Bird's -Eye View of the Longest Country on Earth
Copyright. 1914, by Frank O. Carpenter.)
ALPARAISO, Chile. Val
paraiso has plans out for
improving its harbor; and now
that the Panama canal Is
completed it will be able to
take, care of all the Increased
traffic that comes here from the opening
of that great waterway. As It is now. It
Is one of the chief ports of the world.
It Is the New York of the west coast of
South America, and It does more business
on the western Paclflo than any other
town except San Francisco. It Is nearer
the Isthmus of Panama than our great
port of California, and In the new direc
tion of trade through the war In Europe,
It will be almost as full of American ves
sels. You all know of Valparaiso, but I doubt
If many of you realize Just where it Is.
It is about as far south of our great canal
as Boston is distant from Salt Lake City,
and to equal its length you would have to
add 700 miles to the distance between
Boston and Panama. It Is right In the
central part of the coast of this long re
public of Chile, and I should say at a
guess about 1,300 or 1,400 miles from the
Straits of Magellan. Valparaiso is the
port nearest the capital of the republic,
and also the chief commercial gateway
to the great central valley which forms
the chief agricultural region of the coun
try. Chile lias a foreign commerce of
more than $250,000,000 per year, of which
more than one-half is made up of im
ports, which until now have come largely
from England, France and Germany. The
bulk of this goes through Valparaiso. The
town has 200,000 Inhabitants and Is grow
ing fast. It haa gained enormously sine
the earthquake of 1906, and, notwith
standing Its losses of a similar kind In
the past, Its. people go on building as
though there would be no earthquakes
In the future.
City Haa Many Back Sets.
Valparaiso haa had many experiences
In the field of bad luck. It was founded
only fifty-one years after Columbus dis
covered America, and It had many adven
ture with pirates before the earthquake
of 1730 destroyed the place and lta forti
fications. It was soon rebuilt and another
earthquake came In 1E22. Two decades
after that It had a fire that burned up
$1,000,000 worth of Its property and a little
later It bad another fire at a cost of
$5,000,000. Then it was bombarded by the
Spaniards, who destroyed its property to
the value of $10,000,000, and on top of the
whole came the earthquake of eight years
KO, which Is said to have cost $120,000,000.
At that time it ia estimated that 3,000
persons were killed, and that at least 100,
000 were rendered homeless. The whole
ef the city along the edge of the sea was
laid low; and nevertheless it is that part
of the town that Is new covered with the
best business blocks. Wide avenues have
been laid out through it, and the city is
Larger and more handsome than ever.
As It Is, a great part of Valparaiso has
been reclaimed from the sea by filling in
earth and rock from the highlands. This
was before the earthquake occurred, and
It is made so by the recent improvements.
Many of the new streets are now so high
that one haa to go down steps to get
Into the older buildings still standing.
Harbor IS'ot Always Safe.
The harbor of Valparaiso, aa it Is now.
Is not safe In certain weather. It needs
breakwaters and other improvements.
The large ships anchor some distance
out from the shore, and goods and pas
sengers are landed In boats. The scene
coming Into the harbor Is beautiful. The
city is built about a bay, of the shape of a
half moon. The big warehouses and most
Important business blocks are on the edge
of this bay, and back of It, rising almost
straight up from the water, Is an am
phitheater of hills, covered with houses.
These hills are so steep that the houses
are built on terraces and the people go
n w an! ''awJ'
V I improving its harbor; and now I h!;;- ' 1 .' . ' 'V M -;
mm mi M0
-High, ahove, 6he,roof
later we were driving through the city
over streets paved with esphalt and lined
with stcres that would not have been out
of place in New York or Boston.
Two-Story Street Cara.
The thing that most interested me at
first sight v was the street cars. These
are of two stories, with a second tier of
seats on the roof. There Is an iron stair
way at the back end of the car that leads
to the second story, and one can ride
through the town as though on an ele
vated railway. There is no roof to this
story, and it forms the best place for a
view of the city. Besides the fares are
cheaper on top than In the closed car be
low. I paid only 1 cent of our money per
trip. The rates below are only 2 cents,
and notwithstanding this I am told that
the cars pay big dividends. The line here
and that at Santiago, over the mountains
about three or four hours off by train,
belong to a German company, which has
a monopoly of the transit. They operate
the Santiago cars by hydroelectric power,
and that so cheaply that their profits
from that line alone ar about $300,000 a
n.onth. The Valparaiso line is said to
clear about $1,000,000 a year
Women Conductors.
But there Is one attractive feature about
the car line that I failed to mention.
This is the conductors. They are women
and a very few of them are pretty young
girls, although the great majority will,
I venture, never see 30 or 40 again. The
woman conductors were brought into the
cars more than a generation ago. It
was at the time of the war with Peru,
when all of the men, including the street
car conductors, were sent north to en
gage In the fighting. At that time the
women took the men's places, and they
have held tbem to this day. I am told
that they make very good servants, and
that, although they have to be watched
as to turning In all the fares, they are
more honest than men would be In the
same places. As it is, the company keeps
a check upon its conductors by making
them give each passenger a ticket which
is collected later on by an Inspector who
goes through the car for the purpose.
The companies have also detectives whom
the girls nickname Judasea, to watch and
sea that all pay their fare and that no
fares are knocked down. The conduc
tresses wear black sailor hats and dark
dresses. The have on white aprons. In
the pockets of which they carry their
money and tickets, and strapped round
their waists are little boxes for the checks
they give the passengers. They make re
ports at a little kiosk In one part of the
city at the end of each trip. Another
good feature of the car lines is the use
of black numbers, which indicate their
routes. This is in accordance with a
custom that prevails all over Germany,
and it Is far better than our way of
marking only the names of the routes on
the cars.
Where I ended my ride I was near one
of the cog railroads that lead to the
upper part of the city. When I entered
the station I had another surprise. It was
a woman who opened the turnstile and
gave me my fare, and she did her Job I
quite aa well as a man. hhe took my
month 1 have bien traveling thmuch the
northern part of It. I have visited port
after port, and now. here at Valparaiso, I
am a litt.e more than half way down the
mast, t'hlle is the longent country nn
earth In proportion to Its width. It brains
at Cape-llorn and stretohea Its way north
ward like a snake along the western!
slopes of the And s for a distance ot !.TiJ
miles. It Is throe times as long as Kgypt,
which runs for vi miles through the des
ert. Let ns suppose that the fhllenn
snke Is a rattler an.! that the Islands of j
Tlorra lol Fneao at the south are the
rattles. Then the button would be the
rocks of Cape Horn and the fiery tnnas
of the rattlesnakes head would be the
River Sam.t, where Chile ends at the
Peruvian boundary. Ths Chilean snnke
Is so long that If you should lay it on the
1'nlted States from east to west with the
button at HoMon. Its tonrne might lick
the great Mormon tabernacle In Salt Itke
City without stretching Its body, or If
you should start It rran ling east w ard. be
ginning at Cleveland, it might go on to
New York, and thenre bending south
ward move on to Panama before Its
rattles had left the forest city on the
sreat lakes.
The area of Chile la also worth notice.
The country Is on the average from 100
to l.Vl miles wide, and It baa. all told, al
most 300,000 square miles. That means
that It Is twice as big a California, five
times as large aa Georgia and more than
seven times the site of Ohio, Kentucky
or Virginia. Chile would make four Min
nesota or six Pennsylvania and have
room to spare; and If Texas and Mary
land were sliced Into bits and put to
gether they would Just about fill it. It Is
almost a hundred thousand square miles
bigger than Germany, France, and over
three times the sire of that tight little
Island of Kngland and Scotland.
All Sort of ( llmate.
This long-drawn out country, running
as It i'es smith ard from the equator,
?lves It all sorts of i liniate end many re
sources In the northern purt, where 1
have been traveling, It does not rain from
one end of the year to the other. At
Santiago, which lies In the great central
valley, only a short distance east of Val
paraiso, there Is rnln on thirty -one days
every twelve months, while at Vnldlvla, In
the southern part of that alley. It ralna
172 days every year A little further south
the rainfall la greater There are local
ities where the people facetiously say that
Ir rains thirteen months every year.
.This being the case, the northern part of
the land Is a desert. The central part Is
a rich farming country with orchards and
vineyards and great haciendas, many of
which are watered by Irrigation; and the
southern pnrt ha lands that grow hay,
wheat and grain, the fields being fed by
the plentiful rainfall.
The latter region has also enormous
areas of forest' It will surprise you to
know that one-fourth of all Chile Is
wooded and that Just now they are cut
ting down the woods and burning them,
aa we foolishly did In the past, to make
farms. Altogether the wooded area of
Chile Is large aa the combined states
of Ohio and Indiana, It Is more than 7.V
000 square miles.
Pefore I leave thla general description I
want to tell you about the lands and Indus
tries of the Strait of Magellan and the
archipelago of Tlerra del Fuego. They
are a part of the frontier of this shoe
string republic, and aa one looks at them
on the map ha might Imagine them to be
somewhat like the country that the late
Captnln Scott found about the South pole.
(n the rontrary, they have a cilmate
about as mild as that of Sitka, Alaska,
which has been compared to that f Cin
cinnati or Washington city. The sheep of
that region feed out of door all the year
round and hundreds of millions of pound
of wool are exported from the strait each
year Purlng my Inst visit to Chile thla
sheep Industry wa at II beginning It
has since grown beyond all that was
prophesied then anil there are nov single
companies wl,.ch own more than l.OflO.Oort
head of sheep.
Snowa In Winter,
That part of Chile I made up of the
submerged range of the Ande some of
whlrh are covered with glaciers. The
country has a llaht fall of snow In the
winter, but It seldom He long, and the
sheep burrow down through the snow for
the grass.
In striking contrast with that region I
northern Chile, from which I have come.
That part of the republic would have an
almost tropical heat were It not that It Is
tempered by the cold Humboldt current,
to such an extent that white men ran
live at where near the roast. There are
thriving towns, ports at the end of each
little valley, which has water from the
snows of the Amies, and there are cities
at the places from where the nitrate and
minerals are shipped to the 1'nlted States
nd F.urope.,
Northern Chile Is mostly a desert, but It
compares favorably In Its resources with
the most fertile part of the earth. I have
already written of the nitrates. That re
gion suppllea most of the nitrate of soda
Used by farmers all over the world. From
that source alone the Chilean government
has already received hundreda of millions
of dollars, and I am told that It has so
much fertilizer left that It will continue,
to rerelva tens of millions more every year
for three generations to come. The coun
try also Is rich In copper, and It Is the
great outlet to the vast treasures of the
Mnllvlan Andes. They are discovering new
copper mines and Iron mines and they
have already unearthed enormous deposits
of both of these minerals. Among the best
of the copper properties are those of the,
Guggenheim near Antofagasta and the
best of the Iron deposit are those be
longing to the Pethlehem Steel company,'
farther dow n the coast near Coqulmbo. '
Fach of these properties Is worth tens of
million. I shall write of them In tha
future. FRANK (. CARPENTER.
Hundred Million Gold
Plan is Approved
WASHINGTON The cankers' plan for
. swn.ono.iWO gold fund to meet American
obligation to Kurope was approved today
by the federal reserve board.
National banks In central reserve and
reserve cltlea will be asked to contribute;
to the fund, but country hanks are, not
expected to participate. Although a ayn-
illcate of New York bankers already haa
arranged to take care of $0.000,000 of thatj
rlty'a Kuropoan obligation, national!
banka In New York will be counted on for!
contribution to the additional $100,000 oOrt ;
fund. The gold will be deposited in th.
branch of the Hank of England in Ottawa,,
Canada. The first call on banks proba"blyj
will be designed to bring out from $20.-!
oot.ono to $::.,ooo,om. nctalls of the plan.j
however, were not worked out today at a
conference between hankers and thejj
board. They will be considered next
week.
with baskets of vegetables, fruit and fish
on their heads calling their wares. The
bread wagon was a horse with a great
basket on each side of his back; and I
passed a milkwoman on a street corner,
who was selling milk fresh from the cow.
The cow had a calf standing beside It,
and I was told she would not give down
her milk without her baby was present.
The calf wore a cloth muzzle, and It
looked lean and lonesome. I stopped and
bought a glass of milk for a nickel, re
ceiving therefor about a half pint.
Books of Many Languages,
A little further on I stopped at a book
store. The clerk spoke English and Ger
man, and the books were In a half dozen
languages. Valparaiso Is a cosmopolitan
city. Most of Its business Is done by
foreigners, and It has foreign churches,
foreign clubs and charitable Institutions.
It has a branch of the Y. M. C. A and
one of the Salvation army. It bas a
British hospital, and there are various
Institutions kept up by the Germans.
The town Is cooler than Santiago, and
it grows quite as fast.- The new harbor
plans provide for an expenditure of about
$15,000,000 In gold, and when completed
they will give a space for safe anchorage
equal to about 200 acres. This will fur
nish protection to the annual entry of ali
most 2.000 vessels, with a total of 7.000,000
tens, which is the amount of traffic ex
pected now the canal Is completed. The
work Includes a breakwater of a thousand
feet and a quay wall about twice as long.
It will have coal wharves, custom houses
and warehouses and all of the modern
arrangements for loading and unloading
goods from the cars to the steamers and
from steamers to cars.
Largest Country on Earth.
But before I go farther in my letters
from Chile I want to give you a birds
eye view of this country. For the laBt
DevBcnaF Bails t
Sanatorium
This Institution is the only on
in the central west with separate
buildings situated in their own
ample grounds, yet entirely dis
tinct, and rendering it possible to
classify cases. The one building
being fitted for and devoted to the
treatment ot non-contagious and
non-mental diseases, no others be
ing admitted; the other Rest Cot
tage being designed tor and de
voted to the exclusive treatment,
ot select mental cases requiring
for a time watchful care and spe
cial nursing.
UTAMII? IE1
Muraic IT
11 II II II II. I
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from level to level on cog" railroads. These t money and then shut me Inside a rage
roads are much like elevators, save that
thy go up on the slant. Instead of per
pendicularly. There Is one of them at
every few hlocks, and you can pick them
out with your eyes as you come In on
the steamer. At night the view from the
ship is especially beautiful. The houses
on the hills and on the walls of the
amphitheater are ablaze with lights, and
in addition are electric lights on the
Mreete, making the whole look like a
maze of great fireflies moving about
over the black walls of the hills.
The moment we came Into the port
our ship waa boarded by flcteros or
boatmen, who demanded to take our
selves and trunks to the shore. I had
already leen posted aa to the prices and
arranged with one at a cost of $25 In
Chilean money to take me through the
customs house and to the hotel. This tsjust
about equals $5 American. A moment
later my trunks had been lowered over
the sides and I was moving in a boat
through the busy harbor.- We had to
watch out for the launches, of which
there were scores flying this way and
that; we passed great barges of roods
being towed to and fro and wound our
may through many great sailing craft,
some of which were loaded with lumber
from California and Puget sound. We
passed one Chilean man-of-war, went un
der the shadow of a dry dock containing
a steamer and finally came to the wharf
yisl opposite the Intndencla or gov
ernor's palace. It took but a short time
to fo through the customs and a little
like that of an elevator. 8he next rang a
bell, and a moment later I was high
shove the roofs ot the buildings along
the shore, with a magnificent view of the
ocean below me. I could see the harbor
with Its shipping and the hundreds of
small boats at anchor, while away off at
the side around the end of the bay was
the town of Vina del Mar, the summer
resort of the Chileans.
Summer la Janaary.
The seasons are changed south of the
equator, and It is in January, February
and March that the Chileans go to the
coast to get cool. Vina del Mar Is the
Newport and the Atlantic City of the
west coaat. It has hundreds of luxurious
villas like those outside 'of Paris, and all
the accompaniments of a city of pleasure,
such as clubs, golf, lawn tennis and foot
ball. It has a mile track, where the
Chileans bet on their favorite horses and
where races are run every day through
out the season. Indeed, the whole town
looks like a fashionable resort or one
of the great spas of Kurope. The most
of the houses are of French architecture;
and many of them would cost. It built
In our country, from toO.OOO to $100,000
aplce. Not a few of them have beautiful
gardens. There are hedges of roses, great
beds of geraniums, and also palms and
other tropical plants.
Walking down from the hills to my
hotel, I observed many other things that
reminded me of southern Europe. The
street cries were like those of Naples or
Madrid. Peddlers were moving around
SORE MOUTIIS
LOOSENED TEETH
ore mouths are the rause of so
many different kinds of trouble In this
world that it would take volumes to
record the.m alt, says the London Time.
hen your, mouth la sore It seems to
act on the nerve centers of the brain
and to cause you to think all kinds of
unutterable thoughts that pass away as
the mist of the fog as soon aa your mourn
geta well. ,
Tartar is the beginning too often of
aore umi and sore teeth; tartar fouls
the teeth, gums and bre.th. It is at
once a menace to yourself and to your
frlenda alike. Do what you mill, you
can't prevent your acituaiiiinnrea from
seeing your yellow, dlrtv and hla kened
teeth; then when the teeth begin to he
sore and to separate from the gums, there
Is added trouble. Many people nurse thf se
conditions along for a long time, and
only add to the sum total of trouble that
they are making for themselves.
llleedlng and discolored gums beget
teeth separation. When the teeth begin
to separate lroin the gums It Is time to
rail a halt, because if you fnll to remedy
this condition the separation will paoa
away from the enamel of the teeth and
you are likely to be called upon hurriedly
to lose your teeth, and seemingly glad
because of the intense pain that Is likely
to ensue. When your teeih are loose and
wobbly, when they. are full of tartar and
incrustations, yellow and black outer
view and inner view, you mut look out
for trouble. Yon can easily get away
from this trouble If you will go to your
druggist and get four ounces of fluid
ergan (no more) and put a teanpoonful
in your mouth morning, noon and night.
Your looaened teeth will be as firm ns
a rock try them with your finger. Your
gums will be a rleh, rosy, gummy red
all the (ain will pasa away over night,
bleeding stop, tartar will peel off and
the white of your own enameled teetn
will be shown. Ad vertiseioer ;
Low Prices on Good Stoves Sold for Cash or Payments
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