CHAPTER VI 



ACROSS THE ANDES AND NORTHERN 

 PATAGONIA 



^S the great chain of the Andes stretches 

 /■"\ southward its altitude grows less, and 

 the mountain wall is here and there 

 broken by passes. When the time came for 

 me to leave Chile I determined to cross the 

 Andes by the easiest and most accessible and 

 one of the most beautiful of these comparatively 

 low passes. At the other end of the pass, on 

 the Argentine or Patagonian side, we were to 

 be met by motor-cars, sent thither by my con- 

 siderate hosts, the governmental authorities of 

 Argentina. 



From Santiago we went south by rail to 

 Puerto Varas. The railway passed through the 

 wide, rolling agricultural country of central 

 Chile, a country of farms and prosperous towns. 

 As we went southward we found ourselves in a 

 land which was new in the sense that our own 

 West is new. Middle and southern Chile were 

 in the hands of the Indians but a short while 

 since. We were met by fine-looking represen- 



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