A LONGITUDINAL JOURNEY THROUGH CHILE 



241 



town, harbor, and encircling hills, is not 

 unlike that other wonderful view from 

 the peak above Hongkong. 



valparaiso is waging a winning 

 battle: with the; sea 



The harbor of Valparaiso is called a 

 bay by courtesy. It is almost an open 

 roadstead. The traveler is impressed with 

 the stupendous work, still in progress, for 

 protecting the shore from the terrific in- 

 roads of the sea. At the season of tem- 

 porals the surf dashes in with relentless 

 fury, tearing down the massive masonry 

 of the seawall and devastating the water- 

 front; but bulwarking against the enemy 

 goes on untiringly and in time the port 

 will win. 



A norther sweeping in is a mighty spec- 

 tacle to behold. I prefer to watch it from 

 the shore. 



We've slipped from Valparaiso, 

 With the Norther at our heels. 



Well do I remember it ! It was just at 

 the beginning of one of these storms: 

 The passage from shore to ship was made 

 in a rowboat. A mountain of undulating 

 water towered on either side of our frail 

 craft, and only miraculously, on the crest 

 of the wave, did we land, at last, limp and 

 drenched, on the heaving ship's deck. The 

 ship could not hold anchor, and it was 

 with a prayer of thanksgiving that we 

 beat toward the south. 



I am often asked what interested me 

 most in Chile. Were I a materialist, I 

 might say "the food." In no other part 

 of the globe is food at the leading restau- 

 rants better than in the south temperate 

 cities of Valparaiso, Santiago, Buenos 

 Aires, and Montevideo. 



Valparaiso's market is stocked with ex- 

 cellent meat — beef from Argentina, fat- 

 tened in Chile ; veal from Tierra del 

 Fuego ; sea food from cold southern 

 waters ; fresh- water fish from snow- fed 

 streams ; dairy products from the south- 

 ern German colony; vegetables from 

 central Chilean valleys. With tropical 

 fruit from Ecuador, native wine of the 

 best quality, delicious sweets in the form 

 of fruit and sugar paste, augmented by 

 almost any imported delicacy you may de- 

 sire, I dare not recommend certain of 

 these restaurants to friends of increasing 

 girth. 



Photograph by Harriet Chalmers Adams 



A NEWSBOY OF VALPARAISO 



Unlike Buenos Aires, where many of the 

 newsboys are of Italian blood, the Chilean 

 urchin is distinctly Chileno. The first daily 

 newspaper in the country, El Mecurio, was es- 

 tablished in Valparaiso in [827. It exists to- 

 day. There are now 550 publications in Chile. 



Chilean sea food, known as mariscos, 

 deserves special mention. Mussels and 

 oysters come from beds off the island of 

 Chiloe and lobsters, of unusual size, from 

 the islands of Juan Fernandez. 



robinson crusok's isle famous for its 

 lobsters 



Mas-a-Tierra, the largest of the Juan 

 Fernandez group of three islands, lying 

 360 miles southwest of Valparaiso, is 

 Robinson Crusoe's isle. It was here, in 

 1704, that Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish 



