San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1891-05-01
THE BUSY TOWN OF PUNTA ARENAS.
A Pen Picture of the Most Southern
Town of the American Continent.

Town of the American Continent.
We reached Punta Arenas in the night,
anchored, and slept happily until daybreak,
when we blew the steam whistle TO warn
the inhabitants of our presence. Atlength
the captain of the port came on board, and
we were at liberty TO go ashore; but the
landing was difficult and dangerous: owing
to the roughneSs nj .,.' water and the
primitiveness IL" t. we had to be
hoisted out of he ships Beat with ropes.
The town does no. J..er much to interest
the visitor. In the bay are two coal halks,
an American schooner at anchor, several
small coasting schooners used for seal fish
ing and local service and Gillian survey
steamer.
To the north of the town is government
depot with half dozen buoys lying on the
sandy shore and looking from distance
like gigantic spinning tops. Still further
to the north is an old lighthouse tower.
painted red and white, which was used by
the German astronomical mission at che
time of the last passage of Venus Beyond
the lighthouse the land becomes fat and
stretches out into the water, forming long
sandy spit, with a conical beacon on the ex-
creme point. Hence the name OF the settle
ment-Sandy Point. The town is of very
recent origin, but it has grown rapidly and
now has a population of 922 souls, the whole
Territoro de Magellanes having popula-
ton of 2,0S5, of whom about 500 are foreign
ers of various nationalities, the chief CAPT
ia. ists and business people being German
or English.
The houses are solidly built of wood, the
best of them having corrugated iron roofs.
Most of the buildings are painted white;
some have walls and roofs of the same
deep red color; the roofs are, of course,
sharply pointed to throw off the rain. The
general aspect of things there is new and
prosperous. The principal business houses
are German. Punta Arenas is free port
and the great center for supplying the
sheep farms and various settlements on
the opposite islands of the TERRA del Fue-
go group. southern Patagonia and the
Falkland islands. In these rainy and APP
parently inhospitable regions the great in
dustry is sheep farming There is also
much gold dust in the rivers and torrents,
and silver and coal mines in the neighbor.
hood but hitherto they have not been
worked with success.
1t is curious to note that the shepherds
who come to Punta Arenas to buy goods
and provisions often pay in gold dust, which
they gather in the streams near which their
f1ocks are feeling. Skins and furs form u
second important industry; seal and sea
offers abound in the various channels be
tween the islands of Terra del Fuego and of
the Strait of Magellan, and three times
year the Patagonian Indians ride into Pun
ia Arenas to sell the produce of their hunt
ing excursions, namely, puma ostrich, gpar
naco and silver fox skins. The EXPORTS
ton of furs is an important business here.
and the port, standing as it does in the
regular steamer track, is destined to great
er and greater prosperity.
When we returned on board we found
two Danish fur dealers displaying their
stock of merchandise and endeavorinS to
do business with the passengers. The
skins were spread out over the matches
on the aft deck-ostrich, guanaco,
seal, otter, puma, fox : looking soft
and warm, and interspersed with few
Indian curiosities, such as bows, ar
rows, spears, lassos. shell work, spurs,
models of bark canoes and the terrible
bolas. which the Patagonians and their
pupils, the Argentine gauchos, use to hunt
the ostrich. The Osiris landed our mail
bag and a dozen sacks of potatoes, and
took on board quantity of ostrich feathers
to be delivered in Havre, and then pro-
ceeded on her way.-Theodore Child in
Harper's.