Vol. XLII, No. 3 



WASHINGTON 



September, 1922 



THE 



ATDONAL 

 ro APfflG 



AGAZfl 



COPYRIGHT. 1 922, BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. WASHINGTON. D. C. 



A LONGITUDINAL JOURNEY THROUGH 



CHILE 



By Harriet Chalmers Adams 



Author of "Picturesque Paramaribo," "Kaleidoscopic L,a Paz," "The First Transandine Railroad from 



Buenos Aires to Valparaiso," "Cuzco, America's Ancient Mecca," "Rio de Janeiro, 



in the Land of Lure," in the National Geographic Magazine 



OUR friends in Antofagasta, on 

 the arid coast of northern Chile, 

 urged us to continue the journey 

 south by sea. 



"So much easier than the long, dusty 

 railroad trip," they said. 



But some years before we had made the 

 voyage, visiting the ports of this elon- 

 gated country, whose amazingly diversi- 

 fied shore, extending through nearly 

 thirty-nine degrees of latitude, is exceeded 

 in length only by Canada and Brazil. 



This time we decided to travel on the 

 longitudinal railway, from its beginning, 

 in the dreary desert, to its dropping-off" 

 place, on the wooded shore of the Gulf of 

 Ancud. Few, save the Chileans them- 

 selves, make this comprehensive journey, 

 from the rainless region of the north to 

 the rich agricultural heart of the country, 

 and on through the magnificent forest and 

 river lands, long held by the valiant 

 Araucanian Indians, to that enchanting 

 mountain and lake region unrivaled in 

 beauty the world over. 



Still farther south, reached by coasting 

 vessel, lies the wild territory of Chiloe, 

 with its curiously denticulated coast and 

 forest-fringed fjords; forbidding Magal- 

 lanes, a network of channels and archi- 

 pelagoes, with majestic glaciers slipping 

 into a leaden sea ; and little-known Tierra 

 del Fuego, whose unique pasture lands 

 support two million heavily fleeced sheep, 



supplanting the dappled guanaco on the 

 southernmost range of the world. 



Chile, the only South American country 

 lying altogether west of the Andes, is 

 2,627 miles long. Placed east to west 

 across the United States, its sword-like 

 body, varying in width from 105 to 223 

 miles, would stretch from the Singer 

 Building, in New York, to the City Hall, 

 in San Francisco, and extend over 50 

 miles into the Pacific Ocean. 



Geographically it is much like our Pa- 

 cific coast reversed. Alaskan fjords are 

 paralleled in the Magallanes country. 

 Where we have northern forests in the 

 State of Washington, Chile is arid ; where 

 we have southern deserts on the Mexican 

 border, Chile is forested. 



The long agricultural valley of Chile, 

 alternating between grainfields and vine- 

 yards, corresponds with the "Sunny San 

 Joaquin," in California, where I was 

 born ; and the climate of the more densely 

 inhabited portions of this southern repub- 

 lic is not unlike the sparkling, sun- 

 drenched atmosphere of our own Golden 

 West. 



Our Antofagasta friends have a garden 

 in the desert. My bedroom window, high 

 up in the tower, commanded a view of the 

 town. Walls and roofs as colorless as the 

 sand were unrelieved by a tree or a blade 

 of grass; yet, just under my window, the 

 barren soil had been touched by the magic 



