384 Present Condition of Chile. [July, 
includes the province of Concepcion, the so-called province 
of Arauco, and the provinces of Valdivia, Llanquihue, and 
Chiloe. This extensive region is but thinly peopled, and 
only in part subdued, the greater portion of Arauco, and 
much of Valdivia and Llanquihue, being still in the hands 
of the independent aboriginal Araucanian tribes that held 
them before the Conquest. It is a region eminently adapted 
for stock-breeding and other pastoral pursuits, but it also 
includes large coal-fields. Its moist and temperate climate, 
excellent soil, numerous and commodious harbours, beautiful 
rivers, with banks clothed down to the water’s edge by pri- 
maeval forests full of valuable timber, point it out as espe- 
cially favourable to emigration from Europe. 
Before quitting this part of our subjedt, a few words must 
be devoted to the colony of Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, 
in the Straits of Magellan, which is the most southern 
civilised community of the globe. The station is described 
on authority as peculiarly healthy ; the mean temperature 
of the whole year is 44*8° F. ; that of spring being 45*9°; 
of summer, 52’6° ; of autumn, 44*6°; and of winter, 35*8°. 
The settlement now produces enough to support itself ; its 
shores are covered with forests of Antarctic beech, and it is 
expected that a large and profitable trade in railway-sleepers 
and other timber may be developed with the countries on 
the River Plate : it likewise contains coal-mines, which 
promise well, and which may not impossibly open out an 
important future to the place as a coaling-station ; mines of 
copper are said to exist, and gold is found in the Rio de la 
Mina to the north of the settlement ; but the sources of 
wealth more special to the colony are its cod-fisheries and 
trade in guanaco skins, and in ostrich skins and feathers. 
In 1868 the population was 195, and in 1875 was 1144. 
Census . — According to the preliminary Report of the 
Commissioners the population adtually found in Chile on 
April 19, 1875, numbered 2,068,424 souls, being an increase 
of 249,201, or 137 per cent, in ten years. The difficulty of 
counting a people thinly spread over an immense territory, 
and in many cases disinclined to help the persons charged 
with the operation, was such that the Census Commissioners 
think it safe to add at least 10 per cent for omissions, and 
they accordingly put the total figure of the population at 
2,319,266. Some curiosities of the census are worth noting. 
As instances of the vague distrust with which the process 
was regarded in many rural districts, it is stated that at 
Conchali, in the department of Quillota, nearly all the 
peones, or labourers, on one estate left their huts on the eve 
