A LONGITUDINAL JOURNEY THROUGH CHILE 



227 



Photographs by Arthur Madge 



IMAGES OF PREHISTORIC DAYS FOUND IN CHIEF 



The stone figure at the left was unearthed in an underground habitation south of Calama, 

 on the old Incan highway between Cuzco and Copiapo. The costume, splendidly preserved, 

 gives us the dress of a remote period, probably antedating Incan rule. The image at the right 

 is of silver, and was found by a chinchilla hunter on the pampa of northern Chile, not far 

 from the Bolivian frontier. It is three inches in height and represents a woman of the ruling 

 class. The colors of the feather-work and the vicuna wool garments are well preserved. 



of those eventful days. When he was in 

 Chile in the early fifties, Copiapo was an 

 important town, sharing the European 

 opera season with Santiago and Valpa- 

 raiso. Grandfather knew William Wheel- 

 wright, the American captain of industry, 

 who in 1 85 1 built the first railroad in 

 South America from the port of Caldera, 

 50 miles inland to Copiapo. 



Wheelwright's dream was of a trans- 

 continental railway across the Andes to 

 Tinogasta, in Argentina, and on to the 

 Atlantic ; but the road never got far be- 

 yond Copiapo. 



THE ROMANTIC STORY OF GODOY, THE 

 SIEVER KING 



This great American also gave Chile 

 its telegraphic system and, after failing to 

 interest American capital in a steamship 

 line between Valparaiso and New York, 

 turned to England and inaugurated in 



the early sixties the first steamer service 

 between the west coast and Europe. 



In 1832 a donkey driver, Juan Godoy, 

 discovered a silver deposit near Copiapo 

 and put the long-neglected town on the 

 map. 



Godoy's story reads like a romance. 

 Tired of loading his train of donkeys 

 with scanty brushwood for town cus- 

 tomers, he started across the pampa to 

 hunt the roving guanaco. .Sitting on a 

 rock to rest, he discovered that his seat 

 was of silver. Returning home with 

 specimens, he shared the knowledge of 

 his discovery with an educated acquaint- 

 ance, who aided the ignorant man to make 

 the most of his find. Godoy became the 

 Silver King of that period. 



It was hard for us to visualize Copiapo's 

 past splendor in the forlorn little town 

 that we found. Half the buildings were 

 still in ruins, after the disastrous earth- 



