within
the palm of His hand/
Behind Valdivia s boulder, steep grass lawns and flights of
ceremonial steps lead up to broad terraces overlooking the city.
Shady avenues, intersected by footpaths and stairs cut steeply into
the surface of the rock wind their way beneath great trees whose
branches frame the panorama of the distant Cordillera. From the
91
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
pedestals which rise amongst the tree-trunks and from the heart of
the living rock, the heroes of the past gaze down impassively at
their descendants of today. Caupolican impassively bends the iron
spike on which his Spanish foes are to impale him.
In a small building on the Cerro we can see specimens of the
primitive arms used at the time of the Conquest, together with a
collection of the popular art of the Indian and mestizo population.
There we can find the red pottery of Pomaire and the greda negra
or black clay work from QuinchamaH money-boxes in the form
of plump, jet-black pigs, whose glossy flanks are embellished with
flowery designs picked out in white and red, rustic toby-jugs
depicting a woman wearing a pork-pie hat and thrurnming a
guitar, and squat, fish-like creatures with round eyes and gaping
jaws; the painted clay figures from Talagante, quaint and ingenious
imitations of eighteenth-century porcelains, representing the bride
and bridegroom on horseback, or the priest in his confessional;
delicately woven baskets and exquisite ran work bangles, rings,
bunches of miniature flowers all made from dyed horse-hair or
root-fibres; birds and fish fashioned gracefully from horn; bottles
of coloured sand arranged to form patterns and naive pictures;
rugs and cloth woven by the Araucanians, with bright geometrical
designs; homespun blankets from Chiloe; richly coloured ponchos
or chamantos; the picturesque trappings of the huaso, with his many-
rowelled iron spurs, and heavy clog-like wooden stirrups, richly
carved with innumerable rosettes.
In a quiet, leafy corner near the museum stands Pedro de Valdivia,
the old Conquistador himself, the names of his comrades-in-arms
inscribed in marble at his feet, hard by the fortress which he built
to defend his infant settlement. Very prim and dapper he looks,
his beard freshly trimmed and the marble ruff set in an immaculate
and changeless precision such as it must have known but seldom in
his turbulent life-time. He leans in a pensive, ethereal attitude on
the pommel of a sword whose bkde has been removed by some
souvenir-hunter. He seems to be wondering whether the peaceful
scene which he now surveys can really be the same settlement
which he and his companions struggled so valiantly to found and
to defend. Seeing the plight we were in/ he wrote to the Emperor
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SANTIAGO
Charles, *it seemed to me that, if we were to cling to the land and
make it Your Majesty s for ever, we must eat of the fruit of our
hands as in the beginning of the world, and I set about sowing.
I divided my men into two sets, and we all dug, ploughed and
sowed in due order, being always armed and the horses saddled by
day. One night, the one half kept watch in its quarters, and the
other the next. When the seed had been sown, some kept guard
over it in the said way, whilst I, with the other half, moved all the
time eight or ten leagues around it, breaking up the bands of
Indians where I knew them to be, for they surrounded us on every
side. . . . We went through the two first years in very great want,
so great that I could not describe it; and many of the Christians
had to go sometimes to dig up roots for food; and we went about
like ghosts, and the Indians called us Cupais, which is the name they
give to their devils, for whenever they came in search of us (for
they knew how to attack at night) they found us awake, armed and
if needful on horseback/ 1
Now all is quiet on the Cerro except for the roar of the traffic
which surges at its base. The only warlike sound is the report of the
cannon fired every day to remind the good citizens of Santiago
that it is time to think about closing their shops or offices and make
their way home to lunch in over-crowded trolleys, micros and
gondolas. The cannon of Santa Lucia has always spoken peace.
The last Spanish governor fortified the Cerro and installed the
guns, but they were first fired, when the cause of independence
had been won, to mark the founding of the University of Chile.
Then a resourceful if eccentric English watchmaker, one John
Bayle, decided to make a regular practice of discharging a gun at
noon, so that his customers could set their clocks by it. Since then
the cannon has continued to sound its peaceful midday message.
Only once has it been the cause of bloodshed. That was on the last
night of 1915, when an over-zealous artilleryman decided to
celebrate the entry of the New Year by loading the cannon with
a double charge, which blew himself and the gun to pieces. Messrs
Krupps of Essen have seen to it that the present cannon is stout
enough to resist the recurrence of such ill-feted experiments.
At the side of an avenue on the Cerro stands a small and modest
93
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
monument which few passers-by so much as notice, and fewer still
recall what it commemorates. It bears the following cryptic in
scription:
In memory of those Exiled from Heaven and Earth
who lay buried in this place for Half a Century
1820-1872
These exiles from Heaven and Earth were the suicides, heretics and
protestants denied a resting-place in consecrated earth and buried
hugger-mugger on the Cerro. The first British subject to have
received this melancholy distinction seems to have been one George
PerBngs, murdered by robbers in his own house on the night of
May n, 1820. Now the burial mounds have disappeared and the
hillside is gay with bright plants and flowering shrubs. Even the
Mapocho, whose swirling waters once satisfied the last desperate
desires of so many suicides, has been harnessed and tamed. The
torrent, fed from die snowfields of the Cordillera, has dwindled to
a sordid trickle scarcely perceptible beneath stout embankments.
The would-be suicides of today must seek the less romantic waters
of the San Carlos irrigation canal. The Mapocho fails them, as it
fails the romantic tourist who remembers tales of the havoc wrought
by its waters in flood. Even the once famous Puente de Cal y
Canto, the bridge built by the Regidor Zanartu who drove drunks,
vagabonds and skves to its construction and lavished half a million
eggs on the mixing of its cement, has disappeared, its foundations
undermined at last by the gnawing fury of the river. Now the
Mapocho, its old foe defeated, has all but vanished too. It is as
great a disappointment as the Tiber in Rome, yet Chilean poets
continue to sing its praises. Pablo Neruda, the greatest of them all,
has indited his Winter Ode to the River Mapocho and sees some
thing profoundly moving and symbolic about this stream which
rises amongst the pure snowfields of the Andes and descends
to touch the e terrible tatters of my country . 3
Scattered over the wilderness of boulders and pebbles which
forms the bed of the Mapocho one catches a glimpse of the dwellings
of the destitute, the vagabonds, the rotos, the waifs and strays who
used to sleep beneath the arches of the Puente de Cal y Canto and
94
SANTIAGO
who now seek shelter beneath the newer bridges which span the
river-bed. These sordid hutments are to be found all over Santiago,
cheek by jowl with the most fashionable quarters. Hard by the
aristocratic district of El Golf a satellite settlement known as La
Poblacion de los Areneros has sprung up in the very bed of the
Mapocho, a no-man Viand of gravel, sand and sometimes water
whose very wretchedness and unfitness for building is the best
guarantee that the squatters will not be evicted. The settlement has,
in fact, now been in existence for over a quarter of a century and
numbers some 5,000 men, women and children the size of many
a self-respecting market-town. From the streets of the city die low
shacks are scarcely visible, and a stranger might live for months
but a few hundred yards away without being aware of their
existence. It is as if the settlement wished to hide its face in shame
from the gaze of the villas of El Golf. But there is nothing cringing
or shame-faced about its sturdy wto inhabitants, whose ironic lot
it is to dig sand to make cement for houses in which they can never
aspire to Eve. Masons, gardeners, factory-hands, kundry-women,
folk of all trades and railings or none live there. For such as these,
and even for their more favoured middle-class fellow-citizens, life
is a constant struggle against want and shortages which one would
expect to find only in the war-devastated lands of Europe.
Santiago s other cerro, the imposing San Cristobal, with its
funicular railway, its observatory, its restaurant, and its lofty
illuminated statue of Our Lady, rises on the far side of the Mapocho
where smart new districts are already springing up. It is more aloof
than Santa Lucia, less intimately a part of the city. Its secluded
woods and precipitous dopes have the rude character of the Cor
dillera. San Cristobal is not the popular resort for hikers and
pleasure-seekers which it would undoubtedly have become in
Europe. The good citizens of Santiago prefer to look up at the
serene Virgin guarding their city rather than to venture much up
the steep hillside where thieves and vagabonds are said to lurk.
Though it is called after their patron saint, wise wayfarers will
tread its footpaths with caution, for in the past the cerro has tin-
95
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
doubtedly been the scene of dark and. bloody deeds. An English
officer who fought with the Chilean army in the wars of in
dependence describes in his memoirs 3 how a wicked nobleman of
Santiago, filled with unjust suspicions as to the virtue of his be
trothed, carried her off to the cerro and murdered her there, giving
it out that she had perished in a coach accident. Though the body
was soon discovered and showed clearly enough how the victim
had been killed, the nobleman lived out his life in peace. He had
powerful friends at court, and the cerro in those days had not even
its guardian Virgin to champion the cause of the poor and defence
less.
From the summit of San Cristobal, the city spreads its endless
chess-board below on every side. You look down upon an expanse
of grey roofs and grey streets, in sombre contrast to the brilliant
blue of the sky and the broad green valley cupped in the folds of
the mountains which, at dawn and dusk, take on the violent tints
of a crudely coloured picture postcard. Santiago is revealed in a
perspective never glimpsed from amidst the labyrinth of its streets.
Slashing it in half, you see the broad artery of the Alameda, or
Avenida Bernardo O Higgins, starting from the Estacion Central,
the larger of Santiago s two passenger stations, which has some
thing of the dingy dignity of a London terminus about it and is
the centre of a great area of motley lower middle-class life. 4 How
many country folk travelling up from the provinces to seek fortune
in the capital never get further than the sordid pleasures of its bars
and doubtful lodging-houses! As it approaches the centre of the
city, the Alameda grows more elegantly sophisticated, its trees and
grass more carefully tended, its statues more numerous and pompous.
George Canning looks benevolently down upon the capital, his
right hand clasping the ghost of a pen which, together perhaps with
Valdivia s sword from the Cerro Santa Luck, has gone to grace
some collection of trophies. The Alameda de las DeHcias the
Avenue of Delights this thoroughfare was once called. It must
have been a charming walk beneath ornamental trees, where
carriages rolled by and rich and poor alike flocked to take their
paseo in the cool of the evening. Now the motor traffic which fills
the Alameda with its fumes and its raucous anarchy has killed the
96
SANTIAGO
habit of the paseo* No one walks today in the Alameda for pleasure.
The delights have fled to the sordid shelter of the American amuse
ment booths where the lounger can drop in to have two pesos
worth of target practice at the endless succession of cardboard seals
and penguins in the miniature Chilean Antarctic. Yet, even in the
midst of the noise and smell and bustle of the Alameda, the Cor
dillera still makes its majestic presence felt. As you walk along the
pavements you can raise your eyes to glimpse the distant Cerro del
Plomo, a snowy peak rising in the distance to a height well above
that of Mont Blanc.
The Alameda runs through the Plaza Bulnes, a spacious square
flanked by massive governmental buildings forming the Barrio
Civico, the capital s civic and administrative centre. On the far
side of the square is the Calle Nataniel Cox where the old German
Legation once stood. No trace remains today of this building, for
it was burnt down before the First World War in circumstances
which may still be reckoned the most daring and sensational
murder mystery in the history of Chile. Thousands flocked to
witness the great conflagration and to speculate on the fate of the
two vanished protagonists of the drama Wilhelm Beckert, the
counsellor of the Legation, and Tapia the young Chilean porter.
When the German Minister, Baron Hans von Boden, arrived upon
the scene of the disaster he discovered a corpse lying amidst the
smoking ruins which, although so charred as to be unrecognizable,
he had little hesitation in identifying as that of his unfortunate
counsellor. Further examination revealed Beckert s wedding-ring
and fragments of clothing bearing his initials. A contusion on the
head and a dagger wound in the heart clearly indicated that death
had been occasioned by violence before the assailant had emptied
the safe of its contents and then set fire to the building to cover the
evidence of his crime. Everything pointed to Tapia as the murderer,
and the complicity of certain Chilean nationalists was suggested
by the discovery, amongst Beckert s private papers, of anonymous
letters threatening him with the direst vengeance should he persist
in his work on behalf of the German Government. The counsellor,
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
it seemed, must have Bad some presentiment of his death, for he
had also left "behind a letter addressed to the President of the
Republic asserting his deep attachment to his adopted country
and begging that mercy be shown to his misguided assassins.
Public opinion was profoundly moved and alarmed by this
audacious and provocative crime committed in the very heart of the
German Legation. The body of the victim was borne to its resting
place in the cemetery amidst the mourning and foreboding of the
whole nation. The funeral oration pronounced by Baron von Boden
was anything but reassuring. After recalling the virtues of his
exemplary and ill-fated compatriot, the Minister added significantly
that the Kaiser s government could never forget nor forgive the
atrocious circumstances of his death. Chile, he hinted ominously,
would be made to pay dearly for this unheard-of affront to the
Fatherland.
The funeral was already over, when the judge charged with the
inquiry was confronted with a bekted but startling piece of
evidence. A dental surgeon who had taken part in the post mortem
submitted a report declaring that the teeth of the victim were un
mistakably those of a young man and could not possibly have
belonged to the middle-aged counsellor. So the murdered man
must have been Tapia, and Beckert himself the criminal! This
startling information received confirmation in the report of a
Jewish watchmaker who declared he had seen Beckert, alive and
well though heavily disguised, about to board the train for the
south. A hue and cry was raised after the audacious German who
was finally caught at the nick of time, still laden with spoils of the
Legation safe, as he was about to cross the frontier into the Argentine.
Beckert s trial revealed the full story of how he had killed the un
fortunate Legation porter, calmly changed clothes with the corpse
and set fire to the building, and then walked up the Santa Lucia
hill to enjoy the spectacle of the conflagration. The anonymous
letters, too, had been written by Beckert himself with the same
malicious relish. Whilst awaiting his trial and execution the ex-
counsellor showed little of that ingenuity and fortitude which he
had brought to the perpetration of his crimes. It was only on
learning of the sonorous and fulsome words of praise pronounced
98
SANTIAGO
in his honour by the German Minister over the body of his victim,
that he permitted himself a sardonic laugh. 5
In the centre of the Barrio Civico stands a long, low two-storied
building of graceful design, in marked contrast to the towering sky
scrapers around it. This is the Moneda, in bygone days the Mint,
now the palace of the President of the Republic. 6 The Moneda is
a dignified but not very pretentious building, and the handful of
carabineros standing guard at the gates suggests that the head of the
State is not too difficult of access to his fellow citizens. But there is
something ominous about the way the vast steel and concrete
monsters of today tower arrogantly over the eighteenth-century
palace. It is as if the traditional aristocratic structure of the Chilean
State has become overawed and dwarfed by the pressure of bureau
cracy, big business and mass movements. For besides its ministries,
the Barrio Civico contains Santiago s vast luxury hotel, the Carrera,
and the central offices of the Workers Insurance, the Seguro
Obrero. Here, in September 1938, during the presidency of
Alessandri, Santiago witnessed an episode of exceptional savagery.
A group of young hotheads, followers of the Chilean Nazi leader
von Marees, and most of them young students and even kds in
their teens, staged a coup in a futile juvenile attempt to overthrow
the government The revolutionaries were divided into two main
groups, one in the University on the far side of the Alameda, the
other in the Seguro Obrero. After a few hours* ineffective fighting,
the University group, seeing that neither the army nor the cara-
Uneros had gone over to them as they had naively hoped, gave
themselves up. They were marched off by their guards in the
direction of the main Santiago prison. Then someone gave an
unaccountable order and they were shepherded instead some
thirty of them, their hands held high in surrender into the head
quarters of the Seguro Obrero where die other revolutionaries
were still holding out on an upper story. Neither the University
group nor their comrades of the Seguro Obrero ever came out alive.
Someone was it the commanding officer, a Minister of State,
the President himself? gave the order that they were to be done
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
to death on the spot. The crowds which gathered outside the
Moneda and the Seguro in dread expectancy of the last act of the
drama watched in horrified silence as the corpses were brought out.
Santiago was not a Nazi city. It had little sympathy for the muddled
creed of these misguided youths. But to this day the savage fate
which overtook them remains unforgotten and unforgiven. The
tall building towering over the Moneda, once an object of archi
tectural pride and symbol of the country s progress, has something
sinister about it today. It is still known as the Tower of Blood.
The University of Chile, where the students had first seized arms
and then capitulated on that fatal September day, is housed in un
impressive premises a few hundred yards up the Alameda. It has a
certain old-fashioned and down-at-heel air compared with the
princely edifice which stands opposite it the Club de la Union
patronized by the leaders of the world of business, society and
politics and by the landed aristocracy. The University is ruled
autocratically too autocratically some say by its Rector, the
gifted and forceful Don Juvenal Hernandez who has held office
for nearly twenty years. The influence of the University extends
beyond the halls of academic learning to almost every field of
artistic and intellectual activity in the capital. Its extra-mural
musical department organizes the season s concerts, makes or un
makes artists and composers, sets the whole tone for the musical
life of the country. It has its own ballet school and experimental
theatre. Its Commission for Intellectual Co-operation sponsors the
work of the British, American, French and other foreign cultural
todies. It is the only State university in the country and its official
status gives it advantages which the private universities the
Universidad Catolica, in its fine premises a few hundred yards
down the Alameda, the University in Conception and the Technical
University of Santa Maria in Valparaiso can never hope to enjoy.
The Alameda is more than a great thoroughfare; it is the social
and economic axis of Santiago. Your location relative to the
Alameda determines your social position and your prospects for
financial prosperity. It runs roughly in a south to north direction,
100
SANTIAGO
and Its extension, the Avenida Providencia, continues it in a still
more northerly sense. East of the Alameda stretches a symmetrical
and undistinguished network of streets, similar to the suburbs of
a European provincial city, the monotony of which is broken only
by an occasional church or the once elegant Parque Cousino. This
middle-class area stretches roughly east of the Alarneda as far as the
parallel Avenida Matte, beyond which the city becomes frankly
proletarian. Here is the district of mean houses, wto shacks, and the
slum-like tenements known as convmtillos a name ironically
evocative of the ordered life of the cloister.
West of the Alameda lies the business and social centre of
Santiago *El Centro* -with its fashionable hotels, its expensive
shops, its cinemas and offices, its crowded one-way streets. El
Centro is an urban maze, prosperous and fashionable without
achieving grandeur or elegance, just as Santiago s poorer districts
are sordid without a redeeming touch of the picturesque. The older
buildings in the Centro are all earmarked for demolition and the
modern blocks which are rising to take their place are not without
a certain austere functional dignity. In a few years time, perhaps,
the aspect of the Centro may have taken a decisive turn for the
better. For the present, at least, the stranger finds its teeming
streets indistinguishable from one another. Thek very names are
often hard to decipher, as if they still preferred to retain that
anonymity which the reforming zeal of a Governor first attempted
to remove in 1780 to the great indignation of the townsfolk who
suspected that the innovation was some diabolic device for subjecting
them to a new system of rates and taxes. Some of the street names
Monjitas ( Little Nuns ), Merced, Compania, Catedral, Agustinas
evoke the pious and bigoted city of colonial times, with its heavily
barred convents and the dark, mysterious, hooded figures of the
penitents fervent souls maybe or robbers using the Ku-Klux-
Klan disguise under which to commit their evil deeds hurrying
along the cobbled streets, the great processions, the terrible fire
which once consumed the magnificent church of the Jesuits and
leaped from crinoline to crinoline amongst the trapped and terrified
worshippers, filling the air with the stench of burnt flesh and the
shrieks of the dying. 7 But there are other gentler memories, too
101
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
memories of the prosperous, spacious days when the nuns would
prepare exquisite flowers and ornaments of icing sugar to adorn the
churches on high feast-days, and distribute their handiwork to the
faithful after Mass!
The Plaza de Armas is still, to a certain extent, the heart of the
city, as it was in colonial times when the citizens of Santiago flocked
thither to watch tourneys and bull-fights. Shops and restaurants
have now encroached upon it on two sides and more of the square,
up to the doors of the Bishops Palace, the Cathedral, the Muni
cipality and the old governor s residence into which the many
departments of the General Post Office are today uneasily crammed.
The Cathedral is roomy but unremarkable. The mainstream of the
city s life flows past it indifferently, thrusting this way and that into
the streets which converge upon the plaza or dallying a moment
under the shade of the trees which form an islet of still and pleasant
greenery in the heart of all this bustle. In the centre of the plaza
stands a monument in white marble, flanked by four diminutive
crocodiles and surmounted by neo-classical figures and bearing bas-
reliefs of early nineteenth-century battle-scenes. The monument is
innocent of any inscription and the spectator is left to speculate on
its origin and purpose. Nor are the experts altogether sure about
these things. The most likely story seems to be that it is the work
of the Genoese sculptor Orsolino and that it was commissioned
but never paid for by the city of Lima. Chile acquired it in the
first half of the last century. If she had waited a few years more
die might have obtained it free, por la razon o por lafuerza, together
with the other monuments, objets cTart 9 grand pianos, ornamental
street4amps and miscellaneous booty carried off after the War of
the Pacific.
Within a stone s throw of the Plaza, the Centro suddenly de
generates into a popular and more sordid quarter whose multitude
of cheap bars, hotels and restaurants announces the proximity of
Santiago s second railway station, the Estacion Mapocho, the
tenninus of the line to Valparaiso and the Transandine line to the
Argentine. This is the district of the markets the Mercado Central
with its butchers shops, its fruit and vegetable stalls, its pottery,
basket-work and peasant wares. Beyond the Mapocho river stands
IO2
SANTIAGO
the graceful oval of the flower market removed a few years before
from the Alameda, and the vast wholesale market of La Vega, the
Covent Garden of Santiago, with its attendant host of second-hand
shops where junk and stolen goods of every description await a
purchaser. This side of the river forms the district of the Recoleta,
with its rows of dreary dwellings, its mad-house and its great
cemetery, and is seldom visited by the tourist unless it be to visit
Santiago s most ancient church founded in expiation of her sins
by Ines de Suarez, Valdxvia s redoubtable mistress who led the
defence of the city against the Indians in the absence of her lord.
Today, the Recoleta is the residence of the community of Levan
tines, Syrians and other turcos or arabes as the Chileans dub them
disdainfully. This is a hard-working and wealthy community,
and its members are already beginning to marry into the leading
Chilean families. In not many years* time they may become the
new aristocracy, as the Basques, the English and the Germans have
merged to form it in the past,
Back on the other side of the Mapocho, in a corner some two or
three hundred yards from the station, is to be found one of the few
picturesque buildings and rare survivals from the city s past the
Posada del Corregidor. From behind its thick walls and barred
windows will come, late at night, the sound of music. Not the
cosmopolitan blare of radio or dance-band, but the spirited thrum
of guitars, an Argentine tango, or a caeca which the Chileans
adopted as their national dance more than a century ago from the
aristocratic Zamacueca performed in the fashionable drawing-rooms
of Lima. 8 Inside the Posada it is so dark that at first you can see
nobody not even the musicians bent intently over the instru
ments. The only illumination in the place is a couple of heavily-
shaded lamps, the feeble glow from which, reveals, as your eye
grows accustomed to the scene, the low tables with their inevitable
bottles of wine and the forms of the drinkers huddled behind
ttem, or the closely-clasped silhouettes of dancing couples. The
twentieth century has vanished, and we are back again in the times
of the Corregidor Zanartu, whose arms still stand engraved in
stone above the door. Or else we can imagine ourselves in the
Santiago of little more than a hundred years ago, when the Posada
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
was a lively yet respectable club, the Filbarmonica, where Don
Diego Portales, the statesman of genius who moulded Chile into
an ordered, law-abiding State, would like to spend his leisure.
From the Posada del Corregidor, stretching northwards in a long
thin strip of greenery parallel to the Mapocho river, as if linking
the respectable residential areas with the doubtful delights of the
town, lies the Parque Forrestal. This park changes in aspect accord
ing to the hour of the day or night, like the successive scenes on a
stage. At the dead of night, it is a beat for prostitutes and a dormitory
for tramps; in the evenings, a pleasant walk for courting couples;
a playground for children in the afternoons; and in the mornings,
a parade ground for students pacing book in hand and desperately
trying to master the innumerable passages which Chile s antiquated
educational system demands should be memorized. At its northern
end, beyond the Plaza dltalia with its memorials to General
Baquedano and the luckless President Balmaceda, the Parque
Forrestal gives way to a rather broader park, still running parallel
to the Mapocho, whose changing name is a barometer of political
expediency. This park, once known as the Parque Japones, is now
the Parque Gran Bretana. Its lawns and shady paths lead into
the heart of Santiago s residential area. The Alameda has now
become the Avenida Providencia, and on the far side of it, away
from the Mapocho river, a succession of parallel roads branch out
to form the districts of Providencia and Nunoa. A pair of hand
some stone lions standing athwart the main thoroughfare recall the
Lyon family and their former country estate of Los Leones. As the
city thins out towards the Cordillera we reach the spacious country
dubs with their playing-fields, swimming-pools, and golf courses,
handsome schools like the Grange with its consciously English air,
the popular open-air restaurants, the quintas or one-time farms,
where the lower middle-classes flock in summer to eat and drink
and dance. And higgledy-piggledy over all this pleasant and ex
tensive area, sprawling over an empty building site or propped
against a convenient wall, we find the wretched shanties of the
ratos to remind us that there is still ancient poverty and misery in
the New World and that the promise it holds out has still not
been fulfilled to all.
104
NOTES
NOTES
1 Pedro de Valdlvia by R. B. Cnnntngham Graham (London 1926}
a useful biography of the conquistador.
2 Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basualto, better known under his pen-name of
Pablo Neruda, is generally regarded as the most forceful and outstanding
poet in Chile, and probably in all Latin America. Bom in the south of
Chile in 1904, he devoted himself to poetry and foreign travel. His literary
work has been deeply influenced by his experiences in the Chilean consular
service in Europe and the Far East, and his friendship with the Spanish poet
Federico Garcia Lorca, whilst his sympathy for the Republican cause during
the Spanish civil war gave a strong left wing impetus to his work. Neruda s
political activity reached its height in the latter half of 1947 when he con
stituted hirnself the chief spokesman of the Communist Party in the Senate
during the controversy over the strikes in the Chilean coalfields and the
activities of the Skv Communist agitators. Since then, Neruda has lived in
exile, visiting Soviet Russia, the satellite countries of Eastern Europe, and
Mexico, where he has been a prominent figure in Communist-sponsored
international congresses. It was whilst addressing the Peace Congress in
Mexico City that Neruda repudiated the whole body of his previous
literary work as defaced by the wrinkles of a dead epoch , Le. as being
insufficiently Marxist. In the same speech, Neruda deEvered a bitter attack
on Mr T. S. Eliot and other decadent* and reactionary representatives of
Western culture and declared that the mission which he saw for himself
and other progressive poets was *to bestow on these American lands of ours
the strength, the joy and the life which they lack".
For an appreciation of Pablo Neruda s personality and poetic work see
G. S. Eraser s News from South America (London 1949) and Amado Alonso,
Poesia y estllo de PaUo Neruda (Buenos Aires 1940).
3 Memoirs of an English Officer In ike service of Chile, 1821-9.
4 This part of Santiago forms the setting for Joachim. Edwards* fine novel,
El Roto, one of the best works of Chilean realism and social criticism.
5 For a full account of this affair, see the essay in E. Bunster s Matin en
Punta Arenas (Santiago 1950).
6 The first coin minted by the independent republic of Chile in 1818
bore the cryptic legend, which has since become the official motto of the
State: Par la Razon o la Fmrza. This may be translated broadly as By Right
or Might*, or perhaps, more fairly if less succinctly, as By persuasion or force*
105
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
surely, in any case, an unusually frank assertion of the claims of State
sovereignty! Some moralists, Unamuno amongst them, have declared that
Chile ought to be ashamed of her motto. Many Chileans indeed have
begun to grow uneasy on the subject and there has been talk of changing
the motto by substituting the word *and* for *or , thereby eliminating the
suggestion of my country right or wrong. Others have advanced alternative
suggestions of their own. The poet Pedro Prado had declared that an
altogether more appropriate motto would be some popular phrase con
stantly on the lips of the ordinary Chilean and indicative of his fatalistic
character Que tanto sera? *Wnat does it all amount to?* very different
from the rather hectoring tone of the official phrase. The foreigner perhaps
is more conscious of the nonchalance typified by the words tnds o menos
which qualify every other Chilean sentence and lead the authors of travel-
books to describe Chile as The Land of More or Less.
7 For a comprehensive anthology of the city s traditions and history see
Estampas del Nuevo Exfremo, 1541-1941, edited by R. Latcham (Santiago
1941)-
8 For an interesting study of the cueca see Carlos Vega, La Forma de la
Cueca Chiletia (Santiago 1948).
Chapter Eight
Valparaiso
VALPARAISO, THE ANCIENT port of Santiago* as it used to be
called (its inhabitants still like to call themselves portenos),
can be reached from the capital either by road or rail, each
of which takes a stubbornly independent route of its own. The
modem road, which follows, in the main, the highway built by
Viceroy Ambrosio O Higgins, is the more direct. It heads west
wards towards the coast like a giant switchback, A score of miles
from Santiago we cross the Mapocho and turn our backs on the
broad vale to climb the first cuesta, or range of hills, then descend
to another fertile valley and the little town of Curacavi, famous for
its delicious half-fermented wine known as chicha. Another cwes&i,
and we reach the valley in which the market town of Casablanca
stands. A third and final cuesta brings us within sight of the Pacific,
with Valparaiso and Vina del Mar at our feet. In old times, the
journey was long and arduous. It was not until 1821 that two
Englishmen, Charles Neville and Joseph Moss, introduced a regular
stage-line which could do the trip in fifteen or twenty hours. A
more leisurely way was to break die journey at Casablanca, where
an English couple, the Fenwicks, for years kept an inn famous for
its comfort and cleanliness. A line of motor-coaches and a road-
house run by the Automobile Club de Chile now perform similar
services in the changed conditions of today.
The railway runs through a very different landscape. It leads
northwards from Santiago over the marshy waste of Batuco into
barren hill country. The lettering over the platform of a forlorn
looking halt announces that we have reached the aptly-named
settlement of Montenegro, which indeed suggests something of the
grim sterility of its European namesake. A few miles further on,
the line begins to veer round in a wide loop to the west and all at
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
once we find ourselves in a land of plenty. At Llay-Llay and Las
Vegas, fruit-vendors clad in spotless linen aprons throng the
platform and offer baskets of ripe figs, chirimoyas, peaches and
grapes, whilst others display trays of delicious biscuits and pastries.
We are in the heart of one of the richest and most favoured regions
of Chile, where Pedro de Valdivia, who had all Chile to choose
from, picked the land destined to form his own personal estate.
Here, too, the handfuls of precious seed all that was saved when
the Indians first rose in arms to devastate the new Spanish settle
ment at Santiago were carefidly nurtured and left to multiply
in the rich soil. Between Quillota, the chief town of the district,
and Vina del Mar lies a string of pleasant little towns Limache,
Villa Alemana, Quilpue whose healthy climate and abundance
of fruit and flowers make of them favourite resorts during the
heat of the summer months.
Whoever gave the name of Valparaiso to the cramped and dusty
port at the foot of the coastal hills, must as Charles Darwin once
remarked have been thinking of its fertile hinterland. About the
city itself there is little to suggest paradise, save perhaps to the weary
eyes of the mariners who had sighted port after making the once
terrible navigation of the Straits of Magellan, or maybe to the
modern devotee of the picturesque. Built against the steep hillside
in a series of shelves and ledges, the town is clamped together by
flights of steps and numerous little funicular railways, like the cable-
cars of San Francisco. Valparaiso has something of the appearance
of a vast tenement, the ground floor of which is occupied by shops,
dubs, bars, offices and banks, the upper stories by comfortable
middle-class dwellings, and the attics by the shanties, built of rusty
corrugated iron or ill-fitting boards, of the very poor. Cramped and
congested in the south-west sector of the bay, the town broadens
out into a flatter and more spacious ground in the centre and then
contracts once more to leave only space enough for the railway and
the curving corniche road which connects it with the charming
villas and fashionable hotels of Vina del Mar.
In Valparaiso, more than in any other town in Chile, the
foreigner is conscious of a strong sense of character and individuality
such as he finds so often in the older cities of Europe. That, no doubt,
108
VALPARAISO
is why it has always appealed so strongly to the brash of painters.
Monvoisin lived afid worked there for some years. 1 Somerscales
taught at an English school and produced some of his finest pictures.
Whistler came there in 1866 and painted Ms famous Nocturne in
Blue and Gold. To wander along the streets of Valparaiso and
explore the maze of hills or cerros is to become conscious, too, of
the many curious and cosmopolitan strands which have gone to
weave its varied history; its street-names alone are so many bizarre
lucky-dips into the past: Calle Cochrane and Plaza Edwards, Jean-
Jacques Rousseau and Pierre Lori, Aquiles RIed the Fireman, Colo-
Colo the Indian Chief and a host of others.
Above all, it is the Anglo-Saxon strands which have formed the
unmistakable, distinctive pattern of the city s history. 2 For nearly
three centuries, Valparaiso has known the British,, first as buccaneers,
then as seamen and soldiers come to volunteer for service in the
cause of Chilean liberation, finally as merchants, engineers, school
masters. The British community still plays an important part in the
city s life today, and is more compact and influential than anywhere
else in the country.
The introduction was first made by no less a figure than Sir
Francis Drake for us, the embodiment of daring adventure and
endurance, for the Spaniards of the New World the personifica
tion of murder, rapine and heresy. Drake had caught his first sight
of the Pacific from a tree-top in the Isthmus of Panama, whither
he had been guided by friendly Indians, and from that moment had
resolved to make that vast ocean the scene of Ms future exploits.
His first project was to have his ships dismantled and carried over
land across die Isthmus to the shores of the Pacific. But Oxenham,
the lieutenant to whom he had entrusted the execution of his plans,
was intercepted by the Spaniards and taken to Lima where he was
condemned to death. A more promising route into the Pacific,
though scarcely less hazardous, lay through the Straits which
Magellan had discovered but a few years before. In August 1578,
Drake s Golden Hind entered the Straits and, successfully completing
their navigation, emerged into the Pacific on September 6. Here
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the vessel was greeted by a storm of tremendous fury and driven
down to the latitudes south of Cape Horn which today bear his
name. At length the battered ship put into the island of. Mocha,
where the Indians, taking the strangers for Spaniards, gave them at
first a friendly welcome, but later turned upon them savagely,
killing and wounding some of the crew and forcing the remainder
to seek refuge on board their ship. Drake, who had not sufficient
forces to attempt to take revenge, weighed anchor and sailed north
wards up the coast, carrying on his cheek to the day of his death
the scar left by an Indian arrow.
The next Indian settlement which the Golden Hind encountered
proved more friendly and provided the welcome intelligence that
a Spanish ship carrying a cargo of gold-dust had just left Valdivia
and was now at Valparaiso taking on a cargo of wine and other
goods for Peru. Drake sailed on to Valparaiso and anchored in the
bay without arousing the slightest suspicion, for no one for a
moment imagined that any sail sighted in the Pacific could be
other than Spanish. Hakluyt relates how the crew of a Spanish ship
prepared to feast the newcomers with a flask of Chilean wine. All
seemed set for a friendly party when one Thomas Moone began to
ky about him and struck one of the Spaniards and said unto him:
"Aiajo,perro" 9 which is in English "Go down, dog"/ The Spaniards
were then stowed away beneath hatches, all save one who suddenly
and desperately leapt overboard into the sea and swam ashore to
the town of St Jago, to give them warning of our arrival*. Drake
and his party then came ashore, the inhabitants of Valparaiso, not
being above nine households", abandoning the town in panic, and
leaving the marauders to take what they could find. Drake took a
chalice and other pieces from the little church and presented them
to Mr Fletcher, his chaplain. He then embarked with a quantity of
wine and cedar-wood, and a Greek pilot whose knowledge of the
coast would be of great value to them, and set sail for La Serena,
where Drake planned to repeat his exploits. But the alarm had been
given. The Governor of La Serena sallied forth with a band of
soldiers and volunteers to give battle, and Drake s landing-party,
finding itself outnumbered, beat a hurried retreat. One English
soldier, either through drunkenness or obstinacy, refused to turn
no
VALPARAISO
back and was cut to pieces by the infuriated Spaniards. The Golden
Hind then sailed on to harry the coast of Peru and return to England
via Asia after completing the drcumnavigation of the globe,
The rage and alarm caused by the incursion of the English buc
caneers into the Pacific were indescribable. The Viceroy in Lima
set about taking frantic steps to track down the pirate and com
missioned the intrepid navigator Sarmiento de Gamboa to pursue
him to the Straits of Magellan (for it was wrongly assumed he
would return by that route) and take him dead or alive. Further
more, it was decided to colonize and fortify the Straits so as to
dose them permanently against any future incursions. But the
attempt ended in tragic failure. When, a few years later, Thomas
Cavendish, seeking to emulate the fame and fortune achieved by
Drake in the Pacific, sailed through the Straits and sent a boat
ashore, he found fifteen men and three women as the sole survivors
of the colony which Sarmiento had founded three years before. 3
The attempt to dose the Straits had failed and Cavendish sailed on
to harry the coasts of Chile and Peru and return kden with spoil
to England.
The next English buccaneer to appear in the Pacific was a man
of different and more complex type who was to be long remem
bered not only for his daring, but for the Quixotic generosity of
his character. Sir Richard Hawkins was the type of romantic
adventurer whose interest in loot was confined to acquiring just
enough to finance his expeditions and satisfy his craving for travd
and excitement. Appearing suddenly off Valparaiso one morning in
1594 in his ship the Dainty, he seized possession of four vessels
cajrying a cargo valued at 20,000 ducats, but soon after restored
them to their owners for a trifling ransom. A fifth he captured and
kept for its curious mixed cargo of apples and gold-dust. Then,
rdeasing all the captured crews with the exception of one pilot
from whose knowledge he wished to profit, Hawkins set sail for
Peru. But his ma^pianimify was to prove his undoing. One of the
ships whidi he had captured and restored to its owners was dis
patched to warn the Viceroy, the energetic Don Garcia Hurtado
de Mendoza, who lost no time in equipping a squadron of three
ships mustering 74 guns and 300 picked men. This squadron pursued
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and eventually overhauled the Dainty, though Hawkins fought with
great gallantry and only surrendered after twenty-seven of his
crew of seventy-five had been killed and a further seventeen
wounded, and on receiving an assurance that the English would be
treated with the full rights of prisoners-o-war. The Viceroy then pro
ceeded to outdo his captured adversary in chivalry, and Hawkins was
taken first to Lima, then to Spain where, in due course, he was released.
The disaster suffered by the Dainty and the death of Queen
Elizabeth who had favoured these incursions put a stop to British
enterprise in the Pacific for over seventy years. But tales of the
mineral wealth of Chile continued to reach England, and when a
certain Spanish adventurer living in London under the name of
Carlos Henriquez and claiming to have a thorough knowledge of
the coast of Chile .offered himself as a guide, the Admiralty com
missioned Sir John Narbrough to undertake an expedition. Nar-
brough s instructions were to explore and chart the southern coasts
of Chile, abstain from attacks against the Spaniards unless fired
upon, and probably also to report on the amount of gold to be
found in those parts. Narbrough sailed through the Straits in 1669
and up the coast of Chile to the mouth of the Valdivia river where
Henriquez landed to explore and make contact with the Spaniards
and Indians. The luckless adventurer and four members of the crew
who later went in search of him were never seen again by their
comrades. They were captured by the Spaniards and left to moulder
for a dozen years in gaol until finally being dragged out to execu
tion as a reprisal for the depredations of other buccaneers which
continued sporadically for many years and, without doubt, did much
to retard the development of Valparaiso and the other Pacific ports.
Even by the end of the eighteenth century, the port counted little
more than four thousand inhabitants. But it was now on the eve of
those fateful years which were to witness its rapid rise to prosperity
and its heroic contribution to the cause of national independence
a contribution in which the traditional pirate foes of yesterday were
to prove the sturdiest and most trusty of allies.
* * *
The wind had already begun to veer in the latter half of the
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VALPARAISO
eighteenth century, -when Charles El relaxed the traditional Spanish
monopoly and allowed foreign ships a limited amount of trade with
the colonies. France, Britain and the United States were quick to
seize their opportunity. Britain, in particular, was eager to acquire
fresh markets for her expanding industrial economy and hoped to
find some compensation in Latin America for the markets lost
through war in Europe. When, in 1811, the Cortes determined to
revert to its traditional policy and reimpose the ancient Spanish
monopoly, the British government had no intention of acquiescing.
That same year the first legal trading expedition of substance of
which we have record set out from England for Chilean waters.
It was organized by John and Joseph Crosbie who fitted out the Fly
with a cargo of hardware, tools and woollen goods for Valparaiso.
We may be sure that the Chileans were glad to welcome these
strangers in the guise of friendly traders rather than voracious
pirates. The crew of the Ply, for their part, must have been surprised
to find a compatriot already established as a Chilean citizen one
Grosvenor Sinister, who had first come to Chile as a lad on a
marauding expedition and been lassoed and made prisoner when he
came ashore to obtain provisions. Young Bunster was treated kindly
by his captors and lived to become a respected citizen of the country
which had forcibly adopted him, and the ancestor of many Chileans
who are still proud to bear his name today. After him many other
British came and stayed without the necessity of these violent
inducements. First in the field were the Irish, whose Catholic faith
had gained them access to the vast domains of the Spanish Empire
which remained closed to Protestant heretics. Lured by the love of
adventure and the call of arms, many threw in their lot with the
independence movement. Bernardo O Higgins, besides being of
partly Irish descent himself through his remarkable father, could
count on the help of such men as John Mackenna, whose brilliant
military career was cut short by a duel with General Luis Carrera,
Bjaymond Morris, cap-tain of the Aguila* the first warship to fly
the flag of independent Chile, and George O Brien of the Lautaro
who perished leading the opening attack of the Chilean squadron
against units of the Spanish fleet in April 1818.
If the personality of Q* Higgins tended to link his country with
I 113
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Britain, his rivals, the Carrera "brothers, sought the backing of the
United States. The sympathetic interest which the Chilean cause
aroused there was just as great as in Britain. Although the United
States was not yet a great manufacturing nation and so scarcely
able to supply the commercial needs of her southern neighbours,
she was so convinced of the importance of those potential markets
that she was already re-exporting to them a large proportion of the
manufactured wares which she imported from England. When war
broke out between the United States and England in 1812, the time
seemed ripe to strike a blow at the British whaling fleet which
operated in the Southern Pacific and constituted in those days an
important commercial interest. The frigate Essex, commanded by
Capt David Porter, was sent round Cape Horn to accomplish this
task. On calling in at Valparaiso, Capt Porter learnt to his amaze
ment that the colony had thrown off her allegiance to the mother
country and declared herself an independent State. Here was a
situation which his instructions had not for a moment foreseen!
Now that Spain was embroiled in war with her colonies, would
she not revive the old British alliance of Napoleonic times, whilst
the colonists, for their part, found support from the States? So, at
least, many Chileans excitedly conjectured when they set eyes on
the American warship lying in Valparaiso bay. Capt Porter did
nothing to disillusion them. For all he knew, they might be per
fectly right, and the warm welcome which they gave to the Essex
and their readiness to supply his needs were very gratifying. The
Essex sailed off to carry out her task of destroying or capturing the
whalers and returned to dispose of her prizes in Chilean ports.
The activities of the American raider soon alarmed the British
who had no intention of intervening on the side of Spain and still
less of allowing the colonists* sympathies to be stolen by the United
States. Capt Hillyar was dispatched with the Phoebe and the Cherub
to settle accounts with her. They found the Essex once more in the
Bay of Valparaiso, snugly anchored in Chilean territorial waters.
For forty days a tense impasse continued. Then the Essex, trusting
to her superior speed, decided to make a run for it. The British
ships, fearing she would get away, opened fire whilst she was still
in the bay. The ensuing engagement was short but violent. After
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VALPARAISO
just one hour s fighting, when half her crew had been killed, the
Essex struck her flag. Capt Porter survived to return to the States
where he remained a staunch friend of Chile and did much to find
the ships and men who served, together with British ex-enemies
and fellow volunteers, in the first Chilean navy. 4
The foreign colonies which began to grow and prosper in
Valparaiso during the first decades of the nineteenth century were a
curious medley of adventurers, merchants, mercenaries and sea
men to whom the prospects of Chilean independence offered tempt
ing promise of commercial gain, prize money or martial glory. The
ancient urge towards plunder and piracy was now merged with the
nineteenth century s faith in the progress of mechanical inventions
and industry, and the legitimate wealth to be therefrom derived.
The instinct to acquire riches speedily, and not always too scrupu
lously, was often coupled with a genuine sympathy for Chilean
aspirations towards independence, and shrewd calculations of per
sonal profit alternated with flashes of altruism and humanitarian
feeling. Though not averse to doing a remunerative deal here and
there with the Spanish royalists, the foreign merchants performed
services of inestimable value to the Chileans by facilitating a steady
supply of arms and equipment of every sort, and by the raising of
loans which repeatedly tided a bankrupt exchequer over its most
pressing crises. Nearly half the money necessary for the purchase
of the Windham, which, its name changed to Lautaro and its crew
largely composed of British officers and men, was to play such a
notable part in the naval operations against Spain, was subscribed
by British merchants. They had their eye, it is true, on the rich prize-
money which the vessel might bring in. But at other times their
generosity could be warm and uncalculating, as when they raised
a public subscription to relieve the appalling suffering and want in
which Chilean callousness was later to abandon the royalist prisoners,
like every British community overseas, that of Valparaiso had
its cliques and its rival factions. Hist, there was the rift between the
civilian merchant community and the volunteers. By and large, of
course, the commercial interests stood to gain from the final con-
115
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
solidation of Chilean independence and the removal for all time of
the danger of any possible reconquest and restoration of commercial
monopoly by Spain. But the course of operations and especially
the enforcement of the Chilean blockade of the Peruvian ports still
held by Spain imposed irritating if temporary restrictions on trade,
and it was the imperious Lord Cochrane and his fellow British
volunteers who were most zealous in enforcing them. The British
Government, though generally sympathetic to the patriot cause,
backed the merchants objections. Sir Thomas Hardy, once famous
as Nelson s flag captain in the Victory and kter British Naval Com
mander in South American waters, proved particularly ardent in
their defence. He presented the Chilean Government with an
offensively worded note little short of an ultimatum, demanding
the instant lifting of the blockade and threatening, in the event of
refusal, to withdraw all British subjects resident in Chile. The
Chilean Government could afford neither to lose the good will of
the British Government nor the wealth of her traders, so the block
ade was lifted for all except a relatively small portion of the Peruvian
coast. It is difficult, with the perspective of time, not to sympathize
with the viewpoint of the volunteers whose zeal for an early and
decisive victory over the Spanish must often have made them im
patient of the mercenary prevarications of their countrymen. Yet
the framework of national solidarity was somehow preserved, and
when, his task completed, the Admiral was about to leave Chile,
he was able to issue a grandiloquent manifesto thanking the British
merchant community for the contribution it had made to the cause
of Chilean independence.
Within the ranks of the volunteers themselves, too, there were
cliques and factions which complicated the already difficult problem
of imposing discipline on a hastily improvised navy and could be
cunningly exploited by Chilean ministers resentful of the Admiral s
high-handed actions. Cochrane was the most outstanding in per
sonality and attainment of the British seamen enlisted in the Chilean
service,^ but there were others who lagged not far behind him in
audacity, ambition and love of adventure. 5 There was Wilkinson,
master of the i,30O-ton Cumberland which the Chilean Government
had purchased from the East India Company and converted into
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VALPARAISO
the San Martin, the largest warship sailing in South American
waters. There was Charles Whiting Wooster, of New Haven,
Connecticut, who had sailed the Columbus, half warship and half
merchantman, to Chile and ultimately succeeded Cochrane in
command of the fleet. There was Spry and his friend Guise, an
ex-Captain in the British Navy who had sold Ms brig Hecate to
the Chilean Government and could rely on a stout band of friends
and followers amongst the other volunteers. These two men proved
to be the most determined of Cochrane s enemies, and the wonder
is that so many brilliant actions were fought without this rivalry
being allowed to imperil their success.
The extraordinary personality of Cochrane himself has been
exhaustively described and commented upon, yet it remains almost
as controversial today as it once was to his contemporaries. Chilean
historians, as a whole, have not dealt kindly with him, and being
unable to deny the contribution made to the cause of American in
dependence by the spectacular brilliance of his exploits have tended
to tarnish its lustre by fostering the myth of his alleged avarice. 6
But what his British and Chilean contemporaries must have found
about him infernally difficult to deal with, was not so much his
repeated attempts to make an exhausted treasury disgorge the sums
due for the payment of Ms fleet, and later, for that of Ms own
services, but rather Ms overbearing haughtiness, Ms intractability,
Ms intolerance of other people s opinions, Ms impatience of re
straint, mediocrity and incompetence. Alvarez Condarco, die
Chilean envoy in London, had contracted the services of the seaman
who, more perhaps than any other foreigner, could contribute
decisively to the cause of liberation. But die price of genius is high,
and Cochrane s talents stopped litde short of genius. His dominant
characteristic was a fantastic audacity, saved only from foolhardiness
by a thorough mastery of the minutiae of Ms profession and the
infinite resourcefulness wMch tie showed in choosing the means
for the accomplishment of Ms designs. Not all Ms inventions and
innovations proved successful. His rockets failed, as the Spanish
prisoners who had been ordered to make them saw that they should.
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
The steam vessel which he commissioned before leaving England
proved too unreliable and too long delayed to outckss the enemy s
sail as he had hoped. But where new weapons were not to hand,
Cochrane fought with the old or with hardly a weapon at all
and conquered.
"When, at the end of November 1818, the Rose cast anchor in
the bay of Valparaiso, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean
Navy landed to take up his duties in a more than habitually irascible
mood. His haughty spirit was still suffering from the indignities
he had undergone in his native country, where official jealousy
had denied him due recognition for the brilliant victories he had
scored against the French, and his flamboyant parliamentary
championship of the cause of Reform Lad been cut short by his
entanglement in a sensational stock exchange scandal. Nor had his
temper been improved by the tedium and discomfort of a long
voyage. Had he known how near the Chilean Government had
come to a decision to terminate his services before they had effec
tively begun, he would no doubt have been still further incensed.
The Chilean Government was engaged in delicate negotiations for
the loan of a million pounds sterling, and Cochrane was known to
be notoriously persona non grata with the British Government. It
looked as if Chile would have to choose between the Admiral and
the -million pounds. Someone suggested that he might be presented
with a gift of Chilean land in honourable discharge for the new
Republic had more territory than it knew what to do with and the
distant Juan Fernandez, Robinson Crusoe s island, was somewhat
ironically, but quite seriously suggested for this purpose. But for
tunately for Chile, it was at length agreed to risk offending Britain
by employing her wayward son. So the new Republic kept her
island, and got her Admiral and in due course her loan as well
At the time of Cochrane s arrival, the town which pompously
styled itself the Port of Santiago and the first port of the Pacific
was litde more than a cluster of houses and did not even possess an
inn, still less a hotel, where the distinguished stranger could be
lodged. The Governor of Valparaiso was seized with panic. Here s
Lord Cochrane descended upon us, he wrote in despair to Santiago,
and we have simply nowhere to lodge him. Fortunately, a public-
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VALPARAISO
spirited resident of Valparaiso came to the rescue and offered to
lodge the Admiral, Lady Cochrane, their two children and attend
ants, in his own house. The worthy gentleman received but a poor
reward for his kind intentions. Cochrane was not used to living on
suffrance in other people s houses and made no secret of his dis
content. His host then solicitously invited his Lordship to move
into another empty house of which he was also the owner, where
his guests could be more at ease. To this he received the extra
ordinary rejoinder (explicable, surely, only on the assumption that
the sense of grievance which so obsessed Cochrane s mind could
at times drive out the elementary norms of civilized behaviour):
If the gentleman had another house elsewhere in Valparaiso, why
then did he not remove thither himself? The Admiral had had
enough of moving. He had moved all the way from England to
this remote and benighted port and he was not going to budge
another inch. This unexpected exhibition of bad manners appears
to have overwhelmed the worthy resident of Valparaiso who
departed to his empty house leaving his Lordship in sole possession
of the better residence.
Limited as the resources of the young republic then were, the
heads of the Chilean Government seem to have gone out of their
way and excelled the traditional hospitality of their country in
order to give the English Lord and the other volunteers who had
arrived with him a worthy welcome. The Supreme Director, Don
Bernardo O Higgins, hurried down from Santiago to greet them
in person. A round of receptions, picnics, balls and banquets in
Valparaiso was followed by a still more profuse round of receptions,
picnics, balls and banquets in the capital Tie festivities, it seemed,
might have continued indefinitely had not the Admiral at length
reminded Ms host that he had come to Chile not to feast but to
fight. Within a few days the Admiral was indeed in the thick of
the fray first against incompetent and dilatory contractors and
corrupt chandlers, then against insubordinate officers and mutinous
men, finally against Zenteno, the Minister of the Navy himself;
whose cantankerous, suspicious nature could not but dash with
Cochrane s impetuous temperament. Nelson s blind-eye-and-
telescope tactics became, before long, Cochrane s customary re-
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
sponse to Zenteno s instructions, and he scored Hs most startling
successes only in defiance of them.
It was not until the beginning of January 1820 (it is characteristic
of the prevailing absence of organization that the dispatches were
mislaid for some time on the way from Santiago to Valparaiso)
that Cochrane received instructions from the Minister that the fleet
was to put to sea and proceed to Callao. It was expressly stated that
no offensive action was to be undertaken, but that operations were
to be confined to reconnaissance, the incitement of the Peruvian
population to rise against the Spaniards, and the rescue of patriots
captured by the enemy. The Minister s instructions were pompously
categorical on this point:
For no reason and under no circumstances are you to
approach and engage the shore batteries; nor are you to under
take any action on land liable in the slightest degree to com
promise the Fleet, bearing in mind that the liberty of America
depends on its existence, and that this great cause imposes on
us the greatest circumspection in our proceedings. 9
The effect which such cautious instructions must have had on
the impetuous spirit of Cochrane may well be imagined. Another
circumstance was soon to arise which was to make still greater
demands on the qualities of tact and prudence with which his
nature had not been liberally endowed. On approaching Calko,
Cochrane sighted a convoy of British ships which had just put into
that port to sell food and supplies to the beleaguered garrison and
was now returning temptingly laden with Spanish gold. The British
Government, it will be recalled, refused to recognize Chile s right
to blockade the Peruvian coast and Capt Sheriff, the Commodore
of the Convoy, came aboard Cochrane* s flagship to make it dear
that he would retaliate with all the means in his power against any
attempt to interfere with Britain s trading rights as a neutral
There must have been something supremely ironical in this en
counter between a British Commodore vindicating his country s
rights to trade with the power which had long been her traditional
foe, and the British Admiral, expelled from his own navy and now
serving the cause of Spain s revolted colonists.
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The encounter with the British convoy, galling as It may have
been, was not wasted. From Capt Sheriff, Cochrane gleaned a
piece of information which he determined to turn to good account.
Two American warships, Macedonian z&djohn Adams t were expected
shortly in Callao. As soon as the British convoy had disappeared
over the horizon, Cochrane gave orders to the CfHiggins and the
Lautaro to be rigged and repainted to resemble the two American
vessels. Ignoring the instructions of his Minister, he resolved to steal
in disguise under the guns of the shore batteries and engage die
enemy s most powerful ships, the Esmeralda and the Venganza, at
short range. But luck was against Mm. The descent of a dense fog
prevented the ruse from being carried into effect, and when the
fog lifted the Chilean ships found themselves motionless within
range of the formidable Spanish coastal batteries. In the furious
exchange of shot which followed, Cochrane stood on the poop
of the CfHiggins, telescope in hand and his Htde son Tommy
beside Mm, coolly observing the range and power of the enemy s
guns. Only with the fall of evening could the ships break off the
gruelling action and slip away.
Cochrane s next move was to launch a series of daring com
mando raids against the Spanish garrisons scattered up and down
the Peruvian coast. These actions were not only militarily successful
but fina.-ncia.lly remunerative as well, for, by compelling the enemy
to defray the expenses of his own destruction, they helped to over
come the difficulties resulting from the chronic insolvency in which
the Chilean fleet was kept. But so long as the Spanish fleet remained
sheltered by the guns of the powerful coastal batteries, the Admiral
could not hope to win the decisive victory which was his aim.
An attempt to destroy the enemy ships by the use of rockets manu
factured after the model of those recently used with such effect
against the French off Boulogne failed owing to the sabotage of the
Spanish prisoners employed in their preparation. The Admiral s
thoughts turned to schemes of still wilder daring. When at last his
mind was made up and he confided the plan to the commander of
the landing parties, his friend William Miller, he received the in
credulous rejoinder: *My Lord, I m afraid you ve gone mad!
For Cochrane s plan was nothing less than to break off the opera-
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
tions in Peru, send the greater part of the fleet back to Valparaiso,
and to sail south for a distance of over 3,000 miles with a small
picked force and destroy the Spanish power still holding out in the
south of Chile at Valdivia. The operation succeeded precisely
because it appeared too fantastic for any serious commander to
attempt. After hoisting Spanish colours and reconnoitring the
estuary of the Valdivia river at his leisure, Cochrane led his landing
party, 300 strong, against an enemy force four times that number
entrenched in a series of fortifications deemed well-nigh im
pregnable.
Back in Valparaiso, the news of the unexpected fall of the Spanish
stronghold was received with frenzied rejoicing, and the Admiral
was greeted on his return with the acclamations due to a popular
hero. If Valdivia could be taken from the Spaniards, could not the
still more formidable Callao the basis of their power in Peru
be taken too? The patriot leaders were convinced that it could, and
already preparations were afoot for a great expedition under the
supreme command of San Martin to be assembled in Valparaiso.
This expedition a veritable Armada by contemporary standards
was composed of thirty-six vessels, nearly six thousand men, to
gether with horses, cannons, arms and equipment not only sufficient
for the needs of the army but also for the thousands of volunteers
who were expected to rally to the expedition once it should enter
Peruvian waters. It was a fleet which the Admiral might well be
proud to command. But already his differences with the Chilean
Minister, Zenteno, and with San Martin himself, were growing
more acute. Brilliant as his victory at Valdivia had been, it was
achieved in disregard of official orders, and that could not be for
given him. The suspicion and jealousy which the Argentine
generalissimo now harboured against him had even infected the
generous spirit of Bernardo O Higgins, and a secret letter still
exists written by the Director Supremo to the Generalissimo
authorizing the latter, in the event of any further evidence of
Ccchrane s disobedience to orders even that inspired disobedience
which resulted in victory to destitute him of his command and
dap him under arrest. As a crowning indignity, it was even laid
down that his personal rival, Capt Guise, whom he had placed under
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VALPARAISO
arrest and only released on the intervention of the Chilean Govern
ment, was to be nominated his successor.
The Admiral knew nothing of these secret instructions, though
he could be under no illusions as to the hostility with which Zenteno
and Sap Martin regarded him. His relations with the Minister were
an incessant struggle to obtain funds for the payment of the crews;
with San Martin, an incessant straggle to impose Ms tactics of direct
and resolute action, which he was convinced would suffice to bring
about the utter ruin of the Spanish cause. But San Martin, ever
cautious, now seemed committed to a policy of complete passivity.
Once within striking distance of the enemy, he showed no dis
position to attack Callao. The Admiral pleaded and stormed in
vain. Then, his decision made, he set about preparing to carry out
on his own account one of those startling blows which would
stagger and demoralize the enemy by its very audacity. The target
which he selected for his designs was none other than the capture
of the Spanish flagship, the poo-ton Estneralda, under the very guns
of the forts of Callao. This attack, planned with imaginative
thoroughness and carried out by his Chilean sailors with a courage
and fidelity which endeared them to him for ever, still ranks as
the most stirring episode in Chilean naval history. Its effect in
destroying the morale of the Spaniards and raising that of the
Peruvian population was immediate and decisive. San Martin was
able to achieve his bloodless entry into Lima as he had wished.
Whilst these stirring deeds were being enacted, a melancholy
little scene took place in Valparaiso. At the end of April 1822, the
frigate Doris cast anchor off Valparaiso and the ship s company
came ashore to carry out the last funeral rites for their late Captain,
Thomas Graham, who had died rounding Cape Horn. With them
landed his disconsolate widow, Maria, "whose travels had already
taken her to India, and won her some celebrity as a writer and acute
observer of places and people. Friends found her a modest house in
Valparaiso where she could rest and regain her health and spirits
before embarking on the long and lonely journey back to England,
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
For the first weeks she remained absorbed in the grief of her loss,
but as we read the pages of her Chilean diary we can follow the
efforts of a strong and curious mind to reassert itself and to lay a
new hold on life with the help of fresh sights and strange surround
ings. 7 Still young she was but in her middle thirties and attrac
tive, with a keen feeling for music, literature and art, and an in
satiable curiosity for plants, people, politics and everything which
make up the life of a little known community, Maria Graham
soon won devoted friends for herself amongst the Chileans and the
British community. It was litde wonder that the most outstanding
of them all, Lord Cochrane, an old ship-mate of her late husband s
and the hero of the hour returning with his laurels fresh from
Valdivk and Callao, should share in the general sympathy which
the tragic cirairnstances of her bereavement excited and her own
warm and lively intelligence enhanced. The sudden attachment
which sprang up between the Admiral and the romantic diarist
adds an idyllic footnote to the record of great deeds, alarms, mean
intrigues, reverses and gossip which was the life of Valparaiso
a century and a quarter ago.
Maria Graham s house was in Almendral the busy thorough
fare of today which, in those times, was so rustic and secluded as
to be deemed too exposed to danger from robbers for prudent
citizens to reside in. But the diarist felt no fear. It was a good spot
for her to pursue her nature studies and observe the fruits and
queer plants which were new to her; the quilhi, whose bark gives
a lather equal to that of the finest soap, the strange palm which
distils a syrup rich as honey when cut and burnt, the canelo, under
whose sacred branches the natives once performed their religious
rites. Sometimes she would ride out into the country and talk to
the simple folk, observe the wretchedness of the shacks in which
they lived, or join them in making their crude earthenware pottery.
Only when the clouds blew up and the damp mist descended upon
Valparaiso from the bills, as it so often does, was it hard to dispel
gloomy thoughts and regrets from her mind. It "was on one such
dismal morning that a sudden clamour in the town and cries of
He s come back! The Admiral s back! marked the dawn of a
brighter day. Soon she was the hero s inseparable companion (for
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VALPARAISO
Lady Cochrane had returned to England in ill health) and most
sympathetic confidante.
Amongst the memorable events, of which Valparaiso was then
the scene, occurred one of minor importance in itself but pregnant
with future significance for the development of the country. The
first steamship to enter the Pacific at length cast anchor in the bay.
It was the Rising Sun, commissioned by Lord Cochrane before he
left England, and completed in the Thames shipyards under the
supervision of his brother. With its superior manoeuvrability,
Cochrane had reckoned that it would outclass any enemy sailing
ship and tip the scales decisively in favour of the Chileans. Now that
, it had belatedly arrived, it was turned to humbler account, and the
Admiral decided that its trial trip in Chilean waters should be to
carry him and his party of friends to the country estate which he
had recently purchased at Quintero, some 30 miles north of
Valparaiso.
The acquisition of this estate by the impulsive Admiral had
aroused considerable speculation and misgivings in Chilean govern
mental circles. John Miers, an Englishman who had sought to
establish a number of industries in the newly Hberated South
American republics and knew what Chilean suspicion and obstruc
tionism could do, records in his memoirs that they were unable
to conceive what object Lord Cochrane could have in the purchase
of an estate other than the desire to make money by its means;
they formed the idea that he had purchased it with a view to carrying
on a smuggling trade, as the Bay of Quintero offered an excellent
landing place, and as he had the ships of the nation at his command*. 8
Perhaps the Admiral, who kept his ear to the ground and seems to
have been quite innocent of any such sinister designs, thought that
a jolly picnic at Quintero would be the very thing to dispel Chilean
suspicions.
The party which set out in the Rising Sun was a gay, even a
hilarious one, for it included the good parish priest of Placilla,
whose enthusiasm for the white beer as he chose to term die
Admiral s champagne, led him to declare in raptured tones that
anyone drinking too freely of so divine a beverage would be
accorded a hundred years* respite from the penalties of purgatory.
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
Maria Graham, we learn from her diary, abandoned herself to
comforting reflections of a more philosophic nature. As she watched
the paddle-wheels of the marvellous invention churn up the blue
waters into a creamy froth and send the ship forward against the
breeze, her mind was filled with grateful wonder at man s ability
to triumph over the obstacles which nature placed against the ful
filling of his desires. But nature still had a few tricks left up her
sleeve. When the Rising Sun was within but a few miles of her
destination, the engines stopped and defied all efforts to coax them
back to life again. A fresh head-wind blew up, the sea turned
choppy, making the good priest repent his addiction to the white
beer of England and Maria Graham her over-confidence in man s
ingenuity. The Rising Sun was obliged to put back under sail to
Valparaiso.
There news awaited them which at once dispelled the ill-humour
caused by the failure of their excursion. The United States, they
learnt, had decided to recognize Chile as a sovereign and independent
republic. The success of Chilean arms on land and the Admiral s
brilliant exploits at sea were at length bearing their full fruit. But
the rivalries and wrangles between those who had done most to
foster its growth already imparted to it a bitter flavour. San Martin s
refusal to use Peruvian funds to pay the Chilean Navy, and Coch-
rane s resolute action in finding a solution of his own by capturing
the treasure of Lima which the Generalissimo had sent aboard some
vessels lying oflf Ancon for safe keeping, had made the break be
tween them irremediable. Cochrane now made ready to leave the
country he had thought to adopt permanently as his own. And
with him, too, would leave Maria Graham, who had by now found
herself installed as the mistress of his Quintero estate. As that
shrewd observer recorded day by day in her diary the signs of the
young republic s gradual descent into anarchy, there burst upon
the country one of those cataclysms which periodically laid it waste.
A series of violent shocks reduced the greater part of Valparaiso
to ruins. Lord Cochrane s Quintero house, too, was rendered un
inhabitable. By some miracle the house rented by the widow re
mained intact, only to be inveigled from her kter by some shame
less unnamed compatriots.
126
VALPARAISO
For Cochrane and Ms friends, the earthquake of 1822 ushered in
a curious final phase to their memorable visit to Chile; a sort of
rustic idyll passed in improvised booths and tents pitched on the
seashore, where, amidst the many preparations for departure, Maria
Graham, carefully packed up the specimens of Chilean plants which
she resolved to bring back to England (where she was later to win
celebrity as the author of Little Arthur 9 s Hlstorj of England) and
helped Don Benito, the Admiral s eccentric secretary, to set up a
hand-press from which they rolled off copies of his farewell pro
clamation to the people of Chile. Then, bidding goodbye to the
country he had done so much to free, Cochrane sailed off to fresh
adventures in Brazil, England and Greece. After the Admiral s
departure, many of the British and American volunteers stayed on
in Chile to make their homes there, and to gain fresh laurels in the
army and navy, or to make fortunes in the country s growing
commerce. Within, remarkably few years, Valparaiso was trans
formed from little more than a sleepy, straggling village to a
thriving city. The discovery of gold in California, brought ship
loads of adventurers and workers through the Straits of Magellan
in unheard of numbers, and it was to Valparaiso that they put in
to re-fit and provision after the long voyage. Steam had conquered
the Straits of Magellan and a new steamship service founded by
William Wheelright linked Chile more closely to Europe than
ever before. 9 Then, as time passed, Valparaiso suffered two grave
set-backs to its prosperity. The most permanent of these was the
opening of the Panama Canal in 1915 which sent the longer route
through the Straits into disuse and so robbed Valparaiso of a large
part of its international importance. The other was the sensational
bombardment of Valparaiso by the Spanish fleet in 1 866. This sense
less act of vindictive barbarity, though its memory has since been
dimmed by the greater follies and frightfiihiess of destruction
which the world has seen, is still worth recounting.
When, one training in 1863, a strong Spanish squadron entered
the bay of Valparaiso, ostensibly on a scientific mission to study the
127
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
flora and fauna of South America, the good citizens of that port
might well have viewed its appearance with misgiving. Spain was
still the traditional enemy, and it was known that only her im
potence caused her to acquiesce in the loss of her one-time pos
sessions. Nevertheless, a round of banquets, balls and solemn masses
was hastily improvised in honour of the unwelcome guests, but
the Spanish Admiral was overheard to mutter the ominous remark
that Chilean hospitality was insincere*. The squadron then sailed
on to Peru where it lost little time in provoking hostilities. A wave
of indignation against Spain swept over Chile and groups of
volunteers made their way northwards to join the Peruvian forces,
whilst the Chilean Government showed its feelings by refusing
coaling facilities to the aggressor fleet.
The inevitable reaction was not long delayed. Within a few
months the Spanish squadron was back again in Chilean waters,
strongly reinforced and clearly meaning business. A humiliating
ultimatum was sent to Santiago and rejected. The first round of
hostilities opened with a daring victory for the Chilean Esmeralda
which, under the command of Capt Williams Rebolledo, son of a
former British volunteer, outfought and captured the Spanish
Covadonga. The Spanish Commander~in-Chiei overwhelmed at
this degrading reverse, committed suicide. He was succeeded by
Don Casto Mendez Nunez, a man of sterner stuff who, after
fruitless attempts to avenge the defeat on the Peruvian and Chilean
fleets, opted in favour of bombarding Valparaiso and Callao as a
reprisal instead. Callao, it was true, was a strongly fortified port
which could give nearly as good as it got. Valparaiso was entirely
lacking in defences and was, in effect, an open city.
The only forces capable of deterring the Spanish fleet were the
squadrons of United States and British men-of-war anchored in the
bay. But Britain and the United States were not concerned with
the dispute between Spain and her ex-colony. In those days of
tardy communications, it was useless to send to the home govern
ment for instructions, and any unauthorized action on the part of
the naval commanders might involve their respective governments
in international complications of the utmost gravity. The British
and American commanders, Vice-Admiral Lord Denman and
128
VALPARAISO
Commodore Rodgers, did what they could to induce Mendez
Nunez to desist from his threat of bombardment They warned
Mm that their governments could not remain unconcerned at the
destruction of an open city, and one, moreover, containing so
many foreign subjects and such wide commercial interests. The
Spanish admiral remained unmoved by these arguments and calmly
held to his intention of carrying out the bombardment. The British
and American commanders then resorted to bluff. On the eve of
the bombardment, they drew up their squadrons in battle forma
tion, with their guns trained on the Spanish fleet. But still Mendez
Nunez was not deterred; he countered by turniag his guns on the
interfering ships and made it clear that he would reply in kind.
Rodgers and Denman saw that there was nothing more that they
could do. If there was any hope left it was up to the diplomats and
not to the Navy.
But the diplomats proved even less equal to the situation than,,
the sailors. The Hon William Taylour Thomson, the British
Minister, was aloof and irresolute; General Kilpatrick, his United
States colleague, a more forthright character but a novice in the
diplomatic game. Kilpatrick, his conscience uneasy on account of
the advice which the diplomatic corps appears to have given the
Chilean Government to the effect that Valparaiso should not be
fortified lest the Spaniards be provoked*, hurried down to Val
paraiso and ckcularized the representatives of the foreign powers
with the following note:
*To prevent the consummation of an act so cruel and in
human; to prevent the total destruction of a city composed
almost entirely of Europeans and Americans a city which is
today almost defenceless, and that through dtte advice of foreign
representatives I feel it my duty to call upon you, Sir, to
assist me. Of the present differences between Chile and Spain
we, of course, have nothing to say, but, as the representatives
of enlightened nationalities, we have much to say why a
helpless city, not the property of either of die belligerents,
should not be laid in ashes, thousands of helpless women and
children driven from their homes to die amid the desert hills,
K 129
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and why civilization upon this coast should not be set back to
an indefinite period/
Mr Thomson had also, much against his will, come down from
Santiago to Valparaiso where he conferred with Admiral Denman
and received a petition from the leading British merchants. Then,
convinced that his efforts could be of no avail in averting disaster,
he prudently took the train back to the capital and left the town to
its fate. 10 The British and American naval commanders sent a mes
sage to the Chilean authorities offering to put sailors at their dis
posal to help keep order and fight the flames. This offer was con
temptuously rejected. Then a last minute attempt was made to
remove the merchandise of British and American firms from the
doomed warehouses, but was prevented by an angry populace
determined that if the city was to perish the gringos at least should
share in the city s loss.
The bombardment opened at 9.15 on March 31, 1866, and lasted
for two and a half hours, a total of some two thousand five hundred
rounds of shot and shell being poured into the city. But there was
scarcely any loss of life, for the populace, forewarned, had taken to
the hills and looked down on the destruction of their homes with
something of the mingled stoicism and curiosity of Londoners
watching an air raid. Another modern and dramatic note was
added by the insistence of the telegraph operators to remain at
their posts and send out a constant stream of graphic dispatches
which kept the world informed of each successive stage in the
disaster with the topical and vivid precision of the eye-witness
radio commentator. At first, the bombardment took an orderly
course; firing from point-blank range, the warships turned their
guns on the Intendencia, the railway station, the port installations,
the stock exchange and the other main objectives. Soon the clouds
of smoke from the burning buildings obscured all targets, and shells
were poured in at random. The material damage caused was im
mense, but the populace supported it in almost festive mood.
Gangs of volunteers at once set to work to extinguish the flames
and dear the debris away whilst bands marched through the smoke-
enveloped streets playing gaily, and souvenir-hunters dragged
130
VALPARAISO
away the cannon-balls and humorists chalked up appropriate
slogans outside their battered shops.
Valparaiso thus passed through its ordeal by bombardment with
true Anglo-Saxon phlegm, courage and humour, but curiously
enough it was against the British, almost as much as against the
Spaniards, that popular indignation was vented. When the news
reached Santiago, the British Minister was expelled from the Club
de la Union and even turned out of the house where he was lodging.
The British could, if they had wished (so it was popularly believed),
have prevented the disaster! The ally of the wars of independence
was forgotten, and Britain appeared again as the traditional land of
rapacious firee-booters and heretics. Had not Admiral Cochrane
himself (as many contemporaries, and even more recent historians
imagined him) been little more than a hired pirate of genius?
Charles Darwin had recorded in his famous book that he had spoken
with Chileans who, in their youth, would have shunned an English
man like the plague, *so deeply had they been impressed with an
idea of the heresy, contamination and evil to be derived from con
tact with such a person 1 . Darwin added that to this day they relate
the atrocious actions of the Buccaneers* and told of an old lady who
*at dinner time in Coquimbo remarked how wonderfully strange
it was that she should have lived to dine in the same room with an
Englishman; for she remembered as a girl that twice at the mere
cry of "Los Ingleses" every soul, carrying what valuables they could,
had taken to the mountains*. Even today, well over a century after
Darwin s dinner party and eighty years after the outburst of
popular anger against the Hon William Taylour Thomson, Chileans
sometimes do not know what to make of the British, with whom
history has so often thrown them together. Sometimes, John Bull
still appears to them in the fearsome guise of the buccaneers, ex
ploiting the Chilean worker with the rankest capitalist imperialism
and encroaching on Chilean territory in the distant ice-fields of
the Antarctic. 11 It is surprising how the wild oats of history can
defy Old Father Time s scythe.
131
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
NOTES
1 Monvoisin may be considered as the real founder of Chilean painting,
but other foreign artists also exercised important formative influence;
Juan Mauricio Rugendas, from Augsburg, Charles Wood of Liverpool a
notable watercolourist, and Antonio Smith, Chilean-born but of Anglo-
Saxon descent, whose subjective treatment of nature gave birth to the
Chilean tradition of landscape painting. These pioneers prepared the way
for the works of Chilean painters proper Manuel Antonio Caro, famous
for his interpretations of national customs and festivals, Pedro Lira, a
prolific painter, critic and promoter of the arts, and the three artists generally
known as the Chilean classics* (Alfredo Valenzuela Puelma, Alberto
Valenzuela Llanos, and Juan Francisco Gonzalez). Thomas Somerscales has
also left his influence on Chilean painting, specially through his fine sea
scapes. (Detailed article on Chilean art, with good illustrations, may be
found in the special issue of The Studio for May 1950.)
2 Useful material regarding the early British and American communities
is contained in a lecture by Benjamin Vicuna Mackenna entitled *The First
English in Valparaiso* and in Old Timers British and Americans in Chile,
a book written by an American engineer, C. F. Hillman, and published
under the pseudonym of *Quien Sabe* in 1900.
3 See Chapter XVL
4 For a good account of the voyage of the Essex and of other American
warships in Chilean waters see Eugenio Pereira Salas, La actuation de los
ofidaks navaks wrte-tmericmos en nuestras coastas, 1813-40 (Santiago 1935).
5 A glance at the first Chilean Navy List shows the extent of British and
North American voluntary participation, even before the arrival of Coch-
rane and his brother officers:
Captains: Manuel Blanco Encalada, Juan Higginson, Guillermo Wilkin
son, Carlos Wboster, Francisco Diaz, Juan J. TorteL
lieutenants: Raimundo Morris, Nataniel Beley, Santiago Henderson,
Agustin Borne, Martin Warner, Guillermo Compton, Agustin Benson,
Fernando Vasquez, M. Mathieus, Juan Bowles, Samuel Fawconer, Ford R.
Morgell, GuiBermo Winter, Guillermo Prunier, Juan Lee, Ricardo Pearson,
Jose Baseman, Juan Francisco Robinson, Juan Herving, Ricardo Craw-
132
NOTES
ford, Roberto Bell, Guillenno French, Alejandro Gray, Guillermo Granville,
Tomas Drinot, Patricio Kelly, Juan Esmond, Juan HowelL
(Los Origenes de nuestra Marina Militar by Admiral Uribe (Santiago 1897),
p. I45-)
6 It was only in 1943 that the first biography of Cochrane by a Chilean
writer appeared an able and appreciative study by Enrique Bunster.
Benjamin Subercaseaux has some good chapters on Cochrane in his Tierra
de Oceano (Santiago 1948). Works on Cochrane in .English are fairly
numerous, the latest being a good biography by Christopher Lloyd (London
1947). Cochrane s own autobiography, Narrative of Services in the Liberation
of Chile, Peru and Bolivia (London 1859), still makes good reading.
7 Journal of a residence in Chile during the year 1822 by Maria Graham
(London 1 824).
8 Travels in Chile, and La Plata by John Miers (London 1826).
9 Born in Manchester of Puritan stock in 1789, Wheelright went to sea
at the age of twelve to start a career as varied, hazardous and romantic as
that of any of his contemporaries. South America, ^voluntarily of course,
received Wheelright with a most dubious hospitality, 9 writes his biographer
Alberdi. In each of its countries which were favoured by his exertions, he
became a victim of some accident, more or less serious in its nature. In the
Argentine he was the survivor of a shipwreck; in Chile, he escaped being
murdered by a crazy man in the street, another becoming the victim; in
Peru he nearly suffered a like fate from bandits, who despoiled him. In
Panama, he almost succumbed to an attack of black vomit (yellow fever),
and finally, in Buenos Aires, where he was occupied with the scheme of
the Grand Central Railway, he contracted the illness which decided tie
physicians he there consulted to advise an immediate return to England,
and from which ailment he did not recover.* Valparaiso was favoured by
his exertions , as Alberdi puts it, to the extent of being equipped with a
good supply of fresh water and gas, and also had its bay made safe for
navigation through a system of buoys and beacons. None was more in
defatigable than Wheelright in the search for coal, borax, saltpetre, and
other valuable products, whose exploitation has now become a common
place of Chilean economy. But Wheekight s crowning achievement was
the foundation of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, whose ships
have now brought passengers and mm\ between Chile and Great Britain
for over one hundred years. (See Steam Gm$uers tlie Patfic"bj A. C. Wardle.)
133
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
10 The dispatch which Kilpatrick sent off to Washington on the morrow
of the disaster, when the worthy general was no doubt anxious to disclaim
any share of responsibility in what had happened, certainly shows bis
British colleague in the bkckest light, though it is a little hard to believe
that the consols of the other neutral nations were so effusive in their gratitude
to the United States Minister for doing so little for them;
The American Minister, Gen Judson Kilpatrick,
to William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D.C.
Legation of the United States, Valparaiso
April 2, 1866
Sir,
... I asked the English Minister if he desired the co-operation of the
United States forces to prevent the wanton destruction of millions of
property belonging to British subjects, and I stated it was in his power
to prevent that destruction by merely uttering one word. That word
he refused to utter. . . . At 10 a.m. the remaining members of the
diplomatic corps, representatives of Prussia and Italy, met in my
rooms, and a brief conference resulted in the decision that it was in
expedient and unwise for the American naval force to oppose the
bombardment of Valparaiso, in the face of the refusal of the repre
sentatives of France and England to make any effort for its protection.
Had these representatives asked that our forces co-operate with those
of England to that end, and thus given us moral support in our con
templated action, neither Commodore Rodgers nor myself would
have hesitated to use force to prevent the destruction of the city.
When, therefore, the consular corps called on the 28th ultimo to
make another united appeal for protection, I frankly defined my
position and told them that while the co-operation of those most in
terested was wanting, the American fleet would not, by force, prevent
the action of the Spanish Admiral . . One of their number [Le. of the
consular corps] then proposed a vote of thanks to Commodore Rodgers
and myself for our exertions to protect foreign property, and the
consul-general of Portugal, the dean of the corps, proposed that they
rise to their feet and confirm the proposition by acckmation, which
was done, each member of die corps pressing forward to grasp the
hands of the Commodore and myself. Mr Lyon, consul-general of
Portugal, an English subject by birth, was painfully affected, and with
difficulty controlled his emotion. . . . On the morning of the 3ist, the
134
NOTES
Spanish Admiral fulfilled Ms threat, and for three hours the cannonad
ing was almost incessant/ (Quoted in Old-Timers?)
Despite this unhappy episode, Gen Kilpatrick became so attached to
Chile that he later settled down there and married a Chilean wife. The
citizens of his adopted country, who had some difficulty in pronouncing
his name but were impressed by his frequent dispkys of patriotic sentiment,
christened him General Viva-la-Pafria .
11 The Antarctic dispute is a long and complex story in itself. It has been
ably treated in The Antarctic Problem by E. W. Hunter Christie. (London,
1951.)
Chapter Nine
Vina del Mar
VALPARAISO is STILL the second city and the first port of
Chile, but its maritime supremacy has not passed altogether
unchallenged. San Antonio, farther down the coast to the
south, has far better rail and road connections with Santiago.
Though it is still only a small place of not more than five thousand
inhabitants, it may one day so its supporters declare outgrow its
rival. Valparaiso is dearly resolved to maintain its position at all
costs, and the portenos recently showed what they could do by
snatching from the upstart the site for the oil refinery which Chile
proposes to build for the processing of her newly tapped oil re
sources in Tierra del Fuego. So San Antonio makes but slow head
way, whilst her neighbours, which aspire to be little more than
pleasant holiday resorts, continue to grow apace; Tejas Verdes,
with its comfortable colonial-style hosteria, Santo Domingo, still
more recently built but already widely popular, Llolleo, whose
name proclaims an older Indian origin, Cartagena, Las Cruces, El
Quisco, Algarrobo and a dozen lesser places.
But it is Vina, del Mar, farther to the north of Chile s growing
riviera, which still remains the largest and most fashionable water
ing-place in the country. Those who can afford to do so, now prefer
to live in Vina and to travel in daily to their work in Valparaiso
on the far side of die broad bay. "With its fashionable villas and
hotels, its smart shops, its casino, race-course, parks and gardens,
Vina is certainly a more attractive pkce to live in than the cramped
and crazy alleys of the picturesque port. Vina is the great weekend
and holiday resort of the capital. Santiago society migrates thither
in the season the President himself possesses a villa perched on a
diff overlooking the sea and mingles with the wealthy Argentine
tourists who come to have their fling at the casino. Some of the
VINA DEL MAR
larger houses, built with the fortunes made in the nitrate boom,
are now too rambling and old-fashioned to serve as private re
sidences and not a few have been converted into private schools.
Men come to Valparaiso to work and make money; to Vina, to
relax and amuse themselves and to have their children educated.
Half way between Valparaiso and Vina, rising sheer above the
corniche road and enjoying a superb view over die bay, stands the
group of neo-Gothic buildings which compose the Santa Maria
Technical University. By what ingenious resource of hagiolatry,
we wonder, could Our Lady be invoked as the patron saint of
electronics, or Mary Magdalene as the mother of steam turbines?
But the mystery has a different explanation. The Technical Univer
sity (it is really more of a technical high school than a university
proper) is strictly secular in origin and inspiration. It is named
after its founder, Federico Santa Maria, one of the most remarkable
profiteer-philanthropists the world has known. 1 He was born in
Valparaiso in the middle of the last century, and after engaging in a
number of commercial ventures in Chile with differing measures
of success, managed to amass sufficient fortune to permit him, to
realize the ambition of his life a voyage round the world and
then to settle in Paris where he proceeded to speculate on a vast
scale on the international sugar market. Santa Maria s first ventures
were disastrous and brought him to the verge of ruin. With exem
plary diligence, he set about a systematic study of sugar production
and marketing, and attained so expert a knowledge in this field
that he was at length able to forecast the size and value of the year s
crop with infallible accuracy and plan his financial operations
accordingly. One by one his rivals went down before him., the
most formidable of them committing suicide at the dose of the duel
which ended in his own ruin and the amassing of a fortune of
95 million francs by his rival Santa Maria then turned his attention
to the United States market but his speculations there proved ill-
timed and caused him to lose the* greater part of his wealth. The
irrepressible speculator then returned to the field which he had so
thoroughly made his own, staging a spectacular come-back with
the purchase of 15 million sacks, forcing the price of sugar up to
three or four times its customary price and once more winning
137
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
immense gains which caused him to be denounced in the Chamber
of Deputies as the most dangerous and shameless profiteer the
French housewife had ever suffered from. The Chilean millionaire
remained unruffled by the storm. He continued to live the modest
life of a recluse. Spurning such new-fangled devices as telephones
or filing systems, he went on living in his attic in the Rue de
FOpera, using his bed as a desk and scribbling his letters on the
backs of old envelopes to economize paper.
In 1920 Santa Maria sat down to make his will. First of all, he
made the astonishing claim, *I wish to assure my fellow citizens that
I have devoted the last thirty years of my life exclusively to altruism.*
Having no family of his own and no expensive tastes or vices to
gratify, he had reached the conclusion that it is the duty of the
wealthy classes to contribute to the intellectual development of the
proletariat . To this end he bethought himself of the penniless folk
of his native town, living out their wretched lives in shacks perched
on the red hillside overlooking the bay of Valparaiso, and resolved
to found a college where they could send their sons to be trained
in the technical skills and sciences which the country so badly
needed if she was to raise her people to a higher standard of life.
It was all to be free absolutely free. Not a penny is spent today
by the students of the Technical University; everything is pro
vided without charge, from the food they eat to the clothes they
wear, and even to their toothpaste and the blacking for their shoes.
The equipment used in the university is so good that many well-
to-do families are gkd to have their children accepted as pupils.
Perhaps they may learn Santa Maria s secret there; how to reconcile
the careers of profiteer and benefactor, how to devote one s life
exclusively to altruism* and yet become a multi-millionaire.
Santa Maria entrusted the realization of his great project to Don
Agustfn Edwards, the celebrated banker-diplomat. Despite the
francophile connections of its founder, and the English descent and
associations of its first chairman, the Technical University was
fashioned according to neither French nor British ideas. Edwards
was an admirer of Germany. Nineteen German lecturers and pro
fessors were engaged as the nucleus for the teaching staff, afid the
coEege was provided with German equipment. Technical educa-
138
VINA DEL MAR
tion in Chile was thereby given a pronounced pro-German trend
which not even the collapse of Hitler s Germany and the tre
mendous growth of United States industrial power have altogether
arrested.
English influence in Chile has been more marked in the schools
than in the universities, and many Chilean parents today are proud
to feel that their children are given what at least claims to be an
English education in one of the numerous private schools claiming
to be run on English lines. 2 Some of these British Schools* are
frankly bogus and exploit the label solely as a fee-catching device.
Others have done notable work in bringing British and Chileans
together, training Chilean boys in values not always conspicuous
in the life of their country, and winning the life-long friendship of
generations of Chileans for Great Britain. Bernardo O Higgins
was a great admirer of English education, and as early as 1818 we
find a Guernseyman, Henry Richard, employed as professor of
English and French at the Instituto Nacional in Santiago. The poor
man s task must have been beset by pitfalls, for the bigoted opposi
tion of conservative and clerical circles to any new branch of
learning went to extraordinary lengths. Capt Basil Hal of the
Royal Navy, who visited Chile a year or two after Richard s
appointment, tells how a young Chilean lady who had begun to
receive French lessons mentioned this disgraceful fact to her father
confessor who thereupon refused to give her absolution until she
had maided her ways. The girl s father took the priest to task for
this intolerance, and the dispute grew so violent that Bernardo
O Higgins himself had to intervene and rebuke the priest for in
fringing the liberty of education guaranteed in the new constitution.
The priest saw himself obliged to leave a country where pious
ignorance was so grossly undervalued.
At about this time the services of Mr James Thompson were
engaged for the fee of 100 pesos monthly to introduce the Lan
castrian system into Chile. Thompson, who combined his educa
tional interests with the zealous distribution of bibles on behalf of
the British and Foreign Bible Society, performed the same duties
139
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
in the Argentine and kter in Peru, and started flourishing schools
first in Santiago and then in Valparaiso. A Lancastrian Society was
formed, O Higgins heing an enthusiastic member, and Thompson
was made an honorary citizen of the Republic of Chile in apprecia
tion of his work. After the fall of the Supreme Director, the Lan
castrian Society, too, seems to have entered into a decline and it
was left to others to familiarize Chile with English educational
methods. The British merchant community in Valparaiso soon
found the need for a school which could provide a good Englisji
education for its sons, and founded one which still lives on today,
after nearly one hundred years of chequered existence, under the
name of the Mackay School.
Peter Mackay, the first headmaster of this school, was one of
those stalwart characters who leave their mark on a country by an
uncompromising refusal to conform to its ways. To the day of
his death, after nearly fifty years* residence in Chile, old Mackay
refused to acquire more than a smattering of the Spanish tongue.
His job, as he saw it, was to teach English and the English outlook
to the children of the British community, and as time went by, to
a growing number of Chilean children as well. His own subject
was mathematics. But he shook the English merchants by giving
their boys a grounding in the classics as well. He shook them still more
wlien lie decided to back one of his assistant masters in a dispute
with the more narrow-minded parents over a religious issue. The
master in question was Mr Thomas Somerscales, a naval school
master from Yorkshire, who had fallen ill at Valparaiso and stayed
on after his convalescence to practise his profession. Somerscales
chief interest in life, however, was painting. He was a fine artist
and a prolific one, and today there are few wealthy Chilean families
with any pretension to artistic taste which cannot boast of a Somer
scales* or two in their homes. Somerscales remained almost unknown
until his picture Off Valparaiso* won instant and tremendous
popularity at the Royal Academy. To judge from his tall and
elegantly attired figure and the grave eyes and carefully trimmed
beard which we see in his photographs, Somerscales had little of
the Bohemian about him. But he must have possessed some streak
of unconventionality which troubled the strait-laced folk of the
140
VINA DEL MAR
British community. Though a man of unimpeachable principles
and conduct, Somerscales for some reason or other refused to open
his morning class with the public recital of the Lord s Prayer which
was then customary. Indignant parents protested, and though
Somerscales compromised to the extent of allowing his boys to
attend prayers in a colleague s class-room, they insisted that one
who failed to repeat the Lord s Prayer with his class was no fit
person to have the charge of boys and should be instantly dismissed.
The crisis deepened. Other members of the staff, including Mackay
himself, stood by Somerscales and finally broke away from the
tutelage of the school committee to run a school on their own lines.
We should hardly call these lines revolutionary today. Yet, in one
respect at least, they might be regarded as such. In addition to
mastering the required curriculum, the pupils of Mackay s school
were inculcated with a love of football. Wherever they wait after
leaving school to Coquimbo, Iquique, Santiago, Valparaiso
football clubs sprang up in their wake. Thanks to their enthusiasm,
Chile came to acquire a national sport to rival the traditional cmca
dance and the various forms of gambling in popularity. If Chile is
a nation of football fas today, it is in no small measure due to the
pioneering work of the Mackay School of Valparaiso. Some pupils
seem to have grown up to prefer the game of politics to that of
football, for the school has produced at least four heads of stat&~
Presidents Leguia, Billinghurst and Pierok of Peru, and Ballivian of
Bolivia. But so far, Mackay has given no President to Chile.
Perhaps football is considered a more worth while gift.
With the coming of summer, the schoolrooms empty, hotels
and boarding-houses fill to overflowing, furnished villas fetch
fabulous rente, and the leisured and wealthy of Santiago prepare to
spend another season at Vina, The season will have been already
heralded by the election of die Rsina <fe la Primivera the Queen of
Spring in which banks, shipping-offices, shops and sporting-dubs
present their candidates and even the schools said round teams to
invade each other s class-rooms and canvass votes for their com
peting beauties. The Queens are not chosen for their good looks
141
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
alone; they must also be of amiable disposition and attractive per
sonality simptltica, in short. That the Chilean woman is simpdtica
is generally admitted everywhere in South America, and the
narratives of travellers in past centuries have left us the same
testimony. The women are remarkably handsome,* wrote John
Byron, 3 grandfather of the poet, in the middle of the eighteenth
century, and very extravagant in their dress. Their hair, which is as
thick as is possible to be conceived, they wear of a vast length,
without any other ornament upon the head than a few flowers;
they plait it behind in four plaits, and twist them round a bodkin,
at each end of which is a diamond rose. Their shifts are all over
lace, as is a little tight waistcoat they wear over them. Their petti
coats are open before, and kp over, and have commonly three
rows of very rich kce of gold or silver. In winter, they have an
upper waistcoat of cloth of gold or silver, and in summer, of the
finest linen, covered all over with the finest Flanders kce. The
sleeves of these are immensely wide. Over all this, when the air is
cool, they have a mantle, which is only of bays, of the finest colours,
round which there is abundance of kce. When they go abroad, they
wear a veil, which is so contrived that one eye is only seen. Their
feet are very small, and they value themselves as much upon it as
the Chinese do. Thek shoes are pinked and cut; their stockings silk,
with gold and silver clocks; and they love to have the end of an
embroidered garter hang a little below the petticoat. Their breasts
and shoulders are very naked; and, indeed, you may easily discern
their whole shape by their manner of dress. They have fine sparkling
eyes, ready wit, a great deal of good nature and a strong disposition
to gallantry.
The ladies of Byron s acquaintance belonged, we may be sure,
to the colonial aristocracy of the day. His observant eye does not
seem to have alighted on peasant beauties or bright-eyed charmers
amongst the hacendado s many servants. For beauty, in Chile, is not
only skin-deep, but class-deep as well. Good looks seem to be the
monopoly of the aristocracy and of the middle-class population
of die towns where the proportion of European blood is highest.
The mestizo, woman is generally plain enough, and often frankly
ugly, as a visit to any crowded quinta, where modest folk gather to
142
VINA DEL MAR
enjoy themselves eating, drinking, singing and dancing, will show.
The talent-spotter would have to hunt long and earnestly before
he could find a potential queen amongst the girls of the quintets,
the haciendas and the small market-towns.
For most Chileans, Villa s chief attraction lies in its casino.
Gambling has always been one of the dominating passions of the
Chilean character. The staggering sum of five thousand million
pesos is estimated to change hands round the gaming-tables every
year not far off half the total value of Chile s budget. Much of this
wealth must be laid to the account of foreigners, Argentines mostly,
attracted to Chile by the lure of beauty and booty . But for the
Chileans, gambling is the honouring of a national tradition, almost
the satisfaction of a religious rite. There are few carloads of eager
gamblers who set out from Santiago for their weekend fling at
Vina who do not stop on the road at Lo Vasquez to leave die peso
demanded by custom or superstition at the wayside shrine popularly
reputed to look with special indulgence upon those addicted to the
vice.
But is not all life something of a gamble, specially for those who
live in a land where sudden earthquakes may at any moment rob
them of all worldly possessions, and even of life itself? Time and
again, Valparaiso and other towns have been devastated by sudden
disaster. Yet life begins again amongst the ruins, and fresh fortunes
are striven for and acquired. In the great earthquake of 1906, three
thousand people lost their lives and many times that number were
injured. Yet it was only one of many others, and there is little
reason to expect it may be the last. The effect on the national
temperament of an environment where sudden destruction by
earthquake is a constant possibility has still to be sdentifically
assessed. It is something which the most sensitive seismograph is
unable to record.
There is another factor, too, which gives logic to the gambler s
frenzy. What is the use of saving in a country whose currency is
steadily depredating? Even the best of husbands and the fondest of
fathers (and not all Chileans are good husbands and fond fathers)
143
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
coiddnotbeexpectedtosaveupHspesoswlienKeknowsforacertainty
that they will be worth less and less every year until one day they
are left with virtually no value at all. In such conditions, thrift is
folly, not virtue. If he does decide to invest, the Chilean will place
his money in some enterprise which promises immediate and
generous returns, in much the same spirit as he would lay his stake
on the gaming table, or pay out money for a lottery ticket. He
makes his investment only as a speculation. If he has no ready cash
to invest, he will borrow, reckoning that he will be able to make
high and speedy enough returns on his layout to pay back the
capital and its exorbitant rate of interest to the lender, who has, in
all probability, himself borrowed the sum advanced and so is
under similar obligations. The Chilean, from the humblest to the
most exalted, lives on credit, buoyed up constantly by the hope
of sudden fortune coming to frtm as the result of lucky speculation.
Exactly tow this immense, interlocking, nation-wide system of
credit, with ramifications stretching down into every branch of
public and private life, is kept in being, and exactly what its im
plications are for the national economy, must be left for the econo
mist to analyse. Some things are dear enough. The vast sums of
money tied up in gaming tables and lotteries remain as idle as their
changing owners. They cannot be turned to account for the pro
ductive investment so badly needed by an undeveloped country
like Chile. As for the holidaymakers who throng the Vina Casino
die smart businessmen from Santiago in perpetual pursuit of elusive
fortune we are almost inclined to pity them for choosing such a
busman s holiday.
NOTES
1 An intCTestirig account of Santa. Maria s life and personality is given in
Enrique Bunster*s collection of essays, Motin en Punta Arenas (Santiago 1950).
2 British-Chilean schools are to be found throughout the whole country,
inducting towns so far apart as Antofagasta, Conception, Temuco and
144
NOTES
Punta Arenas. Though one or two, like the well-known Grange School at
Santiago, are deservedly flourishing, the smaller ones find the double
strain of conforming to the Chilean State examination system whilst keeping
as far as possible to an English curriculum an exhausting one. The British
Council has done valuable work in providing English teachers for these
schools and in helping them through their financial difficulties.
3 Narrative of the Honjohn Byron, containing an account of the Great Distresses
suffered on the coast of Patagonia (London 1778). Perhaps his grandfather s
observations were responsible for the poet s once toying with a plan, to
buy a principality in one of the South American States Chile or Peru*.
At all events, his descriptions of storm and shipwreck in Don Juan show
the influence of John Byron s narrative.
Chapter Ten
Robinson Crusoe s Island
SOME 360 MILES west of Valparaiso lies a group of three islands
called after thek discoverer, Juan Fernandez. Their feme is
both gastronomic and literary, for they are the home of the
succulent crayfish which are the chief delicacy of the Santiago and
Valparaiso restaurants and once formed the main sustenance of a
castaway sailor, Alexander Selkirk of Largo, whose adventures,
transformed by the genius of Defoe, have given us the immortal
story of Robinson Crusoe.
To their discoverer, the Spanish navigator Juan Fernandez, the
islands brought little fame and indeed were nearly the cause of his
undoing. He had come upon them, his contemporaries at first de
clared, by diabolic art*. (Later generations of Spaniards whose
homes were burnt to the ground in raids launched from this
island base by English buccaneers may well have agreed.) In actual
fact, Fernandez* discovery proved of incalculable value to the remote
and poverty-stricken Spanish colony of Chile, cut off by hundreds
of miles of desert and scores of leagues of treacherous waters from
the centre of vice-regal power in Peru. Owing to the prevalence
of adverse winds and currents, the whole length of the Chilean-
Peruvian coast, ships sailing southwards from Callao to Valparaiso
would take anything up to half a year to reach port. They hugged
the shore, often casting anchor at night and sailing only by day,
and battling to round each point. 1 It was the great merit of Juan
Fernandez that he rightly believed that, by sailing due west from
the coast of Peru and then veering south, he could avoid what we
now call the Humboldt current and reach Chile with an immense
saving of time. His surmise proved correct, and it was whilst
putting it to the test that the Spanish pilot first caught sight of the
peaks of the islands which came to bear his name. Having reached
146
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
Chile in little more than thirty days an unheard of event in those
times/ wrote the distinguished navigators Jorge Juan and Antonio
de Ulloa, who were later sent to make a thorough survey of the
islands, *it began to be rumoured that he was given to witchcraft
(a reputation which he ever after retained). With this rumour and
the confirmation of his ship s papers, all began to persuade them
selves that he navigated with diabolic art, and there arose a demand
that the Inquisition should look into his conduct. So he showed
them his log-book and they were satisfied with it and were con
vinced that the reason why all did not make this voyage with such
speed was because they did not resolve to leave die coast as he had
done. And from that time onwards, his method of navigation
was established/ Not only had Juan Fernandez added another
possession to the Spanish crown, he had brought Chile within
relatively easy reach of Lima and thereby ensured the steady flow
of immigrants and supplies which were essential to its develop
ment.
Juan Fernandez was less successful in his attempts to colonize the
island and grow rich from its abundant fisheries, the breeding of
goats, and the sale of the skins and oil of its seals. For reasons
which remain obscure to us, he abandoned the enterprise, evacuated
the island and left it once more in die sole possession of the seals
which thronged its shores in such numbers as to excite the wonder
of later travellers and the ruthless cupidity of hunters who made
their fortunes through the lucrative trade and finished by virtually
exterminating them from these haunts. Multitudes of these seals
come out on to the shore and rocks/ wrote die Jesuit priest and savant
Father Resales, and lie there bellowing like calves, nor are they
easy to Trill with a stick or knife, diough they can be easly dis
patched by a light blow on the snout. They like to follow human
beings around and try to bite diem, shoving and dragging them
selves along with the help of two flippers which they use like
arms, sometimes pursuing and sometimes tornmg tail and fleeing.
Hie Spaniards do not eat them, but die Indians do, for though their
flesti is so greasy, it on be dried to give steaks which are edible and
tasty when one is once accustomed to them.* Most remarkable of all
were die sea-lions which. Falter Resales tells us, *had diis rarity
147
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
about them, that not only are they so much larger than the others,
but when they are on the rocks they distil and exude great quantities
of oil until they grow thin, whereupon they go back into the sea
and eat of the multitude of fishes that are there and so grow fat
and come ashore again and stretch themselves out too bloated to
move, then they distil oil again and grow thin. Thus, when this
island was inhabited, the Spaniards drew much profit from collect
ing oil and sending it to Peru, and they extracted it with ease, for
all they had to do was to hang a quarter of seal s flesh in the sun,
and it would dry and distil oil; and in the rocks they would make
grooves so as to catch the oil and drain it off into great vats which
are still to be seen in that place. And they called those beasts oil-seals,
for their flesh dissolves into oil which is a fine and excellent fuel
for lamps.*
The fur of the seals, too, was highly valued, and used for covering
saddles and. making hats for the fine gentlemen of Lima, which,
however, had an embarrassing tendency to emit an untimely smell
of the sea* in wet weather. Later, when the hunting of the seals
was organized on a vast scale, enormous quantities of skins were
shipped to Europe, one cargo alone reaching London incredible
as it may seem consisting of a million skins. In the early days,
the seals crowded the shores of Juan Fernandez in such numbers
that sailors had to beat them out of their way with sticks before
they couH step ashore. At night, the bleating of the young and the
deeper bellowing of the older ones was so deafening as to make all
hope of sleep impossible. The seals were awkward and harmless
enough except at their whelping season, and fell an easy prey to
the dogs. "The dogs live on their flesh/ wrote Juan and Ulloa,
*and after killing them, skin them with great agility. First, they fly
at their throats, choke them to death, then bite away the skin aU
around the seal s neck and when this is done they seize hold of the
head and putting their paws between the skin and the flesh wrench
the former away until they have completely skinned their prey.*
The island dogs were themselves a curious phenomenon. They
had originally been introduced into the island to keep down the
rats which, brought by the first ships, had multiplied with disastrous
fecundity, and Juan Fernandez* goats which had also now increased
148
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
in such numbers with the result that all vegetation within their
reach had been devoured and the fat herds offered one inducement
more to sea-weary buccaneers to call into Juan Fernandez and
replenish their larders. Yet so great was the desolating stillness and
silence of this island (except for the nocturnal bellowing of the
seals) that as more than one solitary castaway was to do the
dogs had found the sound of their own voices strange and frighten
ing. The dogs of this island have this strangeness, Juan and Ulloa
tell us, that they are never heard to bark. Even when they are
caught and taken on board they do not bark until they are placed
amongst other animals and begin to imitate them.. And this they do
belatedly, as if learning to do what may be natural to others but
strange to themselves/ So, in turn, the island was overrun by a
plague of dogs until the governor mustered the colonists in an
effort to exterminate them. Such was the natural fertility of the
place that all life could thrive and multiply there except for the
handful of human beings who fought out feuds and battles in its
solitude.
After the death of Juan Fernandez, the island passed into the
hands of the Jesuits. Father Rosales, then Provincial of the Order,
set about trying to attract settlers back to it *so that Religion might
profit from the resources it has to offer*. But it was not religion,
but die heretical and dreaded English buccaneers who were to
profit. First came Capt Bartholomew Sharp (whose name the
scared colonists on the mainland corrupted into Schapi or Charqui)
in i68o. 2 His visit was but a fleeting one. After sacking Coquimbo,
he withdrew to Juan Fernandez and was still sheltering in tie little
bay known today as Puerto Ingles, whoa an enemy sail was sighted.
Capt Sharp weighed anchor with all possible speed, leaving behind
an Indian member of the crew called William who was out hunting
in the woods. Some years later, another English buccaneer putting
into Juan Fernandez to water and revictual found him still living
there and describes how, when the Indian s powder had been ex
hausted, the castaway had made parts of his musket into harpoon,
149
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
spear and fish-hook, by means of which he supported himself
hunting and fishing. The man who discovered William, we learn,
was another Indian called Robin. The name already foreshadows
the story with which we are familiar.
The castaway whose adventures served Defoe as the real model
for Ms Robinson Crusoe was, however, undoubtedly Alexander
Selkirk or Selcraig, a native of Largo in Fyfeshire, and mate of the
Cinque Ports commanded by Capt Stradling who, in 1704, landed
him on the island at his own request with a modest store of supplies
as the result of a violent altercation. Four years and four months
later Selkirk was rescued from his voluntary exile by Capt Rogers
of the Duke. Selkirk s adventures on the desert island later achieved
some celebrity and came to the ears of Sir Richard Steele and then
of Defoe. A few years later, in 1719, Rolinson Crusoe was published.
Though its title-page describes the novel as the strange and sur
prising adventures of one Robinson Crusoe who lived twenty-one
years marooned on a desert island near the mouth of the great river
Orinocco, there is no doubt that it was Selkirk s narrative which
provided him with the picturesque setting for his hero s exploits.
The account which Selkirk himself gave his rescuers of his life as a
castaway was as follows 3 :
c He had with him Ms Cloaths and Bedding, with a Firelock,
some Powder, Bullets, and Tobacco, a Hatchet, a Knife, a
Ketde, a Bible, some practical pieces, and his mathematical
Instruments and Books. He diverted and provided for himself
as well as he could, but, for the first eight months, he had
much ado to bear up against Melancholy and the Terror of
being left alone in such a desolate Place.
*He built two Huts with Pimiento Trees, covered them with
long grass, and lined them with the Skins of Goats, which he
killed with his Gun as he wanted, so long as his Powder lasted,
which was but a Pound; and that being near spent, he got Fire
by rubbing two sticks of Pimiento wood together upon his
knee. In the lesser Hut at some distance from the other, he
dressed his Victuals, and in the larger he slept, and employed
himself in Reading, Singing Psalms, and Praying; so that he
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ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
said he was a better Christian while in this Solitude, or than,
he was afraid, he should ever be again.
*At first he never ate anything till Hunger constrained him.,
partly for Grief and partly for Want of Bread and Salt; nor
did he go to Bed till he could watch no longer; the Pimento
Wood, "which burnt very clear, served him both for Firing
and Candle, and refreshed him with its fragrant Smell.
6 He might have had Fish enough, but could not eat them
for Want of Salt, because they occasioned a Looseness, except
Crawfish, which are there as large as our Lobsters, and very-
good; these he sometimes boiled, and at other times broiled,
as he did his Goats Flesh, of which he made very good Broth,
for they are not so rank as ours; he kept an Account of Five
Hundred that he killed, while there, and caught as many more,
which he marked on the Ear and let go.
*When his Powder failed, he took them by Speed of Foot,
for his way of Living and continual Exercise of Walking and
Running cleared him of all gross Humours, so that he ran
with wonderful Swiftness through the Woods, and up the
Rocks and Hills, as we perceived, when we employed TIJTB to
catch Groats for us. We had a Bull-dog, which we sent with
several of our nimblest runners, to help him, in catching Goats,
but he distanced and tired both the Dog and the Men, catched
the Goats and brought them to us on his Back.
He told us, that his Agility in pursuing a Goat had once
like to have cost him his Life; he pursued it with so much
Eagerness, that he catched hold of it on the Brink of a Precipice,
of which he was not aware, the Bushes having hid it from Mm;
so that he fell with the Goat down the Precipice a great Height,
and was so stunned and bruised with the Fall, that he narrowly
escaped with his life, and when he came to his Senses, found
the Goat dead under him. He lay there about twenty-four
Hours, and was scarce able to crawl to his Hut, which
was about a Mile distant, or to stir abroad again in Ten
Days.
*He came at last to relish his Meat well enough without
Salt or Bread, and, in the Season, had plenty of good Turnips,
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
which had been sowed there by Captain Dampier s Men, and
have now overspread some Acres of Ground. He had enough
of good Cabbage from the Cabbage Trees, and seasoned his
Meat with the Fruit of the Pimiento Trees, which is the same
as the Jamaica Pepper and smells deliriously. He found there
also a black Pepper called Malagita, which was very good to
expel Wind, and against Griping of the Guts.
"He soon wore out all his Shoes and Cloaths by running
through the "Woods; and, at last, being forced to shift with
out them, his Feet became so hard, that he ran everywhere
without Annoyance, and it was some Time before he
could wear Shoes, after we found him; not being used to any
so long, his Feet swelled, when he came first to wear them
again.
After he had conquered his Melancholy, he diverted himself
sometimes by cutting his Name on the Trees, and the Time
of his being left and Continuance there. He was at first pestered
with cats and Rats, that had bred in great Numbers from
some of each species which had got ashore from the ships that
put in there to wood and water. The Rats gnawed his Feet
and Cloaths while asleep, which obliged him to cherish the
Cats with his Goats* flesh; by which many of them became so
tame, that they would lie about him in Hundreds and soon
delivered him: from the Rats. He likewise tamed some Kids
and, to divert himself^ would now and then sing and dance
with his Cats; so that by the Care of Providence, and Vigour
of his Youth, bring now about thirty years old, he came at
last to conquer all the Inconveniences of his Solitude, and to
Toe very easy.
* When his Cloaths wore out, he made himself a coat and
Cap of Goat-skins, which he stitched together with Etde
Thongs of the same, that he cut with his Knife. He had no
other Needle but a Nail, and when his Knife was wore to the
Back, he made others, as well as he could, of some Iron Hoops
that were left ashore, which he beat thin and ground upon
Stones. Having some Linnen Cloth by him, he sewed himself
some Shirts with a Nail, and stitched them with the Worsted
152
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
of his old Stockings, which tie pulled out on Purpose. He had
his last shirt on when we found him in die Island. - . /
Not the least remarkable and gratifying feature of Alexander
Selkirk s adventures was that he returned to England a relatively
wealthy man. The Duke had the good fortune to capture a rich
prize on her homeward voyage and arrived in England laden with
booty. The wealth which flowed from the South Seas seemed
fabulous indeed a veritable El Dorado to be had by any buccaneer
or merchant adventurer with daring and imagination enough to
claim it. A year before the Dukes return to England, John Blunt
had begun to float his famous South Sea Company which, en
trusted with a monopoly of trading rights from the Orinocco river
to Cape Horn, and from Cape Horn to the Behring Straits, swdled
within one year to a monstrous and fictitious affluence rivalling
that of the Bank of England, It was even mooted that Gibraltar
should be exchanged for some port in Chile or Peru. Covetous
eyes not British alone were turned upon Juan Fernandez whose
importance in the straggle for the possession of strategic bases and
world trade routes was now being realized for the first time.
In the meantime, Juan Fernandez, despite the disadvantage that
it possessed no really good anchorage for shipping* was becoming
a regular de facto base for English buccaneers operating against the
coast of Chile and Peru. In 1719, two privateers, the Speedwel and
the Success, commanded by Capt Shelvocke and Capt John Clipper-
ton, set sail from Plymouth bound for die Pacific. The SpeedweTs
voyage was inauspicious; but its very misfortunes, as those of
Alexander Selkirk but a few years before, were to enrich our
literature with one of its immortal themes. Tossed and buffeted by
the storms that constantly beset every ship that braves die rounding
of Cape Horn, the Speedwel threatened to founder, Simon Hadey,
her superstitious mate, shot a black albatross that had long been
following tie vessel and, he thought, exercising a baleful influence
over it. But die perils and dangers of the voyage increased, and
though Hatley was spared the fete of the Ancient Mariner and
survived with most of his shipmates to harry the coast of Chile,
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CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
even there misfortune pursued them. After several members of
the crew had been lost through encounters with the inhabitants of
the mainland, the Speedwel, like her sister-ship the Success, put in
to water and refit in Juan Fernandez. Here the ship was surprised
by a sudden squall and wrecked and the crew of seventy found
themselves castaways on Crusoe s island. At first it seemed that
this disaster would put an end to their roving life for ever, and that
their only hope now lay in the chance arrival of some friendly ship.
"We used to pass the time in the evening/ Shelvocke wrote later, 4
in making a great fire before my tent, round which my officers
in general assembled, occupying themselves quietly in roasting
crayfish in the embers; sometimes bewailing our unhappy state
and sinking into despair; at times feeding themselves up with hopes
that something might yet be done to set us afloat again/ Gradually
they discovered that the island had its compensations, specially for
those whose stomachs were not too squeamish, though few ac
quired the surprising deftness of their predecessor Selkirk. There
would have been no want of goats could we in all respects have
conveniently followed them, Shelvocke admits, and cats are so
numerous that there is hardly taking a step without starting one;
they are in size and colour exactly the same with our house cats;
those whose stomachs preferred dieir flesh for food have assured
me that they found more substantial relief from one meal of it
than from four or five of seal or fish/ Such was now the fate of
the animals -with whom Selkirk had once frolicked to beguile his
solitude.
Shelvocke soon set about the construction of a boat to replace
the wrecked Speedwel y but the work was rendered difficult by the
mutinous attitude of the carpenter who suddenly turning short
upon me, as I stood by him, he swore an oath and said he would
not strike another stroke upon it, that he truly would be nobody s
slave, and thought himself now on a footing with myself. This
unreasonable exclamation,* the Captain added somewhat com
placently, provoked me to use him somewhat roughly with my
cane.* After five months, however, the sloop was completed and
christened The Recovery. Then, provisioning their new craft with
fruit, barrels of salted eels, and sixty gallons of seal-oil, they set off
154
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
once again to raid the mainland. The Speedwel eventually reached
England after capturing a rich Spanish prize, the Jesus Maria, and
completing the circumnavigation of the globe. But Capt Shelvocke,
who had faced a mutiny of his crew on Juan Fernandez, left eleven
wretched Englishmen and thirteen Indians and negroes to their
fate on the island. What became of them is not known. It seems
probable that they must have been hunted down by the crew of
some Spanish man-of-war and sent to languish in the gaols of the
Inquisition in Lima, The Dutch Admiral, Jakob de Roggewein,
visiting the island some years later, found no trace of human beings
>nly a few horses and the mute, savage dogs.
The next British seamen to reach Juan Fernandez had a still more
terrible Odyssey. In 1738, when war had broken out once again
between England and Spain, His Majesty s Government conceived
the plan of harrying the foe in her Pacific possessions and entrusted
Commodore George Anson of the Centurion with command of a
squadron destined for this task. Owing to the endless delays and
corruption of the naval administration of those days, the squadron
was not ready to sail from Portsmouth until eighteen months later,
by which time Spain had equipped a fleet and stationed it off
Madeira to intercept the British. The Spanish Admiral, however,
missed the enemy off Madeka and only came up with the British
warships as they were attempting to round the formidable Cape
Horn. A storm of exceptional violence dispersed both fleets, and
not a single Spanish vessel succeeded in altering the Pacific. The
British, thanks to superior seamanship, were able to bring three
warships the Centurion, the Gloucester and the Wager and two
transports round the Cape. The Wager, however, was wrecked
amongst the islands of the Alacaloof Indians. The Centurion escaped
this fate but her crew was so decimated by scurvy that she was
litde more than, a great floating coffin by the time she sighted tie
verdant hilltops of Juan Fernandez on June 10, 1740. By a angular
piece of good fortune, a powerful Spanish man-of-war had left
the island only four days before. So complete was the exhaustion
of the Centurions crew that they had not the strength to berth the
155
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
vessel and were only saved by their captain s resourcefulness in
sending the ship s boat ashore with the few able-bodied sailors to
bring back fresh greenstuff to relieve the torments of their com
rades. Even so, a dozen members of the crew died within sight of
the land and its sparkling streams. The plight of the Gloucester was
just as desperate. She took one month to make the land, for only
three members of the crew including the captain were fit enough
to handle her.
For three months Anson rested in Juan Fernandez whilst his men
slowly recovered their strength and nourished themselves on fish,
watercress, celery and the radishes which the pious and farsighted
Father Rosales had introduced into the island as specially beneficial
in the cure of scurvy. What would the worthy Jesuit have thought
had he been able to guess that they would help to save the lives
of buccaneers and heretics ! Soon the ships* carpenters were busy
refitting the ships, and in the following September Anson was
ready to launch his incursions against the mainland. After burning
Paita and sacking its warehouses containing a million and a half
pesos* worth of silks, blockading Valparaiso and reducing the entire
coastal trade to devastation and chaos, the Centurion returned to
England on June 15, 1744, after an absence of three years and nine
months, laden with honour and booty. 5
Anson*s exploits on the Pacific coast of South America aroused
astonishment, indignation and dismay not only amongst the un
fortunate victims whose home and livelihood had been devastated,
but amongst die Spanish authorities in general. So long as the
islands remained a defenceless and inviting haven to any would-be
buccaneer, the lives and commerce of the population of the Spanish
mainland would remain in constant danger. Had it not been for
their knowledge of the existence of Juan Fernandez, the captains
of the Centurion and the Gloucester would have been obliged to
throw themselves upon the mercy of the first settlement on the
Chilean mainland if any of their crew were to be saved from dying
of thirst and disease. The islands, it was therefore decided, must be
thoroughly surveyed and fortified, and the celebrated admirals
Joge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa were sent to carry out the first of
these tasks. Then an earthquake and terrible tidal wave carried
156
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
away the governor and destroyed the fortifications which were in
the course of construction. Nevertheless, when Carteret reached
the Island a few years later in his Swallow, he espied the ramparts
of a fort and the gleam of cannon through his telescope and had
hurriedly to sail on to the inhospitable shores of Mas Afuera to
refill his water-casks.
The wars of independence brought to an end the Intermittent
hostilities between Britain and the Inhabitants of the Pacific coast.
When Lord Cochrane and Maria Graham visited the Island In 1822
as simple tourists, the romantic lady wrote enthusiastically in her
diary that Crusoe Island was the most picturesque spot I ever
saw . But few of those who subsequently set foot on the island had
the good fortune to see it In that light. Juan Fernandez was selected
by tie rulers of die new republic as a penal settlement for common
criminals and political prisoners. The caves hollowed from the
slopes above Cumberland Bay, which had appeared so charmingly
romantic to Maria Graham, were sealed with Iron bars across their
entrances and made to serve as quarters for the wretched convicts.
To those condemned to live and labour there, the romantic land
scape which recalled Gustave Dore s Illustrations to Paradise Lost
must have had the merciless grimness of an Inferno, and the all-
powerful governor of the island the aspect of the Prince of Darkness
himself.
The first governor appointed by the Republic was Francisco
Latappiat, son of a Frenchman from Toulon, who had already
distinguished himself during the wars of Independence by the an
gular ferocity of Ms disposition. He had taken part in the capture of
Valdivia under Cochrane and had butchered Ms Spanish prisoners
out of hand. Once Installed in Juan Fernandez, he issued a series of
draconian decrees aimed at regulating the whole commerce of the
Island In Ms own interest and the lives of its inhabitants according
to Ms caprice. Any person caught Infringing Ms monopoly of the
retail trade or gambling for stakes Mgher than one silver real was
sentenced to twenty-five strokes of the wMp. Another ordnance
prescribed the administration of nine strokes every week for a
157
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
month and the shaving of hair and eyehrows for any woman found
guilty of adultery. Erring husbands were punished with still heavier
floggings though they were spared the humiliation of the hair-
crop. For lesser crimes, almost equally ferocious punishments were
prescribed; a culprit who stole one of the island s myriad crayfish
received twelve strokes, a second offence brought him twenty-five,
and a third fifty strokes and four months banishment to the barren
isle of Mas Afiiera.
Latappiat s brutality finished by provoking a revolt amongst the
islanders which was only quelled by the timely arrival of a Chilean
man-of-war. He was succeeded by an Englishman, one Thomas
Sutcliffe, who had fought at Waterloo and offered his services to
O Higgins when the fortunes of the Chilean patriot were at their
lowest. Whatever his merits as a soldier may have been, Sutclifle
was not cut out for the role of governor. He astonished the Minister
of War by reporting, shortly after his arrival in the island: 1 have
foond the establishment in the best form and order. The discipline,
equipment and training of the troops are excellent. The ex-governor,
Sr. Don Francisco Latappiat, has founded an academy where I was
delighted to observe the soldiers spending their leisure hours learn
ing to read, write and do simple arithmetic. The ensign sets and
collects their work, whilst the ex-Governor corrects it. This idyllic
picture, as Sutdifie soon learnt, was far from the whole truth.
Latappiat was recalled to the mainland to answer for his misdeeds,
and his successor threw himself wholeheartedly into the task of
rebuilding and improving the little port. He constructed barracks,
a chapel, a school and a stone jetty sixty-five yards long and thirty-
eight wide, a forge and a cobbler s shop, and even a paddock a
hundred yards square for the cattle. He soon proved to be the most
energetic governor which the island had seen since, eighty years
before, Governor Navarro Santaella had been swept away and
drowned in a tidal wave whilst he slept after the fatigue of super
vising the progress of his public works. But nature was now pre
paring to deal a similar blow against the gobernador gringo. Sutdiffe
had been at his post for not more than a few months when the sea,
as if moved to wrath by this new attempt to bring a taste of civiliza
tion to the island, rose up once more to engulf the modest habita-
158
ROBINSON CRUSOE*S ISLAND
tions which composed the little town. As soon as the work of rescue
and repair was sufficiently advanced to allow him time to set pen to
paper, the governor sat down and composed the following account
of the disaster for the Minister of War:
Juan Fernandez,
March 10, 1835
Senor Ministxo,
On the twentieth day of last month, a great calamity befell
this port. I was with the officers of the garrison on the walls
of the fort of Santa Barbara giving instructions to the men
who were building the barracks, when at about half-past
eleven I noticed that the sea had risen almost tie height of the
jetty. Since I had never before seen such a high ride all the
time I had been in the island, and knowing moreover that it
was not the season for great seas, I suspected that something
unusual was about to happen and ordered the boats to be
brought up under cover. Shortly afterwards the sea began to
retire very rapidly; at the same time, with a great roar, a white
column of water shot up from the sea near this port in the
direction of Codfish Point. I therefore ordered all the boats
on the beach and some provisions from the stores to be brought
inland, but I only managed to save one of the boats, for the
sea, which had withdrawn several hundred yards, rushed in
again with siich speed that die people fleeing to tie hills in the
greatest consternation scarcely had: time to save themselves.
Only one soldier and one woman were carried away by the
sea and they were afterwards rescued without having suffered
more than a few bruises.
The sea rose as high as the chapel and submerged all the
town with the exception of the convicts* sleeping quarters
and store-hoiise, though the water rose six feet up the walls of
both of these buildings, but they had just been rebuilt and the
store-house had been strengthened with new foundations two
and a half yards in depth built of material taken from the
rains of an old chapel and other buildings. I have die satisfaction
159
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
of reporting that no provisions were lost, though almost all
the men s equipment and uniforms were. So were all the
arms, except for those of the guard, and the carpenters* tools,
as I will describe in a separate report.
The most distressing consequence is the sad plight of some
of the setders and convicts whose houses and huts were near
the shore. All these unfortunates have lost their possessions and
we have no implements with which to work the land and
scarcely the means for cutting and shaping a piece of wood.
As soon as the sea subsided, I had the boats launched and
managed to save many objects floating on the water. Most of
the next night, tongues of flame like those from a volcano
continued to shoot up from the sea where I had seen the white
column. The next day I reconnoitred the spot but could not
touch tie bottom with my sounding-line.
In all this, heaven has been very merciful to us, for had the
disaster occurred at night, few of us could have survived.
In reporting this sad event, I have the honour to remain
your obedient servant.
T. SUTCLEFEB
Perhaps it was this disaster which wrought a change in Sutdiffe s
hitherto benevolent if unbalanced character. A few weeks later we
hear of him driving the convicts and other settlers to desperation
by acts of parsimony and exploitation which recalled those of his
notorious predecessor. The workers at his disposal numbered no
more than 229 men far too small a labour force for the accom
plishment of his ambitious dreams. So holidays were abolished,
rations cut, harmless pastimes such as fishing forbidden. Nobody
but the Governor was allowed to engage in the lucrative business
of exporting sugar and brandy to the mainland. Even Father Lopez,
the island s chaplain who combined the cure of souk with the pre
paration of a delectable liqueur made from the syrup of the ponchi
lemon, was told to confine his activities to the production of wine
for the Mass. As for the other bachelors on the island, the Governor ,
(himself tin married) threatened them with heavy taxation unless
they took wife. Capt Saldes, the garrison commander, chose to
160
PLATE V
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IOBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
take a mistress instead and was exiled to a remote part of the Island
in disgrace.
On August i, 1835, the convicts rose in revolt. In his memoirs
Sutcliffe claims that Capt Saldes tried to take advantage of the
foray to pay off old scores and finish off the Governor. Saldes, for
his part, accuses the Governor of cowardice so long as danger
lasted, and then of vindictive brutality in wanting to shoot all the
prisoners out of hand when it was quelled. As a result of the
chaplain s intercession, only four of the ringleaders were led off to
execution. To such miserable straits had they been reduced that
one of them, we read from an eye-witness report, besought a few
mouthfuls of food as a last favour and casting aside die crucifix
which he held in his hands, began to devour a piece of charqui
with as much voracity as if he had not tasted food for a week .
Then, his hunger assuaged, he turned to face the firing squad.
The revolt was quelled, but the gobemador gringo was not left
long to enjoy his triumph. The next thing he knew was that his
own officers had dapped him under arrest on the charge that his
own incompetence and inhumanity had been the cause of the
trouble. In a tragi-comic gesture of despair, poor Sutclifie swallowed
a dose of arsenic but only succeeded in making himself very sick.
Then he was shipped back to the mainland and allowed to return
to England where he retired to Ashton-under-Lyme to write his
memoirs to vindicate his ill-feted governorship of Crusoe s Island.
Not many years later, Juan Fernandez was captured by a Peruvian
force, and on the ktter s withdrawal and the dispersal of the
colonists, reverted to its original condition of desert island, Only
gradually did the setders venture back. The first Chilean family to
return the Mauretos found another Crusoe already installed.
This was a countryman of Selkirk s, Archibald Osbora by name,
and he was accompanied by a youthful Friday in die pccson of a
lad of whom history records nothing beyond die feet that his
name was Johnny. Osborn himself appears to have been a rough
and violent character, with nothing of that religious and philosophic
disposition peculiar to his famous predecessor. A doctor who later
M 161
CHILIAN SCRAP-BOOK
bis body on the that it was that of a young
and robustly with die sandy hair and pigmentation
ctaracteristic of his race,
Tie family twelve in all and consisted of
the patriarch Francisco Xawer, his wife and sister, the latter s four
and married son, and two or three servants. At first, lie
castaways and the seem to have lived together in tolerable
amity, until, as the Chilean historian Vicuna Mackenna, who lias
chronicled drama, grandiloquently asserts, 7 poor Osbom
dragged by the demon of the flesh towards Ms lusts,
in encompassed Ms own destruction*. Perhaps, had the
Scot sufficiently schooled, he would have agreed
Goethe to live in paradise alone is the greatest of torments,
the contrary and more cynical view held by
Andrew Marvel:
Two paradises twere in one
To live in paradise alone.
At all events, Osbom came to be rejected by the autocratic head of
the family as undesirable company for young girk. So
he to consort with the crew of a whaler wMch had called
in to and revictoal and actually induced four members of the
to and remain with Mm on the Maud. According to
which is imcofffinned by the subsequent pro-
of the trial of the Maardio family bat is quoted by Walpole
in his in the Pmfic, Osbom and his companions agreed,
as the could not be seduced by lair means, to miirder all
the appropriate goods, wives and daughters*.
it to dire plan or to satisfy some urge
and booty t the Chilean settlers decided to get
in a moment when they knew the
to be out firewood, the Manrdtios, reinforced
by of the had gone over to their side, surrounded
die cave and his kept their arms* wounded
die left to guard them, and
in of Ac enemy. Osbom was caught and wounded in
die he could escape to die woods. A family court
162
ROBINSON CRUSOE S ISLAND
martial was then hurriedly set up, and die capttve was condemned
to death, shot, and. his body buried a tree.
The Maiirelios were not left for long in untroubled possession
of their island. The murder came to the ears of die Chilean authorities
who sent a ship to Juan Fernandez and brought the whole family
back to face trial on die mainland. Francisco Xavier and his son
Pedro were condemned to death, but dick sentence was afterwards
commuted to a short period of banishment. Pedro at least lived to
amass a considerable fortune which, after his death, was the object
of a sordid lawsuit between his son and his widow the once
beautiful Carmen whose charms had proved the undoing of poor
Osborn. And history affords one more curious mention of him.
The practice of deporting common criminals and political prisoners
to Juan Fernandez continued well into die middle of die nineteenth
century, provoking riots and mutinies amongst the convicts and
life intolerable to the respectable colonists amongst whom
Pedro Maorelio was now proud to number himself. In 1852, these
colonists, headed by one Jose Rojas and the irrepressible Pedro, rose
the governor and demanded that die island should no longer
be used as a penal settlements and that its inhabitants should be
allowed to go about their business in peace.
The colonists were not disappointed in their hope. Sixteen years
later, when BMS Topaze paid it a visit, the convicts were no more
and the island was as flourishing and peaceful as it had. ever been.
Before he left, Commodore Powell and his officers placed a com
memorative plaque dedicated to the famous castaway on tie spot
traditionally known as Selkirk s Look-Oat. Capt Joshua Slocomb,
visited die Maud in 1896 on has famous trip round the world
angk-handed in the yacht Spray, was full of praise for it too. The
totalled about forty-five. They were all healthy,
he tells us* and children all beautiful. He taught the grown-eps
to which he fried in tallow bartered from the
Faegian Indians, and received in retain ancient gold, coins salvaged
from the wreck of a Spanish vessel. 8 Slocomb sailed on ami left
to which lasted for nearly twenty
years.
It was on 9, 1915, that the became the scene for
163
CHILEAN SC1AP-BOOK
of worM liistory. The German cruiser Dresden,
in the of the Pal Hand Mauds and searching des
perately for a in which to heal tier wounds, pot into Cumber-
Bay. There five days later, a British squadron consisting of
HMS Kent, and the transport Oratna. arrived in
of the Dfesflm 9 as had the Spanish Admiral, with less
fortune, in of Anson a hundred and seventy-one years before.
AHSOE to make his repairs and slip out jest in time,
bat die German commander, abandoning all hope of escape, sent
his to the bottom of Cumberland Bay to join the rotting hulks
of other privateers of die past. But the mysterious spirit of
the still extended its protection to fiigitives and castaways.
Weber, one of the German officers, found shelter amidst the rocks
and of Joan Fernandez and lived tie solitary life of a Crusoe
the war ended. Nor could he even then escape its spdQL Though
he to Germany and married, lie found it impossible to
down. Weber returned to his island, talcing Ms wife with
Mm, and sought in the ample life of a fisherman the peace which a
battered bat already preparing for revenge, could no
him.
NOTES
1 Er cilia* who Chile by laborious route, has left us an account
of it in Ms and Gonzalez Fernandez de OrJedo, die historian of
the records *die mitigation of coasts is worse and more
of any yet known in tbese Indies, because
of Ac contrary winds wMch are always to be found
so navigation It may take more five
to ail of coast*.
a Hit stiB have a phrase, Charqvfs come to Ctoqnimbo*, to
Tine as well as the historian, may find this
a The word Buccaneer* is derived
die Fccoch from die name given to the meat-drying
act tip CM tiie island of Santo Dtomingo, where wild cattle
164
NOTES
These not only lived on prodect, but carried on
a lucrative smuggling trade in it, and kter extracted their operations to
capturing and plimdering Spanish and Now die Chilean
expression for dried meat is (a word which* md-dentally, has been,
corrupted to give us our jerked beef*}. Thus, *Charyti*s COIBC to Coqoimbo*
recalls not only the eigtteentli-ceiitijry bogy-man, bet also, by a curious
coincidence, that very dried meat which first gave die buccaneers their
name. (Noted in Adventure ami Exploration In South Amerka, London 1930.)
3 Published in the Harkian Vol. V, 1810 edition.
4 Capt George Shelvocke, A Biunfer j Voyage Rmind the WotU (London
1940).
5 Alison, A Voyage Emsnl tin WorU (London 1748).
* Sutclifie, Cmsmiana or Truth verms Fiction, m a history of&e
ofjmm FemmleZi if a retired Governor (Maochester 1883).
7 Juan & la isla fie Crusx (Santiago
1883), on which of the material for this chapter is based.
8 J. Slocomb, Sailing the World (London 1000).
Chapter Eleven
Chilian, Concepcion and the
New Industrial Zone
SOUTH OF THE CAPITAL, sfretdhmg away towards the grot
Bio-Bio river and die lands of die Aiaacaiiia&s, lie die
provinces of die Central Valey; O Higgms, Cokiiagtia,
Coric6; Talca and Linares, Made, &uble and Concepci6a. To go
is as in our nodiem lands, to set out in search of warmth
and lie way to the leads beneath dear
and rows of Lombaidy poplars and dumps of ragged
the grows longer and more lush, until
die are at lost amongst the lakes, the
damp tie drifting rain-douds, and the ery land shreds
out a of islands, glaciers and wind-swept rocks.
One however* remains constant amidst this gradual change
of and dimate; the southward sweep of die
In die arid like the northern deserts, conceals
a lucky chance may reveal Legend relates how once
an in the army, who had foul of Ms creditors
or Ms and to flee ova: tie mountains to the
Argentine, copper deposits. Thanks to this
the lucky scapegrace could pay Ms way back to
and the has borne the name of El Teaietite
Ac Others sought to exploit the mine,
bat fortune. It was not the
century that an American, William Braden,
set the of El Teniaite into one of the great
of the wodtL Hie town of SeweD, which rises in
op on die bare slopes of the ronlllera not fir from
die original in4 nmst sorely IK reckoned one of the
CHILLAN, CONCBPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
fantastic inhabited places in die world. Perhaps, in centuries
to come, when the workings have been exhausted and the town
abandoned, tourists will come to stare and speculate over its niins
as they do today on the mysterious of Machu Fichu.
The way to Sewel Ees through Rancagua, capital of the O Hig-
gins province, which was once the scene of the hero s most desperate
and costly exploit. The battle was fought in the first days of October
1814, when the Spanish counter-offensive threatened to carry all
before it. By an ironical twist of fate, O Higgms found himself
obliged to make a stand at Rancagua to save the forces of Juan Jose
Carrera, one of the three brothers who were his most arrogant and
implacable rivals for tie leadership of the independence movement,
and to hold out there against tremendous odds until relieved by
the forces of Jose Miguel Carrera, We can still see the plaza where
lie patriot troops fortified themselves and held the enemy at bay
behind the mounting barricades of dead; die church tower which
O HlggHis climbed, to scan the horizon for inteffigeiice of the
enemy s movements and signs of the relieving army. After two
days of savage fighting, when his men were nearing die end of their
strength* he caught sight of Jose Miguel s advance guard and, to his
bitter disappointment; saw it ignominioiidy routed by a Spanish
party. Then, realizing that he had but one last chance
of safety, O Higgins led Ms troops out of the plaza in a desperate
and to the Argentine whence he at length returned with
San Martin s Army of the Andes.
There are few towns of note between Rancagua and Conception
without memories of the war of independence proud, bitter
of a straggle waged with the fanatical tenacity of civil
war, for many Chileans with die Spanish cause whilst not a
few threw in lot the rebels. Now, after more
a century has passed, life beats to a rhythm of leisured, pro-
prosperity which is common to all these towns; San Per-
die rich fields of Coldbagna; Corico, grown
die trade in cattle brought across the Planchon pass from
the TaJca, proud of the Declaration of Independence
its wals, Tten, to the south* the River Maole, on
die Inca armies are to have been repulsed by the
167
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
fords die troops of O tEgglns and their
foe and to control Tte Made flows peacefully
now past whore sturdy boats are built to carry
Chile s trade. At its stands Constitucfoii, wliose
are strewn with rocks of queer siiape the
Ohnxdh, Ae Snail, die Lovers Arcli, or however imaginative
them.
The province of Ntible with its capital Chilian brings us to the
of what we may call the O Higgins country. It was here that
an in the service of tie Spanish crown chanced to sojourn
in the of his official duties. He called himself Ambrosio
O* was added later in his career) and he had been
in the county of Sligo more than, fiiy years before. Litde was
of Ms early life, but latterly he had been engaged in different
ventures in Chile and Peru one of the periodic
of the gave Mm a chance to show his formiclable
administrative gifts and brought him within a
of years to the rank of leiitenant-colond in the Spanish
forces. 1 In the coarse of one of Ms campaigns he chanced upon the
of Don Simon Riqtielme, in the outskirts of Chilian,
of Don Simon s daughter, IsabeL A child
of and was diristened Bernardo.
to the existence of the child
its mother, was carried by the fMl tide of Ms astonishing career
to die lofty of Captam-^Seneral of dbe Kingdom of Chile,
to tie viceregal palace in Lima. The lad was educated
by fay the Viceroy, and for a time in the
at Chilian whore he cooH enjoy the affectionate
of his and Rosa. Once only was he
to die presence of his father. The Viceroy, it
was by the of a bastard son which his
would be to exploit to the detriment of Ms
So packed, off to England and entnistel to the
care of and a pair of London jewellers. Now the
Viceroy was foe to devote Mmsdf undisturbed by domestic
ties to the cares and honours of Ms high, office. But it
his to Mi victim to die tmwitting indiscretions of the son
168
CEIILAN, .CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
whom he had thought to place well out of harm s way in England.
Amongst his tutors, young Bernardo numbered a Venezuelan
exile, better known, in reality, for his conspiratorial and revolu
tionary activities than for his knowledge of mathematics* From
Francisco Miranda the youth aught the first spark of patriotic
fervour which was later to burst into such passionate flame when
he returned to his own country. Reports that the Viceroy s son was
in league with the formidable Miranda soon reached the ears of
Madrid and provided the very pretext for the downfall of the
Viceroy which his enemies had long sought. Don Ambrosio, in the
bitterness of disgrace and failing health, dispatched a curt and cruelly
worded message to the son for whom he had never shown affection
01: even just solicitude, informing him that from then on he would
ait him off entirely and refiise to recognize his existence.
Bernardo had been endowed with a nature unusually eager to
give and receive affection. The letter which he penned to his father,
as soon as the harsh news of disavowal had been communicated to
him, is profoundly moving beneath its rounded Castillian phrases.
*My dear Father and my only Protector/ he wrote in bewilder
ment. *I cannot tell, Senor, what crime I have cO inmitted to
deserve such a punishment; nor how you can accuse me of in
gratitude (the vice which I most abhor), since ail my life I have
done my utmost to please Your Eaxellency, and now that I see
this hope frustrated and my Father and Protector angered, I am all
confiision. A knife thrust were easier to bear. I do not know why
I did not fall dead on hearing the news. , . Senor, I will not weary
feather. May Gal preserve your precious life for many yean
to come. Your Excellency s humble and ever-datifijl son. Bernardo
Riqiielme.*
The pious hope with which poor Bernardo dosed his letter was
to prove vain. Within a few months the ex-Viceroy was dead.
But before he drew his last breath, Don Ambrosio must have
of his anger, for he bequeathed his name and his property
in Chile to his son. Bernardo Riquehne, the penniless outcast,
Don Bernardo O Higgfos* an and iofiiimfial Chilean
Janet-owner. In change of fortune, Bernardo was able
to let Ms beloved mother share, and make some amends for the
169
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and die drcmnstances of Ms birth had
But die of bitter grievance, and die spirit of revolt
by it still in bis heart. Though the natural
son of an Ether, he had never felled in filial respect. But
the have teen directed against a parent was
to great apparatus of military and civil domina-
the Crown of which his father had oace been so
impressive a symbol, If love for his mother and love
for his of Chile were the great creative forces of Bernardo
G BBggiiB 5 private and public life, the suppressed hatred of his
into hatred of all Spanish, most have
his arm to the blows for Chilean independence.
In fche yoke of an antiquated and abhorred system of
from his beloved country, he was at the same
avenging the wrongs done to his own slighted modier and to
MnisetE
now remains of the old town of Chilian as Ambrosia and
O Higgms must have known it. The terrible earthquake
of I939 S recent of the periodic disasters which have assailed
the city, Md it all in ruins. Bat amongst the new buildings which
is one which is wel worth a visit, both for itself
for the it throws on the queer mixture of history,
prejudice propaganda which are the chief ingredients
of a This is the School a building
in a of sympathy by the aster-repobBc and
by die moralists Siqudros and
The of Chilian is also an attempt to
die of painting on to Chilean
soil by up the group of young firescoists who die
is die work. It cannot be said that this
lias llie contributed by so
are merit and some of die
by the Chilean pupils* lack of
in lie of die materials used. Bat this is
aH. Can the of modem Mexican art die
170
CHILLAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
interpretation and exaltation of die rich Indian elements in the
national culture can that too be grafted on to the Chilean traditions
of aldivia and the conquistadores, O Higgms and his heroes of the
independence? The great fresco devoted to die history of Chile,
dominated by die vast, muscular figure of the Araucanian chieftain*
Galvarino, his limbs bleeding and truncated through the ferocity
of his Spanish captors, attempts to give the answer. Clustered
around him, as in some dream where the friends and acquaintances
once met in the most diverse periods and phases of one s life are
miraculously, incongmously brought together, is a galaxy of the
most varied figures from Chilean history; die toqui Caupolican,
Francisco Bilbao, pioneer of the labour movement, Recabarren
the Communist, and inevitably, of course, Bernardo O Higgins
rather a shy, diminutive Bernardo, seemingly perplexed em
barrassed at the strange company in which he finds himself-- a
Bernardo who seems to be asking himself: *Arc these really my
fellow-countrymen Are we all sons of die same Chile to whose
independence I devoted my life?* The father of Chilean independ
ence seems to stare around Mm incredaloiisly at this bold and
colourful attempt to achieve a synthesis of national tradition in his
country such as Mexico has succeeded in achieving.
We, too, may stare and marvel at the bold endeavour. But we
confess it has not altogether succeeded. The Mexican pattern
cannot be repeated in Chile. The truth is, that though Indians and
Spaniards may have fiised gradually through the centuries to give
the present Chilean mestizo |K>puktion of today, there has been no
corresponding spiritual or coltuxal fusion. The Araucanians, unlike
die Aztecs or the Incas, remained a race of warlike savages and
never produced an indigenous civilization comparable to those
of Mexico or Peru. The relationship between Araucanian and
Spaniard was one of primitive, unrelenting straggle which only
ceased with lie virtual physical extinction of one of the contending
parlies. A Gaivarino can have nothing in common with an O Higgms
save the universal virtues of valour and love of his country.
If we from the striking but imronvinong frescoes of the
School to examine other aspects of the life of Indians and
Spaniards in Chile we find the same story repeated. Poets and
171
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
die certainly but even in their art
be no B0 cross-fertilization, with that of the
Christians. The muses, too, had to be mobilized in the unrelenting
If was to be a pkce for poetry at all, It must be in
the and the minstrel must wield his guitar to the same
as the warrior would wield. Ms mace or spear. Hence we often
the traditional racial antagonism underlying die poetic contests
rival current in the seventeenth and eighteenth
Readers of the Argentine classic Martin Fiena will recall
a description of such a match between zgaucho and a negro
on the Argentine pampa. In Chile, the most notable patla is tradi-
to haC taken place somewhere in the south between
an Ttttfay* named Tagtiada and a young Spaniard, Don Javier de la
Rosa, How of a mere barbarian to have challenged one whose
very with poetry! The outcome of the contest was
the rame as in all dashes between Indians and Spaniards^ death to
the vanquished. The audience was to judge the merits of the two
very much as the audience judges the merits of rival con
temporary composers today in the anneal musical competitions in
Santiago. As die audience was composed of Chileans, bets of coarse
were laid on the winner. The was in fact a sort of combined
literary and musical which
fill scope for the of the audience-jury,,
the of glory or for the participants.
Tagoada. the Inclia.ii opened the palla with a formidable rhymed
How ounces, he with a pravoeatiYC
cm Ms guitar, the ocean weigh? Javier etc la Rosa
He would tefl the answer, he retorted,
the gave the in to weigh it. Taguada
Ms theology (a field which was
to his How did the Wise Men loaow
the Don Javier had devoutly
up and the to child s pky. Next followed
a a -withered twig be made to lower?
By k the fire, of course, the Christian repEed, where
the it; to a Haze. Tagoada began to grow
hairs, he thundered, did a dog s
172
CHILIAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
But Don Javier could not be stumped. He knew all the answers
or at least, all the neat evasions. Then, at length, his tarn came to
put the questions, and the Christian proceeded to rout the Indian
squarely on the score of theology. Taguada s doom was already
foreshadowed when he filled to answer how Solomon met Ms
end* and finally sealed when he found himself bound to admit he
did not know to which prophet God had entrusted the Tables of
the Law. The Indian made a last attempt to call a face-saving truce,
and proposed that the rival poets should throw aside their guitars,
break off the patta, and remain good friends. But Don Javier was
not to be robbed of his victory. He appealed to the audience to
take up their bets and declare the contest over in his favour. Poor
Taguada* mortified to the depth of his being, slunk off and took
Ms own life in despair. In the clash of cultures, as of armies, die
weaker must perish.
The approach to Concepdon along the banks of the Bio-Bio is
beautifiil and impressive, as befits a city marked out for greatness
by unanswerable arguments of history and geography. The clouds
of early morning mist billowing over the surface of the great
river give it the aspect of a majestic lake. Here, we feel, is still a
natural frontier if ever there was one. But the illusion vanishes
almost as soon as lie mist. The frail silhouette of a bridge reminds
us that the frontier has gone for ever, and that the rich territories
on either side of the river are linked today into what is in process
of becoming Chile s greatest economic region. Even the breadth of
the river is deceptive a agn of weakness rather than of power. In
the summer, its "waters dwindle to a yellow trickle, leaving great
depressing expanses of sand and shingle exposed. There are those
still alive today who remember when the Bio-Bio flowed in a
deeper, narrower bed, and medium-sized ships could ply upstream
as far as Naamiento. But the wanton destruction of the foreste
around the tipper reaches has caused soil erosion and the siting up
of the river bed. To restore the Bio-Bio to navigation would in
volve a conrse of treatment costing many millions of pesos and
lasting many years.
173
CHILEAN SC1AP-BOOK
by now we have grown accustomed to a
at in Anglo-Sa^on ears) welcomes
us by a of its past as soon as we alight on the
A adorns the of the railway station and
successive chapter of the city s history. We
see die living their primitive lives before the coming
of the the arrival of the Spaniards and fierce in-
from the interminable wars of the frontiers. Other scenes
the war of independence and the still unconcluded struggle
to independence by building up Chile s industrial
die standard of living for her common people.
The are the work of the Chilean painter Gregorio de la
naturally enough shows the influence of the great
he has subsequently developed a style
of his own combines a passionate concern for social justice
a more abstract technique learnt in Paris. Hie Concepcion
in the rather conventional figures of well-fed,
resting from their labour or pausing to imbibe self-
from the pages of an open book. It leads us from the
age of the pie-conquest Araocanian savages to
Utopia of the contented, enlighteEied proletarian.
When we cor backs on the station and Gregorio de k
we find ourselves in a town which has an atmos
phere at once stiniiilating and fiiriiliar. Conception has the air of
a war-devastated city that is raanfiily intent on rebuilding its
on a far more ambitious scale on the
it of life and property,
was not a war bat the great earthquake of 1939.
its not wholly erased. One can still
gaps* like bombed-out cleared of nibble, in tie
or a piece of crumbling facade has
the of the dmiolition squad. Though
one-storied still form the outskirts of
tie city, with fine new shops
and of and earthquake-piooP, is an
on Ac of the people of Concepdoa and
to the of architect and contractor. In Conccpc&n,
174
CHILLAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
life must and will go on, despite the unpredictable menace of earth
quakes to come, just as the world at large must go about its business
as if the threat of atomic destruction did not exist.
The city spreads itself confidently along tie northern bank of the
Bio-Bio, and hugs the friendly, wooded hills in graceful and
affectionate intimacy, One arm extends languidly along the leafy,
leisured suburb of Pedro de Valdivia, with its comfortable old-
fashioned villas, its English school and county dub. Another curves
around the base of the woods past the cattle-market, the great
Salesian college and the military barracks which remind us that
Conception still remains a garrison town of importance. We are
far from the dusty brilliance of Santiago and the picturesque
deorepltticie of Valparaiso s hanging terraces. Here the woods form
a badkgroosicl of delicately-blended, many-tinted greens. We move
in an atmosphere of green not the harsh exuberance of die tropics,
which tempt to indolence, to the green thought in the green shade,
but die subtler, gender tones of the English countryside. Even the
monument which stands in lie central plaza, and was no doubt
looted from Peru after the War of the Pacific, has been acclimatized
by a thick coat of green paint.
In a charming natural amphitheatre formed by lie curving slopes
of the wooded hills stands the University of Conception. It is a
site admirably chosen. Graceful statues rise amidst flower-beds and
fragrant shrubs; a brilliant white campanile overtops the trees like
some fastidious beacon of culture. The School of Dentistry has the
air of a graceful pavilion set in a park; the Department of Education,
of a beautifully designed modem sanatorium whose great
windows let in tie sunshine and the warm, pine-scented air of
die woods. And the whole of this remarkable ediieational achieve-
is from tie most source from, the profits
of Concepi6n lottery! If gambling is an ineradicable pasaon of
die Chilean* argue die founders of the university, let us at least lay
Ac undo: contribution and it to account. Never was
an admirable offspring bom of suet a scapegrace parent. The
young university, after little more than a score of years of extstmce,
IMS already achievements to its credit. Hie schools of
biology and philosophy have a desenrecly high reputa-
175
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and die Rector of the University, Senor Enrique Molina,
die rare of administrator and
A Faculty of Hue Arts has recently been formed, whilst
die choir is already the in the country, and the
the scholarly, if somewhat ponderous, of Chilean
reviews. If only the earthquakes will leave her in peace, Conception
to have her days of tribulation behind her and to face
a future of prosperity and enlightenment.
Conception was founded by Pedro de Valdivia in 1550. The city
on the plain where he and his men inflicted a great
oa the Araticanian hosts with the help, so they firmly believed,
of the Virgin hersel In her honour, Valdivia christened the
the Vkgen de las Nieves, or Concepci6n, but it was
more commonly known as the port of Penco. It stood originally
on the coast away from die present city, where the
of Penco stands today. Even now, the inhabitants
of Concepcioii are stifl proud to be oiled by the old name of
As the chief military base of tie Spaniards in their warfare
the Araiicanians, Concepcion once had an importance
even Santiago s. Alonso de Sotomayor, perhaps the
colony s military leader, chose the city for his
headquarters and scat of government. Twice within a
few it was totally destroyed by tie victorious Indians. Four
its Latitaro had the satisfaction of razing it to
die the strutted amongst its smoking reins in
congruously in the finery plundered from their enemies,
the rcfoimded it and it was again laid waste. As if
die o-f the was not enough, earthquakes occurred
to die city. During the first two centuries of its
recorded for die years 1575, 1657, 1687,
1730 1751. The wrought such universal havoc that,
die of die con^rvative clergy, it was deckled to
Ac city to its ate on what seemed firmer
It is if the change was greatly for the better. The
to take toll, that of February 25, 1835,
176
CHILIAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
a particularly heavy one. HMS Beagk, with Charles Darwin
on board, happened to arrive at the scene of destruction not long
after and the young scientist was able to witness what he describes
as *the most awful yet interesting spectacle I ever beheld . At
Takahuano, a few miles away on the coast, the havoc had been
made worse by a vast wave which swept inland carrying trees and
whole cottages before it and leaving a schooner stranded amongst
the fields two hundred yards from the beach. When die waves and
the shocks subsided, it was observed that the whole land round the
Bay of Concepcion had been upraised to the extent of two or three
feet above its former level.
The state to which Concepcion had been reduced in the 18205 as
the result of the combined destruction of earthquakes, Araucanians,
and the war of independence may be gathered by the account which
Capt Basil Hall has left of it in hi memoirs. 2 *lte churches wore all
in ruins/ he tells us, *and the streets in such decay that we actually
ourselves in the suburbs before knowing that we had reached
the town, so complete had been the destruction. Whole cuaJras,
which t had been burnt down and reduced to heaps of rubbish,
were now so thickly overgrown with weeds and shrubs that
scarcely any trace of their former character was distinguishable. The
grass touched our feet as we rode along the footpaths, marking the
places of the old carriage ways. Here and there, pans of the town
had escaped the ravage, but these only served to make the sur
rounding desolation more manifest. A strange incongruity prevailed
everywhere; offices and courtyards were seen, where the houses to
they belonged were completely gone; and sometimes
the remained* in rains indeed, but everything about them
swept away. Near the centre of the town, a magnificent sculptured
gateway attracted our attention. Upon inqoinng, we found it had
the principal entrance to the Bishop s Palace, of which there
a vestige left, although the "was in perfect preserve-
of the which did remain were tmmhabited; and
is the rapidity with "which vegetation advances in tins climate,
of these were completdy enveloped in a thick
of shrubs, creepers and wild-flowers, whilst die streets wore
everywhere knee-deep in grass and weeds. Hie Plaza, or great
N 177
CHILEAN SCEAP-BOOK
generally the resort of a busy crowd, was still as the grave.
At one end stood the remains of the cathedral, rapidly crumbling
to dust; the whole of the western aisle had already fallen, and the
other parts, built of brick and formerly covered with polished
cement, bare and nodding to their fall. A solitary peasant,
wrapped in his poncho? stood at the comer of the square, leaning
against the only remaining angle of the cathedral; and in a dark
comer, amongst the rains of the fallen aisle, were seated four or
five women round a fire cooking their meat by hanging it in the
smoke over the embers.*
Sorely tried by a succession of calamities such as that described
above, die city of Concepdon had no intention of standing meekly
by and her rights and privileges blithely disregarded by more
cities. The pencones have always considered themselves as
in no way inferior to their Santiago cousins and their city as the
equal to the capital in its right to help shape the afiairs of the
nation. La Serena, Valparaiso and Conception have been the only
centres in Chile seriously able to challenge the hegemony and
centralizing tendencies of the capital But la Serena has been
too and weak, Valparaiso, the *port of Santiago*, too bound
tip with the capital s economic interests, to be effective leaders in
the movement for decentraliTarion and local autonomy. It has
left to CoBcepdoii to take up the cudgels, and the
metropolis of the south*, as her admirers now rather grandilo-
her, has not been slow to respond. Soon after the first
by Chilean patriots against the royalist forces, she
bid to equate national independence with local
had very different ideas. When, in 1811, the
of Independence was issued in die capital and prepara-
were for summoning of a national congress, it was
of the twenty-five sots for the deputies, Santiago-
to twelve for hersd Conception, in indignant
set up a revolutionary of her own. The south, its
of and independence of mind, ob
jected to Santiago s piKmnptiiom centralizing ambitions^
but to Ac conservative, antiquated outlook of her c re-
178
CHILLAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
For a short time, Conception was reocoipied by Spanish loyalist
forces and became the base for the intended reconquest of the
country. Her rivalry with Santiago was temporarily forgotten
whilst the graver issue of whether Chile was to remain a colony or
become an independent state was being fought out. The old frontier
again became a battle zone, but now with the strategic position
strangely reversed. Concepdon was made to turn her back on the
Indian lands she had so long and aggressively confronted, and seek
to quell the great rising of the Chilean Creoles in the north. But as
soon as the fortunes of war had decided the issue in the favour of
Chilean independence, the old feud was revived, Bernardo O Hig-
gins, himself a man of die south, was sympathetic to Concepcion s
claims, but after his abdication the dash became more open. It
seemed at first that Concepcion might be strong enough to impose
her will. She achieved a wide measure of autonomy for herself
which was recognized by tie federal constitution of 1826. The
country was sinlcmg into anarchy. The south became more and
more independent, appointing its own nominees to high office and
brooking no interference in the ninning of its own affairs. It was
fortunate in tie leadership of men like Prieto and Manuel Bulnes,
whose abilities raised them in time to the Presidency of the Chilean
RjeptibEc, By 1829 Concepcion was strong enough to impose its
will on the capital by force of arms. It attempted to do the same in
1851, but rimes had changed. Thanks to the organizing genius of
Diego Porteles, the republic had found stability. It had achieved
cohesion through the centralized power of the land-owning Creole
aristocracy. Hie revolt of General Cruz, tie southern leader, was
crashed and the hegemony of the capital and the rigid centralistk
structure of the Slate assured. It is only now that the great develop-
of heavy inckfstry in the Qxicepci&i area has made possible
Ac establishment of a second centre of power and population
may pedhaps tend to oSset the crashing predominance
of die capital
of the Bi0-B&&gt; river le the and die new in-
zone on which Chile had set hopes. There is
179
CHILIAN SCRAP-BOOK
to tbe of a Black Country, for the
blast-furaaces rise amongst meadows and woodland
as yet by die march of mduarializadon. Lota boasts a
as well as its coal mines. The Sdiwager mines are
a of aky, almost gay administratJFC offices
look oat over a green, pleasant landscape towards the wooded
crowned by die company s admirable model hospital where
the workers families receive free medical treatment The
staff live comfortably enough and their social life centres
neo-Georgian dub-house. Huge blocks of
are now under construction forthe miners and will replace theiuddled
of the ubiquitous rota shanties. Yet for all its air of progress
commitment, there is still misery and unrest
The have the traditional stronghold of the
Party, and revolutioiiary action has often only
by a vigorous purge of Communist leaders from Ac
the occupation of the whole zone by the army.
Originally stimulated by the to find a local source of supply
for die of die Pacific Steam Navigation Company, the mines
of Lola, Sdiwager, Coronel and Arauco now have an
of nearly two and a quarter million tons and are the only
in South America to be exploited effectively on
a scale. The and problems involved
are not Some of the workings for several
the ocean bed, and a miner may spend as much as four
to from his work every day. Many of the
are humid* for adequate ventilation is a for-
lie and of lie
tie most careftil safety precautions
ike campaigns. One from
to of an act of which sends a truck slipping
of down the long sloping to
the miners down like ninepins, or of
to torn up noses at lie iocs provided
by die and in walking barefoot over the rock and
The may be struck by the of any
But it be to ask mudbt of tie men to aspect
180
CHILIAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
dhem to make themselves clean and spruce after their work only
to return to the squalor of an insanitary mud-and-wattle shack.
Hard by the coalfields, die forest has been cleared to make way
for die great steel-mills of Huachipato, Built under the auspices of
die government s Corporation de Fomento and with the help of
United States equipment and technicians, Huachipato is to be the
keystone in the refashioning of Chile into a modern industrial
power. The iron-ore for the mills comes from Chile s own deposits
at El Tofo and El Romeral. Chilean coal is used in the smelling,
and numerous by-products of great value to Chilean economy are
expected from the mills. By making the country largely independent
of steel imports from abroad, Huachipato, it is daimed, will promote
Chile s economic independence and mark the end of her * colonial
status 3 . But will it? Some remembering the unfortunate experience
of the Corporation s great cement works at Juan Soldado, and the
Corral steel works at die mouth of the Valdivia river which still
cost die government some millions of pesos a year are sceptical
Many vital questions remain to be answered. Can Chile provide a
sufficient number of skilled workers and eiKperienced technicians?
Will the Chilean coal (which is at present being strengthened with
a 20 per cent proportion of American coal) be suitable for coking?
Will Huachipato really produce not only all the steel needed for
Chilean consumption, but win its way on to the world market as
wel? Looking at the lofty piles and vast workshops stretching
away down to the newly-built harbour where, until yesterday,
diere had been nothing but unclaimed forest4and, the haunt as
its name implies in the Indian tongue of wild dock, one feels that
Himchipato may be a venture beyond Ctile*s present resources.
Yet,, if her wares are to compete successfully with others on die
world market, die imdertaking may have been built on too small
a scale. HeacMpato, in short, may be both too big and too small
too big for Chile, too small compared with tie gigantic competitors
in the United States, England or Brazil
The economic and strategic importance of this whole region is
increased by the proximity of Talcaliaano, formerly a
181
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
of some importance and now Chile s foremost naval
*Bay ofLigbtoirig* the name appropriately means in the Indian
The viator is unlikely to see anything more exciting
die dreary, main of the little town, shut off
the by hoardings and walls. But should he be
to dip inside, he will be unexpectedly rewarded. Hie
and le at the foot of wooded cliffs, against which
the paviion of the Admiral s residence stands out like
comfortable Blames-side villa. *The Vatican lie Chilean
Navy alls it. Moored just off tie jetty in front of
the Admiral s residence, an ancient and battered monitor rides at
It is the famous in the naval annals both of Chic
aad Peru. For tie British Yisiter it has a special interest. In 1876,
it had acquired from Laird Brothers by the
Government, Pierok, a rebellious minister
of Peru, the by a ruse and attempted
to die rest of the Peruvian Navy. The Peruvian Govern-
the a pirate, and Admiral de Horsey, die
and HMS in those
upon die to surrender. Hie Hmsaff 9 conscious
of her over die but more vulnerable wooden
with the British, and sailed off
the worse for giving this sharp twist to die lion s
tail die war correspondent, tefls us that
by Ms to the British ships, an object of
and the of die action is kept as a
in Peru*.
The chief feme, of course, back to die War of the
an die enjoyed Immense superiority OYCT
tie Her commander, the gallant Capt Gra%
the anil almost tamed the tide of
in of Peru, for the war was one in which command
sea was of Importance. Artiiro Prat, commaiidiiig
tie lie Huosw in unequal
off his made in die
of the il tcB their tak today. Hie
went when the OM&V J sharp k> m cut
182
CHILLAN, CONCEPCION AND THE NEW INDUSTRIAL ZONE
her In two, but not before Prat had leapt aboard the Peruvian ship
and fallen fighting gallantly on her decks. The Huascar continued her
devastating raids on Chilean shipping until Grau in turn met his
death and the little iron-clad was finally captured. Two brass
plaques on the Huascais deck mark the spot where the two heroes
fell. Chile, the victor, has preserved tins historic trophy for herself,
but it is good to learn that the memory of Grau receives almost as
warm a tribute as that paid to Prat when the annual commemora
tion of the battle of Iquique comes round.
The Huascar, turning rusty and barnacle-cankered at her moorings
in Talcahuano, is now scarcely so much a symbol of Chile s bygone
triumphs as a token of the more fashionable creed of Pan-
American brotherhood. But who knows how long this creed wiU
last in a crazy world? Chile wisely keeps other and more formidable
things than the Huascar at Talcahuano. There is the mighty 28,o5
ton battleship Almirante Latorre which began life as HMS Cmada
and saw service at Jutland. There are destroyers and corvettes,
landing craft and MTB, and a submarine flotilla, too. The sub
marines all have Anglo-Saxon names O*Brim 9 Thompson, Simpson.
liey are called after the officers who served under Cechrane in
the war of independence.
Hie causes and combats which are the stuff of Chilean history
may seem to us remote and insignificant enough in comparison
with the grimmer and greater events of two world wars. It is right
that the memory of Grau and of Prat should be kept green, but what
memorial has been raised to the men of HMS Good Hope and HMS
who deep beneath the Pacific breakers forty miles out to
sea across the Bay of Arauco? Hie battle of Coronel, when die
British ships were sunk by the superior gun-power of von Spec s
squadron on November i, 1914, is today almost forgotten. But to
many South Americans, and especially to the Jebilant German
community in Chile, it must have seemed at tie time to close the
oexttory-old period of British naval supremacy. Not that the
disaster was allowed to pass unavenged for long. Von Spec s
squadron was caught and destroyed at the Battle of tibe Falkland
and only the formidable Driven managed to steal away
through Chilean waters to her inevitable end at Juan Fernandez.
CHIIEAH SOAP-BOOK
NOTES
1 Tic of O Higgins Is At subject of a wd-
by Hi ^ Ospffw, Aw
1941). Numerous books Imve written
on his son, OTlggiiis, die king perhaps tkt by
1 &n the of Chili, Pm mJ
1824).
Chapter Twelve
Araucania Epic and Epilogue
THE BAYS OF Araiicankn greatness are over beyond recall- So
complete and abject is now the subjection of tie Araucankm
that we need to remind, ourselves It is only in die last decades
of the past century that the ancient feed was fought out to a finish,
and there are still men and women alive today who can remember
when the Christian settlements stood in peril. The promd warrior
race which, when the Spaniards first encountered it, counted more
than half a million souls, is now reduced to a wretched handfel of
perhaps one-tenth of that number. No one knows even this with
certainty; for the Araicankns defy statistics as they defy every
device of civilization. Stark and sturdy as tie great Araucaria trees,
which we in England know as ^monkcy-pimltt 9 , and which are
tie characteristic flora of that region and the apt symbol of their
race, they have at last been forced to yield the lordship of the
forests to the enemy. Like the derelict trunks which still rise de
fiantly amidst the colonists* clearings, too mighty to be totally
destroyed, the Indians live on in their scattered was, beneath lie
rale of their hereditary chiefs, hard by the farms of the victorious
and stall encroaching white enemies. YOG may catch a glimpse of
them, standing sombre and dimifiedl from the windows of die
J JjjJ ~-j t
or see diem come trotting to the Temuco market on their
superb mounts. You may stop to admire the bright colours and
carefiit weaving of their and or be strait by die
moHgoloid cast of features and sturdy stature of
TanGCG semng-girL For die women, always more malleable
men-folk, have of the arts and usages of today.
Bat the at least whose Indian HOCK! has remained
relatively pure are hostile to the modem way of life to
police and settlers and governments wouH compel them, and
185
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
to to die what they can of dick vanishing
world.
There is of world which remains, or can remain, today.
The of the Aniucaniaiis was pre-eminently military. Of
Guarani origin, they crossed the Andes a century or two before
the coming of the Incas, and themselves by force amongst
the less of Chilean Indians. They met the successive
of Spaniards with extraordinary courage,
tenacity resourcefulness. They lived for and by battle, and now
the century-old has lost, there is nothing left for
to MFC for. In the of new tactics and of
weapons they an adaptability quite remark-
for a primitive people. Bat they never brought to
acquire the arts of which were even more
for survival There was an Araucaniaii epic, bat
we can cal with justice an Araucanian civilization.
They comparable to the achievements of
Aztecs or Ineas* thougih they them in martial prowess.
Now prowess is spent* there is nothing to take its place
no of revival. Hie Araucaniafis have a great past but no
future.
This the apparent paradox that Chile, which produced
tic of the epics, and where the Spanish power was
for precariously should now stand out
side the Indo-American resurgence which is profoundly
of the of America today. 1 We are
to her Uruguay the Argentine, where the
is overwhelmingly of European stock the
no It is the Araticaubns possess, in
organization, the
candidate Venancio Coniiepan was returned to
as deputy for Cautm. at the last general elections. Bat one
can die of Congress, or die columns of the
Press, for a passing reference to the
problems of the Araacaman community. April 19, the Day
of the Indian, celebrated so fervently in
unnoticed in Chic. Though Chilean dele-
186
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
gates may attend the sessions of the Congreso Interamericano
Indigenista (her last delegation was Leaded, significantly enough,
by a Catholic Bishop and a general staff officer with a Spanish
name) Chile has established no branch of the Institute Indigenista
Interamericano, that admirable body which exists to carry out
research into the archaeology, sociology, culture and history of the
Indian races of America.
The contribution which the Araucanians have made to the life
of the continent as a whole has been of a different nature. The real
legacy of their race is not to be found in the native reservations of
today, nor in the tradition of a bygone epic; it flows through the
veins of ionumerable Chilean mestizos, proud of their mixed but
valiant ancestry. The centuries of conflict between Indian and
Spaniard were accompanied by a gradual process of fusion by inter
breeding. The Conquistador would not only slay his enemy in
battle but also appropriated his women-folk as lawful booty. Hie
practice of polygamy, traditional amongst the Arauonians, was
adopted by their Christian, conquerors despite die fulrniiiations of
the church. Contemporary chroniclers speak of die Spanish soldiery
setting off from Santiago for the Araucaman frontier accompanied
by four to six women apiece. The vast train of women and children
which must thus have attached itself to the military expeditions
could not fail to be a severe embarrassment to any campaign,
and various royal ordinances attempted unsuccessfully to put a
stop to the practice. One dhronider attributes the 611 of the city of
Valdivk in 1559 to the fact that the soldiery *was more given to
eniis frKgn. to Mars* and adds that it was not unusual for a soldier
to as many as thirty concubines. Polygamy was no doubt
largely die result of the immense ntimaicai preponderance of
over men as a result of die incessant and merciless warfare
in which the vanquished seldom rdingtrished the field until half
forces had As late as 1746, a report to the
King of Spain in Santiago Cbiioepeion women
by as many as nine to one.
Hie widespread practices of caacabipagfi and polygamy, though
by the who realized Ac oxrptionally
and. abnormal eondilioiis under which the soldiers and colonists
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
of vehemence by the
The the of the Araecanians to
the and role of tie King of Spain was God s
on die for the immoral lives they were
The for part, countered (with
it was precisely the over-zealous of the
were to for the hostility of the
by to from cherished practices
of polygamy and drunken orgies. They
die of connivance at, if not complicity in,
the of the natives. The retorted that the earth
quakes visited in Chile
of God s at the Conqeista-
evil Eves. The Jesuit de Escobar even went so far
as to a of rats to the of die
had in no less sixty of
in a in one Yet beneath the uproar
of coimter-dbarge^ is doubt that were
justifications for
irregular women. The
of their Spanish of
to fill the in the
to tic for the evolving
of the colony,
in this process of racial fiision the
for a for the Chilean race on the ground
it is the of two warrior strains, the Araecaniaa the
*G0tMc* Spaniard. 2 What is less to dispute is the undoubted
of the Araocaiuans have
on Ac of the Chilean people. The for
recourse to on the Araticanian frontier
lias to a comparable to
in die by the century-long of
the Since her wars of independence from
lias to draw the sword.
she has as in the War of the Pacific
Peru, in tie civil war which followed a few years
188
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
later her people have shown a remarkable military energy.
Fortunately, too, for her own internal development, the presence of
the ever-watchful Indian foe has imposed the need of national
unity and freedom from the fratricidal rivalries and strife which
have enfeebled so many other Latin American republics. In Chile,
the restless, violent spirit of the Conqoistadores continued to
preserve its pioneering vigour and never degenerated into a fetor
making for anarchy. The country needed all the strong hands and
heroic hearts which she could command, and the very instability
of her frontiers made for the stability of her government and
institutions.
The classic picture of the Arancanians at the height of their
martial vigour has been left us by the poet Alonso de Erdlk y
Zufiiga in his epic La Ar<imana. Ercilla was of gentle birth and had
accompanied his master Philip E to England to attend the royal
betrothal to Mary Tudor, when news was brought of the rising of
die Araucanians and the death at their hands of the Governor
Pedro de Valdivia. Tradition relates that the young courtier was
suffering the pangs of unrequited love and in his despair jumped at
the opportunity to volunteer with the reinforcemesits which were
soon dispatched from Europe. At all events, die soldier-poet re
mained an incorrigible romantic. Each night, when die day s
campaigning was over, he would lay aside the sword and record
the exploits of the past twenty-four hours on whatever scraps of
paper or leather he could lay hands on. Once, when he and his
companions set foot on the as yet unexplored of Chilo4 he
left stanzas carved in the bark of a tree to commaaiorate die event
in the true tradition of the romantic lover. But is no courtly
gallantry in his poetry; only the surge and glamour of heroic
Readers of Cervantes wil remember that when the Curate and die
Barber set about a purge of Don Quixote s library and
the fire all the ally teles which had poor
hod, they came upon Ln and saved it on the grounds
it was amongst *tfae best that in heroic lias been
in the GastOlian and worthy to he compared with the
189
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
of Italy; let be kept as the richest treasures of the pocsv
ofSpaii*.
It is a of EiaHa s that It is in no way a
panegyric of the of Ms countrymen. He at
for the incredible prowess of their foe.
Perhaps is something, too, of the Renaissance harxianist s
of an imaginary age in his description of the
life of the Araucaniati$ 9 simplicity and mdomitable
courage love of independence. He draws his pictures of the
in strokes as strong and sure as those which they
in battle. There is Caupolican, elected the
or Commander-in-chief for his craft and prowess; Laataro, the
youth of who was accepted by the jealous braves
as the of his military
the of his powers of Laetaro had as a
in Valdivk s own suite and had observed the and
of the Spaniards and their at hand.
He the could never hope to overcome the
by since they had the
Spaniards* nor or resource.
Bat they did the more advanced Incas or Aztecs ecr
in own tactics and strategy and
evolved new counter-weapons which them to an
and after the other native
of America had abandoned aH hope of national independence.
The of the and bow, which could hare
the armour of the Spaniards, were in
of more tempered Hkick cudgels
the war be .and attached to the aid
be to a rider and bring him
to the invented. barricades of and
pits taut-traps were evolved as a
die cavalry. Horses, too, which had
the of tie Indians, were captured from the
and the soon became expert in their The
of infantry and of small mobie columns
to travel and concentrated unexpectedly to attack,
190
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
die choice of battle-grounds unfavourable to the heavy cavalry
which could be enticed by feint retreats to the borders of precipices
or treacherous bogs, die organization of a thorough system of
espionage in the very citadels of the enemy, the technique of
attacking in successive waves of fresh unite until the enemy was
overcome with exhaustion, the cunning use of natural features for
the building of their strongpoints all these innovations were
adopted by the Araucanians within the space of a few years. They
learnt, too, how to use the arquebuses and cannon captured from
the Spaniards although they were unable to mate them- In the
course of time they learnt to set great store by any prisoners taken
who had a knowledge of armoury or metal-work and made their
own arms under what technical instruction they could procure.
Their chief difficulty was to obtain powder. On one occasion they
even went so far as to reduce the body of a wretched negro slave
captured from the Spaniards to cinders, and ground it to a fine
black dust, which they hoped would serve their purpose.
Lautaro s meteoric career was cut short in battle at the age of
twenty-two and Caupolican was in course of time captured and
executed by impalement, but still the war went on. Tlie mtemunable
fighting on the frontier became an intolerable drain on Spanish
resources and Chile soon acquired the fame of bong the graveyard
of Spain*. In 1599 the Indians rallied for a fresh general rising and
within three years had destroyed Osomo, VaHivia and other
Spanish strongholds and virtually cleared die whole of their country
of the hated white man.
la the face of these disasters and the vast expense in gold and
manpower of the Arattcaman war, the Spaniards began to bethink
of some new form of strategy which would yield better
and quicker in the pacification of their southern frontier. In
the of bitter opposition from die Spanish colonists in Chile
and the soldiers who knew the realities of the Araicaniaa war,
the Viceroy of Pero and the Court of Madrid at length opted in
iaTOiir of a policy wMch we term, in the familiar jargon of
today one of appeasement. The policy was based in die mystical
and Conception of Ae warrior as a potential
convert to Christianity and cxvifizatioiL His present aggr^dveness,
191
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
It was in Ms realization that
to the of it intolerable forced labour,
as to the local Once fear
was by and the gospel to
in his he not fail to eschew his barbarous
a good son of tic chorcli and a loyal subject of
die of Spain!
The advocate of this doctrine was a Jesuit, who
to die same as tic first governor of Chile.
Lais de Valdivia was a visionary, whose calamitous mis-
of native psychology to have the direst and
After over the Viceroy and die King
to Ms tie himself virtual charge of in
the area, a of parleys the and
to as he could die King had become aware
of die the who to
decreed the of the
and its by a nominal tribute. The
in feet, hail worried by die prospect
of was too to their nature to be even
to the Jesuit s as-
how wives they would be to
a more closely. The
give the equivocal answer on
bat in interpretation of the new
the were clear and
It the were not strong to
by force, were now attempting to do so by
die diem on dieir own
in to die professions of the
the die forts and
de YaldiYia only escaped by the
to a military strategy which was
to be lie of Ms ilcmoas.
The of defensive or static warfare.
To the of now coupled what we may call
tic The Spanish Maginot Line was the
192
PLATE VH
< *
S >
S I
VIII
A1AOCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
Bfo-BIo river. Troops were to be to garrison posts,
refrain from provoking the to die and wait for die
zeal of die to spread abroad its
results. It was the fond
would not be realized. Hie of die Araiicaolaiis
was Increased other than by die of the Span
iards, The latter, for part, grew demoralized by enforced in
activity. More serious still, die great of peaceful Indians*
felt confident in die protection of die Christians, now found
tarried with impunity by die Araacaaian braves and
forced to renounce their allegiance to die Spaniards. The Spanish
garrisons saw themselves deserted by their and condemned to
imfxstoice in die face of die Araiioiilaiis* increasing attacks. CMIe
down to an ffitenninable of raids and counter-
by uneasy truces broken again by raids.
In die Intervals of die fighting, which was their main preoccupa
tion, die Araucanians coBtbued to live traditional primitive
life, litde by the ways and beliefs of Christian neigh
bours. To catch a glimpse of them going about their day-to-day
playing their favourite game ofchuim 9 making love, harangE-
each otter solemnly in their parliaments, abandoning them-
to of feasting and drinking, squatting around their
wigwam fires and telling tales of their prowess against the white
man, we do better than turn to the pages of a charming
tine C&utiverio Feliz of Praadsco Pineda y BasaiMQ,
Tic the young son of a Spanish general, fell into
Ms book the story of bis adventures, of bow lie was
by some, tented by others, until he re-
and sound to the arms of bis father.
His fete, lie tis at the outset, was nearly that of most of the
Spaniards wlio fell into die power of the ArancaniaBS and which
did in feet a less fortunate before Ms very
eyes. In the placed the whom they brought
for sacrifice,* he us. *Ancl one of the dbie&tiDS seized
a at one of which knives had been stoutly bound
o 193
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
in the of a trident. Another held a toqiti a
serves as an axe and. is held by the supreme com-
they name toquL And this toqui is used in
for the killing of Spaniards and is wielded by the
has the right thereto, and is the first to speak and propose
is to be done, 9 The victim s hands were then loosened
he ordered to pick up a handful of sticks and then, naming
by after some wel-known Spanish captain, to bury
By this magic rite the Indians believed that die white
could feil to be defeated.. Then the three knives, representing
the chief regions of the Araacaiiian lands, were unbound and
the local chiefs a mace studded with iron
nails handed to JMLanlican, the Indian who had taken the Spaniard
With weapon, Maalican out
the of the wretched as lie was still over his
The tore victim s heart it,
lip to 1 lip, whilst tie other braves raced
the corpse their arms and uttering
In a ceremony had tie captured
Governor of Chile, Pedro de Valdivia, no doubt been to
death.
Young only saved from the same fate by the
of which made up the
His the General had been a
to his captives; the Indians would
IB the son to
to tie the Araocanian
be a to the braves,
hail had a at he could be returned to
the for a These were the real
for mercy, the cunning Indian
it to ask die of the to take
to to Ms delivering Mm Oer to the
for
die oratory the ferocity of the
to away. They now as ready to shower of
as diey had been eager, but a
194
ARAUCAN1A EPIC EPILOGUE
to demand his deatk Francisco, still aid
with the memory of Ms terrible ordeal* found himself
up Into a grot round of feasting. For weeks the Araocaniaii
warriors would be content to on a of toasted maize
and water. Then they would themselves to orgies of
and drinking. Endless wooH be made, and jars
brimful of fiery quaffed. A would be brought before
the principal guest who would have die honour of killing It. Then,
when the edge had been taken off their hunger by an endless
of stews and roasts, more drinks would be brought and
die would begin their dances. For days the feasting and banquet
ing would continue, interrupted sometimes by brawls or
by the more orderly teain-^ames in which the young AraucaniaEs
And everywhere Francisco, though sadly decliniBg
the invitations to drink and dance, was the of curiosity.
*That*s the son of AiYaro Makincampo; sec how young he is! the
would cry as crowded around and admired his
and soldierly bearing.
But there were still amongst die whose hatred was
implacable and who were only biding their time before making
another attempt on his life. One night, when on thek way from
die home of a friendly cacique, Maulican and his young captive were
overtaken by a terrible storm and forced to shelter in the
of the village. To their dismay, they discovered that
host was none other than the ferocious Inailicaa who had been
one of the who clamoured most vehemently for blood at
the parliament. But the law of Araiicaniaa hospitality was
the travellers welcome and ordered a great
in honour. As to flow freely 9 poor
aid to fail with the and
in a corner of the Then, had into a
he crept off with his master and his
the towards MauJican s
nor his old Ether, Hanaro!, were wealthy
lay near the frontier and had been plundered
by die Bet once he had reached
home* by his relatives and friends,
195
CHILEAN SC1AP-BOOK
confidence in himself redoubled- To tic envoys which
die dttef Botapkhtin demanding that lie now keep his
promise and summon a parliament to decide the fate of the prisoner,
returned an arrogant reply. In the meantime, oH Uan-
careiis who was now altering his second dbildhood, hail taken a
great fancy to the young Spaniard. He gave Mm ckicha made from
strawberries to drink a great delicacy and invited him to share
lie same couch of skins and coarsely woven blankets as himself
and Ms grandchiHreiL Before falling asleep, the Spaniard com-
Ms soul to God and crossed Mmsell%eoHchieFscnricty
was aroused. Francisco explained, as well as his fcno wledge of the
tongue allowed Ism, that this was an old custom of die
Christians to guard against the Evi One. This information de-
iJancarecL He himself was too old to loom anything new,
but he begged Francisco to teach his grandchildren the charm.
and he would teach them to
to God too. Who is God? the eldest lad asked. The Spaniard
to explain as best he could, not at a! displeased at his role
as catecisst, until the old chiefs snores drowned his words and the
chiHren grew too to ask any more questions.
Early tie next day fcitdsco was woken by his young friends
and introduced to another Indian custom. Every morning they
went down to Ac river to take a short pttmge; first the women and
dbiHren, then, some distance away, the youths and tie men. This
early dip was foreign to die normal seventeenth-coitiiry
of and at first the young Spaniard with alarm,
the were ceH and die hoar-^Erost
ky oa the But the splashed around with
enjoyment that Francisco soon joined
in in to be of his cold bath. It gave him a keen
fee Ac of and potatoes which was served
have meagre fare did not his com-
it die add meats brought back from the
to the of the ncigJiboaxhoocL were
stf31 to them. Under Ilancaretfs paternal care the
enough. Hierc was practice with the bow and
arrows, or team-games, and the new game of raiting the
196
A1AUCANIA EPIC ANB EPIIOGUB
pzayers which Francisco taught them so seriously. There was die
6voeiitc sport, too, of dressing up, in which not only the boys but
die respected chiefi joined in as well Hhe dbiHish weakness
of die Araucanians for adorning in fantastic attire,
especially any which they could secure from the Spaniards, was to
a sad privation on Francisco which conadei^tions of pru
dence bade him bear as best he might, c Well could I sec, lie wrote
in after years, that Maulican eyed my hose with admiration and
some envy. But as he treated me with respect he did not dare dis
close his desire to me. So before he resolved to take my garments
from me by force (for he was master of all I possessed) I resolved
to offer of my own free will what was really already Ms, without
waiting for envy to make him, forfeit that courtesy and respect
with which he treated me. For once a way lias been opened for the
abuse, others are sure to follow.* Iranciseo s prudence was well
rewarded. Madican strutted about in his incongruous finery with
satisfaction and showered more and more favours on Ms
young protege, now modestly dad in Indian attire.
Once Francisco was bidden to a great feast offered by the wealthy
chief Aacanamcai who had once reckoned a friend of the
Spaniards but had later turned against them and dam the mis-
by Father Luis de Valdivia. Ancatiamon recounted
to 1 Francisco the story of what had passed. One Mdendez bad come
to him with messages of peace and proposals for a lasting
amnesty. Ancanamon had* therefore, left to confer with his fellow
and whilst he was away the base Mdendez had run off
three of die chiefs women. One of than was a Spanish woman
whom the chief had taken to wife, the others were Indians who
wore special favourites of his. Ancanamon wait to the Spaniards
and the return of his womett-folk at least that of Ms
two who were also of The Spaniards
rrfiiscd, syging that they wished to twcoine Christiatts and stay
the Spaniards. So Aneanamon had ban forced to retain
at Ae 1cm of Ms wives and the treachery and humiliation
of which lie had been the object. When he reached home he learned
Christian inassjotiaiics had Jtist arrived. Mad for revenge, he
ordered that they be pot to death at once. That was how he
197
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
the become sworn enemies; could they
Francisco, on the Spaniards* own code of honour
rcvcoge, the many dramas he had on the stage of
or redeemed in Hood, had to agree
in what the barbarian said. Later night,
the girls, made merry with drink, now revealed the
and frivolity of their natures , and invited the young
to pleasure, Francisco remembered Ancanamon s story
away in prudent modesty.
In Ms die of Araiicania, Francisco
the or witch-doctor. The
was a repulsive and *He wore Ms
the was to wear it in plaits; his
so as to like spoons; his face was
and one of his was all over. He was very of
and in one foot, so
to at horror and disgust. This sinister
had in to cure an Indian who had 2L
Tie was by Indian women intoning a
to the timbrels. Near his lav a
its sprigs of laurel and cinnamon
its A of tobacco filed the room
its The the patient, im
passively die prepare his core. First he the
Ms over Mm out month-
ids Then, a knife, he tore out the kmb s
it still warm on the sprigs of anna-
EC tobacco smoke. The
tie and the made a
into die part of the He beat down and
the raw Ms When he judged that the
left the victim s he the and
op Ac were performed over
the the of the women grew louder and the
of and dicker, until the witchdoctor was
from view. When next Francisco a
of him he was on the of the hut, writhing con-
198
AMAUCAN1A EPIC EPILOGUE
so that Francisco felt the devil had tiken pr*~
of Mm. Then the chanting ceased, and the of the
timbrels. The was stretched on the ground, with
the whites of his eyes turned op and looking more diabolic than
CYCT. Whilst he ky in this trance the onlookers whether the
would get well The replied he would, but only
a hard straggle, as die had a firm of him. Then they
him how the illness had come upon him. In a carousal, the
replied, when an enemy had cast a upon Mm. When
they pressed him to give the name of this enemy the
silent. He had been in a voice so and
to Francisco it appeared to come not from a human throat
from a flute. Then the women resumed their chanting and the
gradually awoke from Ms trance. The smouldering tobacco
were once more a and the lay down
amongst the and and fel asleep.
The onlookers began to disperse it was only Francisco
the lamb s heart had disappeared hidden, probably
by tie ginning or (as he would no doubt wish the super-
to believe) carried off by the departing devil.
After months of this strange life amongst the Araocanians
were completed for the payment of the
Francisco was restored safe and sound, as
promised, to his father. The story of Ms adventures
lay for more two centuries when Ms manuscript was
discovered and by the Chilean historian, Barros Arana. 3
Chile s war of Spain brought no hope of
to the An Chilean republic did
not an it could, on die contrary,
be die for to complete die
of ace. In die Spanish loyalists and
the traditional foe and
as a desperado who had
the to the frontier once more
fire.
199
CHIUAN SCRAF-B00K
Vtceete whose short but terrible rale lasted from
1819-21, was the son of the town jailer of Qulrilrae near Con-
and a by calling. 4 He joined the patriot army as
a volunteer, to die Spaniards* was caught and pardoned,
in treachery and condemned to death together
his brother. By throwing himself flat on the ground at the
the firing squad discharged their muskets and stoically
die thrust in the neck which was intended as a coup
ile grace, Benavides escaped death and managed to crawl away and
in a shepherd s cottage until his wounds had heated Then,
with impudence. He once more reported to die patriot
army in expiation of his past misdeeds. An expedition was then
prepared against the Spanish forces still holding out in Peru
and the were in need of volunteers. Benavides* crimes
were and die offer of Ms services accepted. Then, asdic
was not yet ready to sail, Benavides was rashly provided
of authority and sent down to the frontier with die
of the Aiaocaniaiis against the Spankh troops still
remaining in the sontk It was an Opportunity which die ex-moleteer
could not Once he had reached Indian territory he set about
forming Araacaraan bands and leading them, not against the Spanish
troops, but the garrisons and the defenceless homesteads of
the Chilean So fierce and radikss did he prove in die ex-
of his victims he was acclaimed by die
as their cmmmdc%-mr^Mc. Amongst the many
at his were Major Charles O Carrol and Capt
Bourne, two of the numerous Irish volunteers serving in the
Chilean Army,
At Ms in Aranco, die historic capital of lie Indians,
from the Spanish governor of die
of still out succes&iily against the
to fill wilt ambitioiB and ingoHotis
a few across die bay lay die island of Santa
that had rounded die Gape into
die to put in for fresh water and vegetables and
and American would come to hunt whales and
Why lie not lay hands on those ships and form a fleet
200
A1AUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
to safl Valparaiso he led his army overland to San-
A band of Indian braves the crew of die
American Hero wore out seals. Then
followed the capture of die Hersslia* die the Ocean.
The English and American were divided amongst the
as servants and forced on pain of death to join Benavides*
army and work as carpenters and armourers. With the Ocean,
BeaaYides had captured a plentiful supply of firearms. He ordered
lances for his cavalry to be fashioned from the harpoons of die
and ripped the copper plates from the keel of the ships so
bogle could be made. Sometimes he would lead his strange
but terrible army into battle bearing the emblems of Spain. More
he would unfurl colours of his own devising as befitted die
supreme leader of the Aiaiicaaian people. But Ms fierce hour of
was soon spent, Beaavides was at captured and this
could not escape his fate. After his head and hands
wore ait off and displayed in Axaiico and the other scenes of his
triumphs and misdeeds, as a grim, warning to the still un
subdued Araiicaniam
After lie suppression of die Bcnavides revolt and the establish
ment of the Chilean repiibEc, the AraiioimiK sullenly continued
to their primitive life and maintain a state of semi-independence.
Some of the chieftains on the fringes of the Araucanian territory
Christianized and in rime civilized. Almost all indulged in
some of trade with enterprising white pedlars, but otter
could enter AraiKanian territory at their pail.
In of die century an enterpriang young
American called Edmond Read Smith, who had beea a member
of the Astronomical Expedition to Chile by die United State
Government, to set off and see for himself what the famed
were like, 1 He Mmsdf off as a Spaniard, for tie
Indians* now considered traditional fbcs
as when compared Chilean successors.
Read Smith teaselled freely amongst them observing their customs
and way of life in the way as Francisco PSeda y
201
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
two before. The Araiicanlans s he
had Hot greatly. The judicious bestowal of gifts of
coloured Jews-harps opened the
to after, of coarse, the formalities of the
customary had through,
*If the is a stranger/ the American observed, *the host
by him with: "I don t know you, brother", or "I have
not you before". Thereupon the stranger mentions Ms own
and residence, and goes on to ask the host about himself, Ms
of Ms father, mother, wives children; about Ms
land, crops, flocks; the cMef of the district, the neighbours,
wives, children, crops, etc., are next inquired about; have
any or accidents? If the
arc favourable* the goes on to express
Hs and to the effect health, wealth and
are for which God would be thanked,
It on die contrary, the answers convey bad news, he con-
the afflicted, and philosophises misfortunes
be equanimity, cannot always avoid evil.
The the commences, in turn, to ask al
the as the answers received
TMs occupies tea or fifteen minutes. The
arc recited (by in a low, monotonous
voice, a not die saying of die rosary,
or the of friars. At the of each sentence, if the last
in a vowel* die voice is to a shout; but
tbe be a it is off with a nasal grunt.
The his occasionally, fey a sound
a and a or surprise by a long-drawn
he never interrupts until tie speaker
by a of die voice he has said Ms say.
this the do not look at each
and sat tamed to one another.
gone through with, all formality is
commences in an easy and natural
the American traveller records bet can
202
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
have taken part in himself, is the Araiicanian of
a bride: ^Generally, when a young man makes up Ms mind
to many, he first goes to his various friends for assistance in carrying
out Ms project. If he be poor, each one of them, according to hi
means, offers to make a contribution towards die expenses; one
gives a fat sheep; another a horse; a third, a pair of silver spurs. A
night is selected, and a rendezvous named. At the ap
pointed time the lover and his friends, all we! mounted, congregate
as agreed. Cautioosly and in silence, they approach and surround
the residence of the bride.
"Half a dozen of the most smooth-spoken in the company enter
and seek out the girl s father, to whom they explain the object of
coming; set forth the merits of the aspirant; the convenience
of the match, etc., and ask his consent, which is usually granted
readiness; for, perhaps, he his daughter somewhat
of an encumbrance, and calculates upon what she will bring. Mean-
the bridegroom has sought out the resting-place of his fair
she, as in duty bound, screams for protection.
Immediately a tremendous row commences. The women spring
op en arming with clubs, and missiles
to the defence of the maiden. The friends
to give the lover fair play, with soothings and gende
endeavouring to disarm die fierce viragoes; but they are
to be appeased, and happy the man that escapes without a
pate 9 or other Heeding memento of die flight.
a ft is a point of with the bride to and struggle,
willing she may be, the impatient bridegroom,
no deky, her by the hair, or by the heel, as may be
drags her the ground toward the open
Once he IB the saddle, firmly
Ms captive, whom he polls up over the horse s
a whoop of triumph, he off at fell
The out, by the wrathful im
precations of die in the track of
die
^Gaining the die lover into 1 the tangled thicket
the die outskirts until the
203
CHILIAN SCRAP-BOOK
of tic had died away, and they are satisfied that no
one is in they disperse.
It is to be that die finally yields to the strong arm
of her gentle wooer; for, without further
ceremonies, the happy couple emerge, a day or two after,
from die of die forest as man and wife.
*Marriage is not considered indissoluble, bet die husband may,
even after a term of years, alow Ms wife to retam to her father s
if she be so disposed, with die freedom of marrying whom-
she may please, dioiigh in such a case the first husband may
from die die fill price which die originally cost.
*A widow by die of her husband becomes her own mistress
he may have left grown-up sons by another wife, in which
she common concobine, being regarded as
to the heirs to die estate, A custom so
hardly credible, bet my guide assured me that
be no doubt of its existence.
Infidelity (in the female) is a crime always punished by death,
and die paramour, if taken in the act, is apt to share die fete
of die wife; bet should he escape for die moment, he may
be made to pay, to the injured husband, the original
of die wife/
Whist Raid Smith was marvelling at the strangeness of the
and odier customs, a young man in die
of France beginning to concave a most extraordinary and
Orelie-Antofne de Totinens was trained for a
lawyer s office, but himself in coondess tales of travel
he already elected for himself a nobler destiny.
It than to unite die yotmg Spanish-American
a monarchy, with himself as die monarch!
In 1854 die young visionary arrived in Chile, but two
in Santiago and Valparaiso brought him, to the reluctant
the would not favour his grand design. Other
more ambitions began to possess hirn, ambitions which
to die lawyer in him, no less dian to die romantic. Perhaps
204
ARAT7CANIA EPIC ANB EPILOGUE
Ercffla*s sonorous lines had fired his imagination with drams of
the barbaric splendours of an Indian sceptre. "What more famous
and heroic subjects coold a monarch wish to have than these
Araticaaian braves? What easier than to prove from incontrovertible
documentary evidence that die Independence of the Araecanian
people had been recognized by Spanish lawyers and governors in
die past, and that the new republic of Chile had no legal right
to dakn as her Inheritance a territory which had never been
Spanish*
OrcHo-Antoine was not the sort of man to be deterred by his
own obvious limitations. He knew but little Spanish and nothing
at all of the Arancaoian tongue. He was almost totally ignorant of
the present disposition and customs of his future subjects. He had
no money and few friends. But Ms personal appearance was striking,
Ms bearing regal, and his attire sufficiently lavish to impress the
natives. Shifting the centre of his operations to Valdivia to trade
with the Indians, he began to dress tie part an austere but finely
woven black and white poncho reaching Wow the knees and half
concealing the gleam of highly polished top boots, the beaten silver
of his belt buckle and his spurs, and the long sword in Its sheath
inlaid with gold. He wore Ms abundant dark hair long and flowing,
and fastened over his brow with a red bandeau in Indian fashion.
ffis tearing was majestic and Impressive* the horse on which he
was mounted superb and lavishly accoutred, and his eloquence
(even in translation) Irresistible,
lite pretender s first success was with a couple of compatriots,
Desfcnfalne Lacfaaise by name* ample colonists whom he
dazzled with Ms doqfKocc and promises of fetare honours* and
of Justice and of Foreign Af&ks
respectively, OEelie-An&oine proceeded to christen his new
realm Noeva, Fraacla oat of respect for pateotic feelings and
withdrew to Otsfi>ntaliie*s farm to draw tip the royal edicts an-
nfiiifioTig tiic fndcpeadoEice and coiistitzsfios of Ins kingdom. On
November 17, i86c\ the following document saw Ac of day:
"We, Prince OzflieHAn&otiic de Xoiinens, co&sikieniig that
Araocanla Is not on any state, that the country
205
CHILEAN SC2AP-BOOK
is and a government is
in the no less Ac private interest, do
as fellows:
Article 1. A hereditary monarchy Is
founded IB Araucania; Prince Orclie-Antoine is proclaimed
King.
II. In die event of the King leaving no offspring, die
to other branches of his family according
to the order to be established hereafter by royal ordinance.
Article IIL Until constitutional bodies are
the royal have the force of law.
Article IV. Oar Minister, the Secretary of State, is charged
the of the decree.
Done in Axaucania, November 17,
F D f tain (Signed) oimiE-ANioiNE THE
For the King,
Secretary of State
in die Department of Justice.
Three Iater 3 die relative insignificance of
the the Bio-Bio river and the gulf of
lie had claimed as Ms own, die King of Araucania
prodaimiDg die of the whole of
an and largely unexplored area,
1*500 in lying between the small Chilean
of Panta Arenas in tie south aid the Argentine
of de in the north. So neglected was
it at CMle the Argentine not yet
the of die respective frontiers die
to the wandering trite of
it in of gnanaca.
The of his so speedily, Oielie-
to Ms to up an
the of which there is no space to
Thai, the consciousness of work well done
to omit of the formalities demanded
206
ASAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
by etiquette, he a Note officially informing
the President of Chili 1 of the which lie just
in the heart of the republic. The Note was courteous but
to the point:
Excellency,
We, Oreie-Anfoine the First, by the Grace of God King of
Araucania, have the honour to inform you of our accession
to the throne which we have Jost in Araacania.
We pray God to preserve Your Excellency in His just and holy
keeping.
Done in Araucania, November 27, 1860
(Signed) OREIIE-ANTOINE THE
to his of Affairs to a
copy of the Note to Ms colleague at the of the Chilean Ministry
of die Exterior in Santiago, King Orele-Antoine withdrew from
Ms domains and returned to Valparaiso to devote himself to his
official correspondence, and to await reactions to the
of his kingdom. The weeks passed and Orelie-
AntoinCs somewhat hurt that the Republic should have committed
the grave breach of protocol of leaving Ms Note unanswered,
he now free to himself to his new subjects.
By the of December 1 861 he was back again in Araucania.
The for and constitutions was past; indeed, his
two had akeady come to and abandoned the
He to the heart of his people,
were of the heroic staff as Laotaro and
for this he die services of other and
In die of Metro Tappa, a jack-of-all-
of or sought in
of the world finally up in the of
he had to the and ways,
Ms Paaza. Laying out money he
still in lie of trinkets to to the
of die tie two set out for the
of dbe But Tappa teen carefiii to see
207
CHILEAN SCSAF-BOOK
that their hawkers* packs also contained a few carefully concealed
firearms.
Guided by Tappa, who also knew tow to impress the natives by
Ms agility as an acrobat and conjuror, Orelie-Antoine wandered
for months through die length and breadth of the lands lying be
tween Vaidivia and the Bio-Bio, winning tie friendship and con
fidence of die cadtptes. The adventurers had chosen their time wisely.
Araocania was on the verge of one of its periodic risings, and
Quilapan, the formidable son of the great chief Mangil, was pre
paring to fulfil the vow made on bis father s death-bed that he
would not rest until the last Chilean had been driven from Indian
soil. So far Qiiilapan had concentrated his efforts against those chiefs
who had come to terms with the white men and who might be
described today as Quislings or collaborators. He had just begun
to fed himself strong enough to try conclusions with their powerful
masters when word was brought him that a French prince had
come to Amucania to unite die people and lead than to victory
against their hereditary foe.
Qnilapan s knowledge of the outside world was rudimentary in
the extreme. Orelie-Anteine had to use all his eloquence to make
him understand that Irance was a mighty nation who wished to
help the valiant Araucanians to gain their independence and that it
was ruled over by a great and mighty emperor who descended from
Napoleon Bonaparte. Quilapan was unimpressed. He had never
heard of Napoleon Bonaparte, but out of courtesy he nodded assent
when the frenchman explained that Napoleon had been a great
wamor and chief as great as Mangil himsd Quilapan then asked
news of Spain. Was not that, too, a great nation, whose kings had
long trial in vain to subdue the Araucanians? OreEe-Antokie
agreed, but pointed out that the days of Spain s greatness wore
now past When he added that the country was ruled by a woman,
Qmlapan s amazement knew no bounds. To an Indian chie whose
wealth was measured in terms of the number of wives he could
have to do his bidding, no greater degradation could be conceived
for a country. He began to listen to Orelie-Antoine with more
respect, mindful perhaps of the ancient prophecy which told of the
coming of a white king to deliver his people from the yoke of the
208
m
Like Todos Ics Santas :ri:/z I dun Oscmo in the distant
PLATE IX
THE REGION OF THE LAKES
Mount Tronadcr, The Timnderei
PLATE X
ISLAND OF CHILOE. The port of Castro
TRADING WITH THE INDIANS
From The Araucanians by Edmond Reud Smith
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
other white men whose superiority in numbers and equipment was
clearly so overwhelming they never be vanquished by
the strong arms of his braves alone.
As 1861 drew to its close the adventurers considered their
position was now so strong amongst the Indians that the time had
come to summon a Coyau-Kewan, or Great Assembly* at wMch
Orelie-Aiitoine was to be formally proclaimed King of Araiicania.
The day selected for this important ceremony was, somewhat in
congruously, Christmas Day. At the first light of dawn bands of
Indian horsemen cotdd be discerned making their way towards the
broad meadows where the ceremony was to be staged. They came
in foil war accoutrement, their chiefs at their head s brandishing
their lances and the motley assortment of sabres and carbines
captured from their white enemy. Quilapan was there, the chiefs
Leacon and Levin and many others* some four to five in
all. A bugle call announced the arrival of the Frenchman Ms
squire. In view of the exceptional solemnity of the occasion, Orelie-
Antoine had also hired two other white men,, Lorenzo Lopez and
Resales by name, to act as additional interpreters. How faithfully
they translated his fervent discourse into the guttural tongue of the
natives, Orelie-Antoine was enable to say. Hrst, lie paid tribute
to the legendary valour of the Araucaaian race and recalled their
many deeds of prowess. Then, incorrigible lawyer as he remained
at heart throughout all his romantic adventures, he held forth upon
the nation s historic constitutional rights to independence and con
cluded by urging his listeners to unite to vindicate them. He for Ms
part offered himself as their leader and Icing in those fateful days
and exhorted them to remain faithful to the death to the emblems
of victory which he therewith bestowed upon them. Then, with
reverent care, he handed to the dhie the green, blue and white flag
of the new monarchy.
OreMe-Antoine*s discourse was greeted with frenzied applause
by the natives who sparred their past him in the traditional
or parade of honour, uttering piercing war-shrieks and
a doud of dust. So great was the excitement
that those whose attire was sufficiently complete to include some
form of headdress forgot to remove it as they past their newly-
p 209
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
acclaimed monarch, and Orelie-Antoine was obliged to tell them
through the interpreters to lift their hats or if they had none, to
raise their right hand in respectful salute, whenever they approached
to greet him. Gratified as he might be by such signs of popular
enthusiasm, the new long was determined to obtain some more
concrete and permanent form of recognition for his accession to the
throne. If the chiefs were too ignorant or cautious to leave a
written confirmation of the great event of his accession, the ex-
procurenr of Perigeux drew up a short memorandum himself in
the following terms:
Today, December 25, 1861
Christmas Day
The electors of the tribe of Canglo have met beneath the
presidency of the cacique Levin to deliberate on my proposal to
establish a constitutional monarchy in Araucania and Patagonia
and elect me king with perpetual hereditary right to my
descendants according to an order hereafter to be determined.
After deliberating, the aforesaid electors have elected and
proclaimed Us King of Araucania and Patagonia in the terms
indicated.
Done in Araucania on the date above recorded
(Signed) ORELIE-ANTOINE THE FIRST
So far, everything was working out as smoothly as the new
king could desire. There was one point, however, the implications
of which the caciques appeared to grasp more quickly than he did
himself The monarchy was to be not only constitutional but also
hereditary. Orelie-Antoine was a bachelor, and, like other fanatics
obsessed with one overmastering idea, shrank from amorous ad
ventures. Perhaps he might have toyed with the idea of accepting
the daughter of one of Europe s royal houses as his consort, as
befitted the dignity of the Araucanian throne. But the prospect of
being united with not one, but half a dozen at least, of the dusky
brides which the caciques were anxious to bestow upon him as a
sign of their respect and fidelity, was an ordeal which the bashful
monarch could not bring himself to face an ordeal worse than
any he had yet encountered, worse even than the obligation of
310
ARAUCANIA EPIC AND EPILOGUE
swallowing tlie proffered naehi strongly-spiced and congealed
sheep s Hood which the laws of hospitality demanded. Yet how
could he refiise without committing an affront which the Arau-
caniaas could neither understand nor forgives It was the resourceful
Tappa who suggested a way out. His Majesty should be graciously
pleased to accept the hands of the daughters but request
that the nuptial ceremony should be postponed in accordance
with Araiicanian custom until he had led his new subjects to
victory. For whether he really intended to take op arms or merely
to blackmail the Chilean authorities with a show of force, Orelie-
Antoine set about urging the chiefs to place the tribes on a. war
footing and muster their forces south of the Bio-Bio. To this end
he moved into the lands of the Trinte who was living on
friendly terms with the white men across the frontier, to bring the
full power of his eloquence to bear upon him and induce him to
adhere to the act of recognition like the other chiefs.
In the meantime, OreHe-Antoine s white followers were grow
ing increasingly alarmed at the turn things were taking. Neither the
shrewd Tappa nor the two interpreters Resales and Lorenzo Lopez
were prepared to risk their necks by fomenting open rebellion
against the Republic of Chile. There was still time bat only just
time to make thek peace with the authorities by denouncing the
whole mad scheme. Colonel Comelio Saavedra, commander-in-
chief of the frontier region, was not the sort of man to let their
information go unheeded. A patrol was out into the cacique s
country and the person of die monarch unceremoniously secured.
Orelie-Antoine records the melancholy event in Ms memoirs in
the following words: 1 was seated in the shade of an apple tree,
my in my hands, when I suddenly feit someone seize
me from behind to prevent me from arising* whilst others pinioned
my hands, stripped me of my and menaced me with
their arms. As these men, who at first 1 for robbers, no
word, I calmly asked them whether they wished to murder me.
"No/* one of them replied, "if you only remain quiet, BO harm
will come to you." *
But to remain was something which Orelie-Antoine was
incapable of doing. Though the scene BOW shifted from the
211
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
verdant forests and fields of Araucania to the gloom of Chilean
prisons and court-rooms, the pretender defended his cause with all
the eloquence and learning at his command. His plea was always
the same. Invoking the recognition accorded to the independent
Araucanian nation by former Spanish officials, Orelie-Antoine
stoutly maintained that Araucama was not, and never had been,
part of Chilean territory, and that the natives were free to chose
whom they would for their ruler. Colonel Saavedra indignantly
retorted that they had been unwise enough to choose a seditious
agitator who would be judged as such. The colonel would no doubt
have been glad to carry out his threat had not the Chilean authorities
decided fortunately for Orelie-Antoine that the case was one for
the civil courts to decide. For two years the investigations, deposi
tions and cross-examinations dragged on. Orelie-Antoine fell ill
and the resulting loss of his magnificent black locks deprived him,
like Samson, of something of his old vigour. Monsieur le Comte de
Cazotte, the French Charge d* Affaires, protested vigorously on
behalf of his government at the illegal and forceful detention of a
French subject. It seemed that the madness of the Araucanian
pretender might lead to serious international incidents. A way out
had to be found which would safeguard the Republic s preoccupa
tion for her own security without offending French susceptibilities.
To his anger and mortification Orelie-Antoine was declared insane
and the French consul permitted to place him on board a French
warship for repatriation.
Return to his native country did nothing to cure the adventurer
of his royal delusions. A stream of pamphlets and letters poured
from Ms pen in ceaseless vindication of the rights of the Araucanians
and of his own claim to their throne. He eked out the precarious
living gained from these literary efforts by the sale of royal favours
and decorations. But financial worries still harassed him and before
long he found himself committed to prison for trying to pass a
worthless cheque made out in the name of Prince Orelie-Antoine L
With the outbreak of war between Chile and Spain in 1865, the
adventurer s hopes rose once again, and he even managed to obtain
an audience of the Empress Eugenie. What encouragement he
received from the court of Napoleon HI it is impossible to say, but
212
ARAUCAKIA EPIC ANB EPILOGUE
in 1869 we find him back again on the soil of America. It
probable that a passage was found for him on the French warship
D Entrecasteaux* At al events, Orelie-Antoine landed leagues
south of the mouth of the Rio Negro on the shore of Patagonia,,
whose annexation to Ms kingdom of Araucania he had. so calmly
proclaimed nine years before. His previous omission to inform his
Patagonian subjects of their new destiny might well have had fatal
results for Mm. Striking out in a westerly direction with tie aim of
crossing the Andes into Arancania, the monarch fell into the hands
of a tribe of cannibals who would undoubtedly have committed
a distressing regicide had it not been for the providential presence
in their midst of a visiting Arancanian chieftain who was able
to confirm Ms desperate protestations of royalty, secured Ms
release, and guided Mm over the Cordillera into Araucania. After
such a miraculous escape, what we know of Orelie-Antoine s sub
sequent activities cannot but strike IB as an anti-climax. Hinting
mysteriously at the consignment of arms and troops which the
French Emperor would shortly be placing at Ms disposal, Orelie-
Antoine sought to re-establish Ms ascendancy over the minds of
the caciques. By the end of the year reports of another impending
rising had begun to reach the ears of OreHe-Antoine*s old enemy,
Colonel Comelio Saavedra, whose measures for the subjection and
pacification of the Araucanians had made steady progress during the
past seven years. Saavedra reacted to the news of Orelie-Antoine s
return with vigour. Setting a Mgli price on the pretender s head,
he sent out strong detachments with orders to take Hm alive or
dead. After delivering to die Chilean authorities a defiant note
announcing Ms return and Ms renewed pretensions to the Araticanian
throne, Orelie-Antoine unaccountably vanished from Ms domains.
But a curious disquieting feature whilst the Ciulean columns
were scouring the countryside in of the pretender in
pursuit of the rebellious Indians, a French warship unexpectedly
appeared off the shore near the little pore of Lebu. The customary
visits of courtesy were exchanged, food and water on
board and after a few days* rest during which time the crew could
convince themselves of the of any sign of general in
surrection on the part of the Araucantans, the weighed anchor
213
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
and sailed off It was the D Entrecasteaux. Colonel Saavedra was not
slow to draw Ms conclusions. In a report sent to die Government in
July 1870, lie urged the necessity of accelerating the conquest and
pacification of Arancania and closing the door once and for all to
irresponsible adventurers or the intrigues of imperialist powers. 6
Ten years passed, and the memory of the French pretender had
already grown dim, when the Araucanians rose in what was to be
their final insurrection. The white man s hour of peril had ever
been the Indian s opportunity. In 1880, Araucania had been drained
of troops needed for the war against Bolivia and Peru in the north.
The Indians seized amis, raided and sacked towns and farmsteads,
and threatened for a while to carry all before them. But the ven
geance ot the Chilean army, soon victorious in the struggle for the
nitrate fields, was not long dekyed. This time the Araucanian ques
tion was to be settled once and for all. Within two years the Indians
were driven out of their strongholds along the line of the Cura-
cautin and the upper Bio-Bio. New cities such as Temuco and
Nova Imperial were founded, the first railways driven through the
old Indian territories and the remnants of the Indian population
confined to a few special reservations. The final round of the
centuries-old conflict had at last been fought out.
Only one recent and wholly unsuccessful attempt has been made
to rekindle the martial spirit of the now exhausted and degenerate
Araucanians. The Communist Party once made a bid to cultivate
them as a dissident national minority and to woo them as some of
the backward peoples of Soviet Asia and the Far East have been
wooed. A Venezuelan Communist called Martinez, who had
scored some success amongst the Indians of Mexico, converted his
comrades in Chile to his enthusiastic view that the Araucanians
should be regarded as a still sovereign and independent community*.
Special agitators were sent amongst them to exploit their national
ieeling through the propagation of this flattering creed, and a series
of meetings was held and attended by delegates of the Araucanian
and the fraternal Chilean peoples , as the Chilean Commiinists
were now careful to style themselves. One Indian, Minquillipan
214
NOTES
by name, escorted by die Communist senator for Talca, was even
sent to Paraguay to represent the Araucanians at the Party s Con-
greso Continental Indigena to which representatives of the Almara,
Quechua and Aztec Indians had also been invited. But the proud
Araucanians as a whole remained unresponsive to ihe Marxist
message. Their old aggressiveness had been for ever blunted and
they were now too far sunk in passivity and degeneration. Moscow
was not slow to see the delegates of the fraternal Chilean people
were wasting their time. The policy championed by Martinez,
which had borne such fruit in the mixed nationality areas of Asia
and Eastern Europe, was denounced in its Chilean application as
extremist and puerile . The Araucanians were written off as hope
less material, useless for the cause of revolution no less than for the
civilization in which they could clearly play no part.
NOTES
1 The Indo-American movement is most developed in Mexico and Peru,
the former centres of Aztec and Inca civilization. The Mexican Revolution
was based on the political and economic resurgence of the Indian, and
discussion still rages as to how far traditional Indian institutions, such as
the r jido system of communal land ownership, should be retained today.
The APRA movement in Peru has similar aims and believes that the co
operative spirit of the ancient community known as the ay!lu f which still
survives amongst the Indians, could be applied to revitalize Peruvian
democracy. In Chile, where the Indians lived in isolated homesteads and
were generally at a much lower level of civilization, no such indigenous
basis for reform exists.
2 Hrst formulated by Nicolas Palacios in R&za Chifem (Valparaiso 1904),
a fascinating blend of erudition and racial mysticism which would have
gladdened the heart of a Houston Stewart Chamberlain or a Rosenberg,
Pakcios claims that the Spanish coc&jtiistadoces, especially those attracted
to Chik where fighting was known to be heaviest and most unremittmg,
were themselves mainly descended from the warlike Goths who had in
vaded Ac Spanish Peninsula. *To these facts,* Palacios declares, our race
owes one of tie most precious conditions of its origins; it was engendered
215
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
In great part in the early times when the teutonic nature of the conguisca-
dores remained at Its purest. . . . The fact is that the real Chilean has no
Latin blood in his veins, though he may speak a Latin tongue and bear a
Spanish name. . . . The Chilean roto is an Araucanian-Goth. Chileans pride
themselves on their European ancestry, and there must be few of them,
even those with pro-Nazi sympathies, who would feel flattered to consider
themselves as Araucanian-Goths*. An obvious fallacy underlying Palacios
theory is the fact that most of the Indian women who intermarried with
the Spanish soldiery belonged not to the Araucanian, but to the more docile
Indian tribes. It has been estimated that the Araucanians cannot have con
tributed more than some 40 per cent of the Indian blood flowing in Chilean
veins today.
3 A good modem edition is that of Angel Custodio Gonzalez, El Cauti-
verio Feliz (Santiago 1948),
4 Conrad has based one of his tales on the life of Benavides, transforming
the character of the bloodthirsty ruffian into that of a heroic simpleton,
Caspar Ruiz.
5 The Aiammiam or Notes of a Tour among the Indian Tribes of Southern
Chile by Edmond Reuel Smith (New York 1855).
6 Even after the fiasco of his second attempt to return to his Kingdom*,
Orelie-Antoine seems to have persuaded some of his cotmtryrnen to take
Ms claims seriously. A number of French journals praised him for striving
to found La France Nouvelle beyond the seas and even the Pall Mall Gazette
spoke of him, with respectful appreciation. Banking circles, too, became
interested in the possibility of floating a loan and chartering ships to convey
the monarch and Ms suite back to America. There was no knowing indeed
how far the pretender might not have gone in infecting the public with
his delusions, had not the CMlean Minister accredited to Paris and London
roundly declared that Ms government would consider any person, irre
spective of nationality, proceeding from England and France to our shores
with hostile intent and apprehended there, as a pirate*. This warning had
its effect Orelie-Antoine, felling to secure die assistance he had hoped for,
attempted one last and abortive attempt to return to Araucanb, This final
failure seems to have caused him to abandon hope of ever regaining his
throne, though he retained his royal pretensions in exile to the end. His
last years were spent in poverty and obscurity, and when he died the
C saccessi0n* passed to a distant relative by (he name of Gustave Achille
Laviarde who assumed the style of Achile the First, but confined his
activities to tie safe and lucrative practice of selling royal decorations. The
216
NOTES
last achievement which history records of this fantastic dynasty is the
acceptance of King Acliile s Order of the Southcra Star* by no less a
personage than the Shall of Persia, *onr beloved, great and illustrious friend
whom we pray to recognize the autonomy of tic AraccaBiaii-Patagoiiiaii
nation , Of the Araucanian who had formerly acknowledged OrcEe-
Antoine as their king, only Quilapan appears to have refased to the last
to make any act of submission to the Chilean authorities, Wididrawing to
the inaccessible forests amend Loacoehe in the south he maintained his in
dependence until, in the manner of Ms people, alcoholic took the
toll of him that Colonel Saavedra s troops had sought in vain to exact.
For a fuller account of Orelie-Antoiae s adventures, see Ms own memoirs:
Or/lie Antoine i, son au et sa m Chili, relation
par lui-mime. Retour en France da Roi de la. et Je la Patagmie, etc.
Entertaining studies of the pretender have bcea written by Victor
Domingo Siva, El Rej ie la Araaatnia, and A. Bratin Meneodez, El
& j (Bucaos Air 1945).
Chapter Thirteen
The Region of the Lakes
DURING THE LONG centuries of warfare on the frontier,
strange tales would go around the camp-fires, and be passed
from one lonely farmstead to another, of a lost city far to
the south, beyond die AraEanian-infested forests. Some said that
Spaniards lived there; others, that it was a citadel of civilized
Indians, a last refuge of the Inca princes. Travellers claimed to have
set eyes on its glittering domes and golden gates, or even to have
held converse with its inhabitants whose old-fashioned clothes and
archaic tarns of speech filed diem with wonder. Others maintained
that the inhabitants of the Enchanted City were immortal and
spoke no tongue intelligible to man; once their secret were revealed,
moreover, the world itself would come to an end. Men living near
the shores of the Pacific deckred that the city lay on the other side
of the Andes, nor the Atlantic coast; those who dwelt east of the
mountains held that there it must lie somewhere to the west. Many
agreed that it stood on the shores of a great lake, or on an island. All
could quote learned books that spoke with certainty of it, knew
who had infallible evidence of its existence. 1
The name which men gave to this place of legend was the
City, or the City of the Caesars. Not that the myth
owed anything to the traditions of ancient Rome; it was rather the
exuberant fancy of one of Bartholomew Cabot s captains, Francisco
Cesar by name, who related how he and his comrades had traversed
the of Patagonia and discovered great riches of gold and
silver and precious stones*. Some of Cesar s men never returned
from their travels, and rumour had it that they were not dead, but
lived on in some city of their own discovering or founding. To this
fable were joked stories of the last of the Inca Emperors or Caesars
who had refiige in some hidden fortress, and tales of the
218
THE 1EGION OF THE EAKIS
survivors of the ill-fated to the Straits of who
had not met by starvation or shipwreck but safety in
the miraculous haven where, years later, they were joined by
the remnants of the Spanish driven southwards by the
Araicanian raids on Osomo and Valdivia. There was, In short; no
kck of inhabitants for the Enchanted City.
With the passing of the years and the accumulation of a of
cmiouslT detailed though contradictory data, belief in the existence
of the mythical city gained credence in the most respectable
quarters. In 1711, a tramp himself Caesar and claiming to be
a refugee from that city turned up in the island of Chiloe had
such a detailed and plausible story to tell that he was not only
believed but received into the Jesuit Order on the strength of it and
rose to become Coadjutor of Peru. The Caesar
how he and his fellows had lived in a
Payague, in the Southern Cordillera, which was by a
lake or swamp and backed by a volcano where die river
Diamante rose. This river its name from the vast quantity of
precious stones and gold which were in its waters. Gold
was so abundant there that even pots and pans were made of it.
The inhabitants of this fabulous city were white-skinned and fair-
baked. They had blue eyes and wore short and were of such
stature few could weight. Yet these
Caesars had, to our way of thinking, some very plebeian tastes.
They were extremely fond of garlic and cultivated this plant
care its spread amongst the neighbouring
who came to barter their ware for it. Nor was garlic the only
in this favoured sol. The grew
in size and be to its
leaves, and yet strange to rekte it and soft to
the palate.
Oa the of such and accounts, the
Vicerov General de Mayorga to an ex-
to the Cordillera in of it. After a
of costly the tie was to
feidiiig a of it. Some years in 1777 the
Governor of which,
219
CHILEAN SCIAP-BOOK
liaddng Its. way through the forests, caught sight of a distant lake,
and on its furthest shores, what looked like the roofi of houses and
even church towers. This story the men swore to and repeated on
oath when they returned to Valdivia. Four years later Dr Perez de
Uriondo, the Chief Justice of Chile, drew up a long memorandum
collating the evidence for the vanished city which he sent to the
King of Spain with the request that he might be allowed to organize
yet another expedition. *lh view of such testimony/ he asserted, it
seems that there can no longer be any doubt about the existence of
these cities* (for the good doctor had reached the conclosicm that
there must in fact be several of them) whether they be of Spaniards
or of Strangers.* Had not Christopher Columbus derived his belief
in the existence of the New World from the assertions of some
mariner who daimed to have sighted unknown lands on one of
his voyages? Was it not the talk of Indians which led Vasco Nunez,
de Balbao to discover the South Sea, and Pizarro the Empire of die
fncas? And had not the remote and primitive community of the
Bataecos remained undiscovered in the heart of Spain itself until
the reign of Philip II? Why, then, should one dismiss the possibility
of the existence of an unknown city in the still uncharted deserts of
Patagonia?
Many were the soldiers and explorers who led expeditions in
search of the Enchanted City. Not the least remarkable of these
expeditions were those undertaken between 1670 and 1673 by the
saintly and intrepid missionary Father Mascardi, whose tireless
efforts on behalf of die Indians, exposed to the ruthlessness of the
seculac aiithones had caused them to reveal in gratitude so it was
declared the exact whereabouts of the Enchanted City and to
offer their assistance in finding it* The wanderings of Father
Mascardi escorted by friendly Indians and preceded by envoys
bearing letters written in six languages and addressed to tie elusive
Caesars, took Mm to the Straits of Magellan and the Atlantic shores
of Patagonia, converting and preaching to the savage Indian
tribesmen as he wait. From his fourth expedition, Father Mascardi
never returned, and his body was later discovered hacked to pieces
fey a hostile tribe. Fervent missionary that he was/ his Jesuit
biographer writes of him, *he was consumed with a pure zeal for tie
220
THE 1EGIOB OF LAKES
of and Ms at die of so many
of Spaniards who were to be
the succour of religion, for bad no and in tic sad
of immorality to by the from
he confirmation of number,
the whereabouts of their
to all of which the around him, as is the
answered in accordance with, his and For observ
ing that the Spaniards to of kind, jw jus
a thousand fair for
and and die zeal; Fatter Mascardi
had favoured in their captivity and had to be
set at liberty, and
they to give Mm
the of the ever more. Further,
being once in prayer, he in Ms by
in of his of to see and
Xavier to set out in of the
who the City of Ac Caesars and IB convert
oa the way the of the
territory the Nahuel-Huapi and Ac
lie were to himself to the risk of martyrdom.*
Mascaxdi s die Catholic were
the city could be found. Thomas Falkner,
the full and in his letters of the
by Ac city be from Buenos Aires,
Ae rivers aad had to be crossed, the
of Ae be and even the
of in But direciioiis
to to Ae last to set out
on Ac coma?-
Father centred
Ae of Nalmd-Hiiapi a 1m! once
by Ac There, oa die of Ae
Ae in of Ac
of Ae City oa die of a river wittdi
a a city of
221
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
churches and fine buildings standing in die midst of weE~cultivated
fields and inhabited by men speaking the Castillian tongue and
governed by a chief called Basilio. The strangest thing about these
reports was that they were, for once, perfectly true; only they
referred not to any Enchanted City but to a substantial, inaccessible
town Carmen de Patagones, standing where the Rio Negro
flows into tie Atlantic and founded by one Basilio Villarino.
Owing to the chaotic conditions of viceregal administration, the
existence of this remote settlement was unknown to Father Menen-
dez and had been completely forgotten by the Viceroy himself.
But the sparkling domes and gates of beaten gold, and the great
bell which* when tolled* could be heard throughout the whole
world, were but a myth. Yet long after Father Menendez had given
up his search for them, travelers continued to bring back tales of
Indians who had caught glimpses of the city and spoken with its
mysterious inhabitants.
Even today, the myth of die Enchanted City still lives on in the
fantastic of new forms. The descendants of the Caesars, it is
whispered, have now been joined by the greatest tyrant of die
modem world by Adolf Hitler himself! It is recalled that a few
weeks after the Fuehrer was believed to have perished amidst the
of die Reidtskanzlei, two long-distance U-boats reached the
of Buenos Aires and were handed over to the American
They were found to contain nothing remarkable or
on board, Why should they, indeed, when the vast
coast-line of Patagonia could have swallowed their pas-
a trace? Somewhere there, rumour has it, the last
of the Caesars may now be living, perhaps on some huge
by Germans inown for their devotion to the Nazi cause.
Or conceivably he has made his way across the Cordillera* to
the German of Chile in the region of the lakes. 2
The of the deluded adventurers, explorers and missionaries
in die quest for the City of the Caesars were
in vain. Lite die in the table who dug
in a search for buried treasure but reaped a reward of
222*
THE 1EGION OF THE IAKES
another kind, visionaries prepared die way for the colonists
were later to turn the riches of this vkgia to account. The
tad been mere military outposts built to the
who only too frequently overran and destroyed diem.
Osomo, for instance, lay devastated for nearly two centuries and for
all the labour of Ambroao O Higgiiis and Ms fellow
Juan Mackema to repopukte it, die town never realy to
prosper until the coming of the European colonists a century ago.
Valdivia, the most important military centre of the region, was, for
centuries, cut off from the rest of the country by impenetrable
forests and hostile Indians. Its remote and exposed caused it
to be regarded as a sort of penal post whither soldiers guilty of
crime or insubordination were sent to expiate faults. Only
the governorship was, in some degree, after; for it gave
scope for peculation. Hie
of die town on die broad of the Valdrm river was its
and its weakness. It could be reinforced reBeved from
the sea die Arauonians* land forces; but it
liable to fell to a resolute from the sea. Once,
Valdivia was captured and for a rime by die Dutch
who to make an with the tool Indians. That it
similarly fell to die was a constant threat which
the rnddSklgable Ambrosio O ffiggiiis to strengthen its
and convert the whole estuary, at enormous
and into a well-defended zone equipped with no less
forts of varying sizes. But when the decisive moment
It not even could make it proof
the audacity of a Cocfarane,
Hie of Valdivia and die of its 1,800 by a
force only of its was conceived and
carried out in of typical of the
First, a was sent to die esteary.
tic colours. It was by a from the
a for a pilot. The Spaniards
not a but a as well
was at the of Ac Ae
at then off to
223
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
rejoin the two other drips of Cochrane s squadron, intercepting
the Spanish brig Potiilla on the way, and capturing the dispatches
and the 20,000 pesos which she was carrying to the garrison, lie
whole squadron thai sailed boldly into the mouth of the estuary
in the teeth of furious fire from the first of the forts, the Fuerte
Ingles, The landing parties thai got ready, Lord Cochrane directing
the attack from his launch and the intrepid Miller, his hat carried
away by a cannon-ball, as ever at the head of the troops. Whilst
the daylight lasted, the forts continued their furious but inaccurate
bombardment of the ships, but once darkness fdl and the attackers,
to the accompaniment of infernal shrieks, launched a bayonet
charge against the Ftierte Ingles, die defenders threw down thek
arms and fled. The panic spread to the other forts, and by dawn
Cochrane was master of all the western side of the river. The forts
cm the eastern side surrendered soon afterwards, and the garrison
in Valdivia itself mutinied and began to sack the town, whilst
the SpanisJi governor fled south to seek refuge on the island of
CMloe,
Thus Yaldivk fell to the patriots and was incorporated into the
territory of tie new Republic. But for the next few decades it
languished sadly, denuded of adequate population and ait off from
the main centres of activity in Chile, Its plaza, a contemporary
water tells us* ceased to be a parade ground for the troops and the
natoral promenade for its citizens, and degenerated into a mere
open space where ox-hides were laid out to dry in the scanty sun
shine, and the prisoners from, the town jail constantly came forth
to do in that long-suffering plaza, what decency does not permit me
to describe*. Such was the state of the chief town of die district
when, in November 1845, President Bulnes promulgated his
immigration law and the first colonists from Germany began to
arrive.
Hie moving spirits in the drive to clear and colonize the for
midable, unexplored forest land lying between Valdivia and the
Cordillera, and southwards to the little frequented Gulf of Rdoncavi
forest so impenetrable that few Indians even ventured into it,
224
THE REGION OF THE EAKES
and so impregnated and soaked it
stubbornly resisted fire were two a Chilean,
the other a German, Vicente Perez Rosaks was an adveateroiiSs
resourceful and gifted character M
remains perhaps the best autobiography in Chilean literature. His
txavek had taken him as far afield as Paris and California and
him a broad outlook capable of triumplii&g over the
obstacles which vested interests and local prejudices were to place
in the way of all attempts to exploit and colonize die of
Chile. Bernardo Philippi was an equally and cosmopolitan
figure. Bora at Charlottenburg in 1811, and an engineer and
naturalist by profession, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to
settle down as a farmer in Peru, had lived for some time in
Cbiloe and finally returned to Germany a
of Chilean natural history specimens, and his fit! of
grandiose plans for settling the German He
continued his labours as the Chilean Government s
agent in Europe, until bigoted Catholic circles grew at the
influx of Protestant families and engineered his recall in 1851,
Perhaps the greatest deterrent to the courageous and
who first set out to clear the forests was insecurity of their rights of
ownership to the land redbimed, the absence of any trustworthy
tide-deeds, and the ease with wMch the latter could be faked or
falsely obtained. The advent of the first immigrants to Valdivia was
preceded by a grot wave of land speculation which closed the
immediately accessible land to them and Caused great tracts of un
developed territory, which the State imagined it owned and in
tended to parcel out amongst the newcomers, to pass into private
ownership. It was an abuse easy to practise and difficult to prevent.
All that was needed was for the to produce Indian,
wel primed with and by
suborned, who would declare that he and his family were the
traditional owners of a given tract of territory he had now
soH to his feimd, Mr So-and-So. Deeds of were
produced which the Indian made no pretence of abk to read,
and the transfer of the property was la this
way enormous tracts offend were fiaudukody or at
Q 225
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
claimed. Some of the claims were indeed wildly fantastic and in
cluded strips of unexplored territory stretching between imaginary
lines from the shores of the Pacific to the Cordillera or even
running north to south, for the whole length and breadth of Chile,
from the Gulf of Reloncavi to the very borders of Peru and Bolivia!
Absurd as these claims were, they vasdy complicated the difficulty of
providing secure and permanent holdings for the new colonists, and
led to an endless amount of imposture, mutual recrimination and
litigation. Perez Resales tells us with disarming frankness in his
memoirs that, in addition to fighting this abuse with the legal
weapons at his command, he even beat the speculators at their own
game by himself going through the farce of mock purchases of
land from imaginary owners.
So, in the last decades of the nineteenth century, the great forests
gradually began to yield to human setdement, and a new type of
community arose in Southern Chile. Here the settlers, prepon
derantly of foreign stock, were owners of a hijuela of 50-100 acres
of land which in many cases they had themselves cleared of virgin
forest. But their legal right to these holdings often remained in
doubt. Owing to the complete absence of reliable maps, the difficulty
of delimiting frontiers, the greed and dishonesty of land-speculators
and the ignorance o or indifference to, local conditions in the
distant capital, fraud and confusion everywhere prevailed. The
whites stole away the best land from the Indians, the Indians
trumped up claims to land they had never owned. The large land
owner unscnipulously overrode the rights of the smallholder and
sought to eject him from his hijuela. Labourers contracted for a
season s work would squat on the land, and knowing that their
employer could himself not make good any legal claim to owner
ship, would refuse to budge. By 1929 there were estimated to be
47,000 properties in the southern provinces, involving more
77,203 square miles, whose tides were in doubt. The aspect of the
problem which undoubtedly threatened the gravest social, econo
mical and political consequences, has been the absorption or amal
gamation of hijuelas to form large new h&dendas^ comparable in
extcaot to those of Central Chile. Since there is nothing to prevent
the sale of smallholdings and their acquisition by any larger laod-
226
THE REGION OF THE LAKES
owner, It is not unusual to find built up from a dozen or
more previous .
The insecurity of tenure owing to the uncertainty of title-deeds
and the encroachment of the system has led to constant
Etigatiom and violent quarrels which retard the prosperity
of the whole region, and to at least one armed rising of
proportions. Has occurred in Jime and July 1934 as the result of
the Government s decision to confirm a claimant s tide to a vast
area of land some 432,000 acres in die upper valley of die Bio-Bio.
Part of this land was already occupied by a number of smallholders
who had worked it for years and maintained they had a
legal right to it, An attempt by the new to
with armed resistance, for the colonists had in the meantime
themselves into a syndicate for mutual protection and come
the iaiuence of radical political A of
clashes with the police resulted, colonists common
cause with their threatened and it as if the
revolt spread throughout the country. Foreign
depicted events as radical the it
be truer to describe as the of
who saw that farms and homes by on tie
were by what they daims. 1
The 1934 the urgency of and
for al with the of and
die in the of Chile stil in
To end a as of the Pro-
priedad Austral was set up, and a
to and
TO The did not
in bat it an on
the is cm by die
de a It be to
exaggerate this is for the
of Chile. ^The and its
like a
be a long and a has
mo such fe as a land of
227
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
smallholdings will give to the nation a guarantee of a large body of
independent middle-class citizens. The south should be the bulwark
of Chile s democratic institutions. Without a secure tide, however,
the land of the small proprietor is in danger of being lost and of
being incorporated into large hadendas. Without such smallholdings
democratic society can hardly survive. The most vital phase of the
land problem in Southern Chile is the menace of her agrarian basis
for democracy.
From Valdivia, with its breweries, its Kuchen and its excellent
sausages, its German factories, its German school, its German club,
its admirable German hospital, and its Lutheran church, the colonists
spread out into the surrounding countryside and left upon it the
indelible impress of their fatherland. The first-comers were simple,
freedom-loving folk who had turned their back on the tyranny of
nineteenrihi-century Germany to seek new homes overseas. *We
shall become as honest and hard-working Chileans as have ever
been,* declared their spokesman, Professor Anwandter. Shoulder
to shoulder with our new compatriots we shall defend our adopted
country against all foreign aggression with the resolution and
tenacity of tie man who defends his native land, his family and his
interests.* Who could guess that before a hundred years had passed
their descendents would be mouthing Nazi slogans about the call
of the blood and the fatherland, and strutting in brown-shirted
battalions by the side of remote lakes whilst the bonfires blazed
out their swastikas on the mountainside? Now that the defeat of
Germany has sobered their hysteria, the Germans of Chile are
anxious to prove themselves good citizens of the Republic once
more. But there are still unrepentant Nazis amongst diem who
refer in scathing terms to the weaklings and traitors in the Party in
Germany who brought about the shame of defeat and who are
silently working and preparing for the day when a nationalist
Germany will again be strong.
Yet when all this has been said, it must be recognized that this
part of Chile owes much to the industry and enterprise of its
German colonists. Hie tourist who goes to the region of tie lakes
228
THE REGION OF THE LAKES
for Ms hoBday will be very conscious of this, for he wil stay in
clean, comfortable broad-caved hotels and drink good Gorman-
brewed beer, so that lie fancies himself in Bavaria rather than
South America. Only the scale of the landscape is beyond any
he will have seen in Europe, and the snow-capped cones of die
volcanoes add a note of Japanese beauty. Tie sportsman, or
holiday-maker will find everything here he may
magnificent fishing, sailing, and swimming, ski-ing in and
riding in summer, an endless variety of exclusions, and cHmbs,
plenty, of comfortable hotels and a few luxury ones,
excellent mineral springs, and scenic beauty of
magnificence and profusion. If IK is lucky the volcanoes may erupt
for Mm at a respectfii distance^ so that lie may the
at ease from Ms veranda, whilst prepare for Ms wonder
ful miniature mountains of meringue and ice-cream,
alcoholic from pools of nun in
Chocolate craters. If we are to the
are still more to be tested. Father us
in Ms pictoresqtie of Chile Vilarica
of lava in its of 1640 the of the river
Toipire were not only killed, but cooked to a in the
water!
Mount Vilarica dominates the northerly of
Colico, Caborgiik and Vilarica. The first two, but remote,
lie die reach of aH but the lake
Vilarica is more it can be by or by
the to die of die
ply to die and
golf-comse of Pocon. Here, in winter, on on skis
the of up die of
the in the
two by
X-iays to
db los
Iks
its
water-sprite tie a it cs the
229
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
reflection of a fair lady in its waves. The superstitious traveller, then,
avoids this lake and takes the road from Panquipulli, past the
fantastic waterfall of Huilo-Huilo, to Lake Pirehueico, with its
steep, thickly-wooded and sharply indented banks. Separated from
this group of lakes by a broad belt of hill and forest Hes Lake
Ranco, a mighty stretch of water lapping islands where wild deer
roam. Southwards still, the range of the Cordillera Nevada piles
its bulk above Lake Puyehue and its fashionable spa. In the Termas
de Puyehue, the primaeval rubs shoulders with the sophisticated;
stretches of virgin forest alternate with neatly cultivated fields,
whilst a luxurious hairdressing establishment, a night-club, a theatre,
a variety of bars and a chapel compete for the attention of a clientele
which might otherwise be overwhelmed by the solitude of un
tamed nature. The Termas de Puyehue are one of the show-places
of the Chilean Lake District and the most efficient of filters for
separating the rich Argentine from his pesos. Next to Lake Puyehue
comes Lake Rupanco, with its less pretentious spa. The mountains
axe nearer and loftier now the jagged, appropriately named
Puntiagudo; Mount Osomo, rising from the shores of Lake
Llanquihue; Mount Calbuco, almost washed by the waves of the
sea; and further inland, the vast mass of the Tronador or Thunderer.
Llanquihue itself, the largest of these lakes, is roughly triangular
in shape with the little towns of Puerto Varas* Puerto Octay and
Ensenada nestling in the angles formed by banks here cleared of
trees and covered with well-tilled fields and trim houses, there still
overgrown with dense forest. Puerto Varas, with its vast new hotel
facing the railway station and its broad terraces gazing out over
the water to the distant slopes of Mount Osomo, is in the front
Mae of advancing civilization; Ensenada, an outpost reared in the
heart of a still untamed nature. In the long summer days, die surface
of the lake is smudged with the smoke of paddle-steamers and
speckled with small white sails; in winter, when the wind lashes
the waves into sudden fury, one can almost imagine that the spirit
of the forest has regained its sway and delivered the lake over to
the caprice of die fabulous monsters who are held by legend to
haunt it.
From Ensenada* a road runs over the wooded hills to another
230
THE 1EG1ON OF THE EAKBS
great the of all. This is die
Lago Todos los Santos, also the
the brilliant green of its deep waters, the
forested slopes of tie mountains, rise
steeply until they are lost to in of clouds. On the
Argentine frontier rises die of the Tronador,
takes its name, not as many believe, from die of volcanic
explosions, but from the awe-inspiring of die ice-
blocks on its slopes. The of Tronador,
Mount Osomo together dominate the of
woodland which falls away until lost to the
arms and fjords of the seas. Perez has how,
one of Ms journeys of exploration in the he the
slopes of Mount Osomo and viewed the of
Llanquihue, and beyond, the of what: be to be
mighty die Then the
horizon cleared, he the tiny
smacks. What he had to be but of die
of land-locked was, in feet, else the sea die Gulf
of Rdoncavi by a
of forest land. Here, at the of the Gnl the
point at which to build the port the so
of the country into contact with the
the lakes. It to drive a the
from the town now as Puerto Varas to the
which he Puerto in of the
hail the of so at
Today, Puerto is one of Ac
in Chile. It is the of
to the
of the north. It is, at tie lie for
to its
and to vast of to
Punta and die of There is
thing gay port, the
of its Its
to tie of Ac and
231
CHILIAN SCRAP-BOOK
nestle cosily around the plaza, which Perez Rosales claims was the
first in Chile to be laid out as a public garden with bright flower
beds. There in the plaza, from a concrete stand curiously shaped
like a gaping mouth of a fish, a band plays merry airs whilst in
numerable ragged but cheerful urchins roam the square in search
of clients for their shoe-shine, or, with a batch of papers under their
arm, advertise their wares with shrill cries like .those of the gulls
soaring above. *Yankmi?eh, Yankeei^eh!* they cry, invoking the
great lake whose formidable-looking and seemingly unpronounce
able name of Llanquihue is as intractable to the foreign tourist as
its forest-dad shores once were to the early pioneers.
NOTES
1 See IM Ciudad Emmtoda Je la Patagonia by E. Morales (Buenos Aires
1944).
* Fantastic as this legend may be, a recent piece of evidence suggests
dial there must be at least something to the story. The Santiago Mercurio
of May 24, 1950, published a statement by Herr Paul Hesslein, former
Catholic deputy in tbe Reichstag, describing how, in February 1948, he
had recognized, and been recognized fay, Martin Bormann, Stetlverfretcr
As Fmhvs* near Ofem, on tie southern shores of Lake Ranco. According
to Hessiesn, Hitler s Deputy had been living in" those parts, on die Argentine
side of the frontier, and used to make frequent excursions into Chile.
s A powerfiil picture of the agrarian rising is given in novel form in
ReinaHo Lomboy s RmquiL
4 McBrHe, QttkLant and S^dety.
The Island of Chiloe
THE ISLAND OF CMot or die kh Grande dc CMoc f to
give It its fill and more is a of its
OWE tenuously linked to die by die
stones of the lesser isles and the of Ac
have given to the whole region the of El Lugar de ks
Gaviotas die Place of the Gulk With Ac rest of Chic it to
have little in common the of Its
Darwin recorded his first of it
entries about the weather: In tic is and
in Dimmer It is only a better. 1 are few
parts of tie world, within die temperate so
rain Ms. The are very and the sky
clouded; to have a week of is wonderful/ 1
Yet when lie rime came to leave Chiloe lie grudgingly
that s if we could forget die gloom and raia of winter,
Cfailoe might pass for a charming island- There Is very
attractive in Ae ampEcity and of its
Hie gentle contours of its bills, tic aad
of green weave die of Its and
die grey and die
and and die but con
servative nature of its
sdtious piety and rich, an
of poetic mystay. like tie die arc a
race
to and Jar Ac of
own The and die of die
Cliotes arc in and iercc
of die If the
233
CHI1EAN SCRAP-BOOK
tragic grandeur of the Indian epic, it is still not without its quaint
and sometimes stirring moments.
The thrust of colonizing energy from Central Chile has swept
southwards past this large island, with its well over three thousand
square miles of fertile soil, much of it still virgin forest, to found
tie rich sheep-farming settlements around the distant Straits of
Magellan and, more recently, the new province of Aysen in the
great zone of channels, islands and fjords between Magellan and
Chiloe. The latter thus remains something of a backwater (if we
may use this expression of an island). The larger ships only deign
to break their journey briefly at Castro, its chief port, whilst the
smaller vessels which ply between Puerto Montt and its capital of
Ancud, only Me off die latter port and let their passengers dis
embark in launches. It is as if the island still wished to honour the
tradition set by the first Spanish conquistadores who crossed from
the mainland at the isthmus of Chacao in the frail canoes built by
the natives, and their war-horses breasting the waves behind them
as best they could. With this first band of adventurers came Don
Alonso de Erdlk, the soldier-poet, who recorded the exploit with
schoolboy pride and sublime disregard for the existence of the
native population by carving the following verses on the trunk of
a tree:
Here crossed the sea and gained the unknown shore
Don Alonso de Ercilla, with ten companions more;
A fragile bark them o er die waters bore
And reached a land where none had trod before.
Tlie natives readily submitted to Spanish rule, embellished the
Catholic faith with their own rich stories of myth and legend, and
Chiloe finally retained its loyalty to the Spanish cause longer than
any other part of South America.
The little islands scattered between Chiloe and the mainland
already give a foretaste of what the Great Island* is like low foils
reaching confidently down to die water s edge with their contrast
of meadow and forest, the fields of potatoes and the clearings where
the hamlets stand, modest dusters of houses but none too small to
be without its little church. The houses are built of wooden boards
234
THE ISLAND OF CHIL0E
and shingles, generally of the of the Is of
a rich rudely colour but to grey, die
houses the appearance of of stone, they
stand raised on wooden at the water s
lacustrine settlement. The cultivated the
forms a patchwork of or fields, for Is
and plentiful and lies waiting for any are to under
take the labour of it. If few have on
the island, there are none who the of poverty,
and the prevalence of small the a
friendly and familiar aspect. Cfaiiotes combine die
of farmer and fisherman, not a few are at
trade such as sheep-shoring and as well. The
which dot tie waters are to be by as
robust and expert as off to
their fortune on the or to for a on the
sheep-farms around
Most travelers reach Chioe at the port of Castro,
its street up to the and
by built of die to die
have repeatedly the town. Castro in
1567 and was after the Viceroy of Peru. It the
of the 1834 its
were transferred to Attend or Carlos de Anciui, as it
When Darwin it in year he it as s a
forlorn and pkce. The of
be but die
tur on * . .
The poverty of the be the fact
of our
to a of or an
No a or a
and an oH was to a of
to tie by gsess.* The of
today, It be an
by die is at
Ancud. It is the of Ae the
235
CHILEAN SCRAP-BOOK
town with stops selling the beautiful hand-woven shawls, blankets,
cloth, rugs and bells for which Chiloe has been justly famous. The
Chilote shawl resembles a Scottish plaid; the blankets are either
woven in large squares of alternating colours, white, brown or
black generally predominating, with a small geometrical or floral
design occasionally embr
