here is our world held in space like an imaginary transparent glow seen from a point opposite the south call centers a great number of antarctica and we see south america part of africa and australia the further side of our transparent globe the dark masses of north america europe asia and the rest of africa fifty nine thousand magellan sailed from space across the equator and set out for the new world seeking a channel to the pacific he discovered in fifteen twenty the strait which bears his name today he crossed the pacific making rio what columbus said only imagine the linking of europe and asia by thus magellan was the first european to set ion the region we know is chilling but he made his way through the tip of south america which of all the continents lies nearest the south pole down the pacific coast wretches the twenty six hundred mile length of chile central part is today rich and prosperous the southern part is still remote comparatively unpopulated largely unknown yet our richly deserves to be known this land of beauty this region so full of contrasts in its gifts from nature this is the land of they are a canyon indian was ancestors in the days of the spanish conquest four centuries ago when the only people ie invaders never conquered today they are only a remnant of that great tr still spend their will in the way their ancestors spun yama will when the wondering gaze of europeans first fell upon the indians of america through the years of growing settlements of the white man gradually for arcadian southward here in southern chile they live on reservations like north american indians but this homeland is their own secured to them by the treaty of eight hundred eighty three with the chilean government traditional and beautiful as the woman's head dress made of hundreds of tiny silver coin strange wooden poles or grave markers when these people need rain they tie a black bow to the pole one they want clear whether they use a white animal and they keep the forms of their old religion as a medicine woman chants and beads or drum her daughter performs the dance of thanksgiving for the favors of the tribal god more than seventy percent of chile is mountainous some of these mountains are mark a nose which may become active at any time ashes from the volcanoes sometimes cause damage to south chile's far so much of the timber land is beyond reach of volcanic action lack of adequate transportation hampers exploitation of these far as south chile lacks railroads and few of the rivers are of the slow timber carrying kind but the region  than any other country south of the united states con the lake is lovely the mountains impressed and the climate generally pleasant as tourists will learn in increasing numbers in nearby streams of the finest trout fishing in the world while in the same season there is unsurpassed skiing in the high valleys mountain climbers are happy here too there are still a number of unconquered peaks in the chilean andy this region is much like the bavarian alps not only in its scenery but in many of its buildings such as this little church in the towns too we can trace the german influence naturally enough because generations ago many germans settled in this section like the pennsylvania dutch they have tended to live more or less by themselves there's been little intermarriage they brought from germany their commercial ability as well as architectural ideas the germans here are only one example of a striking fact about chile namely the influx of many different races there are for instance many british and basque irish and yugoslav is on the island of chile way where the real south chile begins charles darwin was here an eighteen thirty four on the famous voyage of the beagle made the statement joe is an island of little sunshine and much rain where the people live mostly on potatoes pigs and fish sunny days are rare in a land that is drenched with one hundred inches of rain each year as for the cello a potato it is still going strong after a history reaching for centuries into the past potatoes first came to europe from this very island though we now believe that the incas brought them here from peru and bolivia shipment of potatoes from castro to the rest of chile is a thriving business the men of this island to become the sturdiest of all south american sailors they have furnished a large number of those who man not only chilis merchant ships but also her vessels they are descendants of the unconquerable arcadian indians and the adventurous and hardy spaniards who came to chile centuries ago typical of this blending of spanish and are a canny and strains are these young women schoolteachers from cast down south by ship touching the island of cello at its port of custer oh and then over the rest of an amazing thousand miles boys by open sea when weather permits by the inland passage when the weather is bad the destination is p massive headlines laden with wildfires beyond the shores lie vast areas still unexplored there is constant mist and rain rain to the amount of two hundred inches per year as we continuously lashed by rain and high wind back of these glaciers lies an extraordinary ice field two hundred miles long largely unexplored if we could look at southernmost chile and cross section we would see that high winds from the pacific cloud laden skies low temperatures and torrential rains join in the solving the coastal area with a nearly continuous bombardment of the worst weather in the world and then the andes intervene to the east of the great range the sun is triumphant rainfall is moderate temperatures are end so human life is possible on the great plains that stretch eastward to the atlantic the journey's end at the town of thunder anus the world again takes on it's a custom look after the long journey from the north much of it through uninhabited regions here is a busy and attractive little port of twenty five thousand inhabitants most of the men among the passengers are coming down for the annual shearing in the nearby sheep by useful fact in the life of mankind through from ocean to ocean there are few days when the prevailing westerlies are not blowing wooded and hilly even mountainous but trees exposed to the winds become weirdly deformed and grazing area appearing now in the beit includes the flat lands of chile reaching to the atlantic on both sides of the straight a magellan and a large part of the patagonian plain of argentina strangely enough the great value of this region for sheep raising was not realized until about eight hundred seventy seven when enterprising newcomers from england and scotland started it all by eight hundred eighty five there were about forty thousand head of sheep in another half dozen years that were half a million and today there are more than three million chillier but the management is commonly in the hands of experts from great britain or ireland altogether this is a sheep raisers paradise much like north scotland or they have been the it's pretty nice for the sheep to course they don't know that each year about a million of them go to market to be turned into choice it is not unusual for one of the biggest dances or ranches to be fifty miles long and thirty miles wide to cover about a million acres and to maintain sheep numbering hundreds of thousands the ranges are so vast that some herders do not come in more than twice a year this indeed is sheep grazing on an heroic scale predominating breed of the sheep is a cross between the merino and the the great event here in the chilean sheep country is the clip or shearing the men who do this work are experts who turn up once each year many of them came in on the boat from chile way sharing is a heavy job which takes from six weeks to two months is piece work with an average man shearing about one hundred sheep or day and the most expert doing nearly twice that number the men are unionized and will pay part of the skill in this work is in taking off the fleece all in one piece or sharing on this scale electric machinery is need then the world is bail again it seems extraordinary after travelling through a thousand miles of spectacular unpopulated wilderness to find this thriving industry one of the results of the unionization of these men is that the employer is required to provide three or four pounds of fresh meat every day for each man so the sheep shear is not only paid well he eats well on the other hand he is not employed by the year and it must be said that if any of these men happens to detest mutton stew he is made an unfortunate choice of a profession as for the sheep what they get after the shearing is a complete surprise a nice thorough dipping in a bath of korea so whether they really like it or not is open to question but it's good for them it prevents disease and even the sheep likes to feel distant land south chile remains one of the world's few frontiers in all of this region chile way to cape horn they have only one percent of chile's population and yet how richly rewarding to the observer who seeks the uncommon in what the world has to offer and who know someday all of this may become a great vacation center the switzerland of the western hemisphere