The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-01-03
In The LAND OF FIRE
Graphic Description of TERRA
Del Fuego.
SCENES AROUND CAPE HORN
Christmas Bay, Which Serves as Shelter
to the Storm-Tossed PlOugher
of the Seas.

UsUwAIA, TERRA del Fuego, Dec l, 1891.
Especial correspondence of The SUNDAY
HERALD. Should you ever find yourself
so desperately hard up Tor a new place to
visit as to choose this faraway Fire
Land" be sure to time your arrival in
April, May or June, the autumn months in
this locality, which though cold as Green
lands icy mountains, are infinitely prefer
able to the slightly warmer but much wet
ter summertime. In fact there are few
localities on the face of the earth which
have less of summertime than this. Au-
gust and September are the worst months
of the year, sure TO be attended by terrific
gales and ceaseless storms OF sleet ana
snow.
Though fogs are rare on the Fuegoan
coast the sun shows himself but at rare
intervals, the finest weather being what
the seamen cali "muggy," i. e. overcast
and cloudy. That is one reason why,
search as sou may, scarcely picture can
be found representing any portion of this
archipelago, because there is hardly an
hour from year to year clear enough to
make photograph.
When Magellen and his men sailed
through the straits, some three hundred
and seventy years ago, they named the
country on their left Terra del Feugo-
Land Of Fire, . on account OF the innumer-
able little fires that sprang up all along the
coast at nightfall-for the Indians of those
days, as now kept themselves from freeZ-
ing by huGdling over ignited brush-heaps
HAD they called the country TERRA del
Aqua-''Land of Water" instead, the name
1N,.
while fires are maintained with difficulty,
water is the
BANE OF THE ISLANDS,
falling continually in rain or snow, rushing
down every declivity or standing in stag
nant pools, forming Swamps in every level
place, making peat-bogs Of all the hillsides
and keeping the knee-deep moss that covers
the rocks saturated like sponges. So exces-
sively cold is the climate that even in mid
summer according to the almanac, people
have been lost in the snow and frozen TO
death few hundred feet above sea-level.
Sailing down toward Cape Horn in a
south-westerIy course, it is difficult to be-
lieve that the high, rugged wintry coast is
not an unDroken continent, instead of a
vast chain of coselyinC islands. A nearer
view discloses inlet after inlet, intersect-
ing the land in every direction, opening
into larger CULTS ana sounds behind the
leaward islands. Though Megellau's re
cords show that he suspected some of the
inlets might be channels running through
10 The ocean, he did not explore any OF
them; and for many years 1t was supposed
that the American continent was termin-
a,ed by single great island. 1t remained
Tor later surveys to prove that there are
hundreds of islands, of as many sizes anC
fantastic shapes, separated from one an
other by deep and dangerous fiords and s
perfect Labyrinth of sounds and bright in
lets.
The one large island which the Spano
Portuguese vOyagers dubbed'Land of Fire, ,
is now known as King Charles Soutt
Land or Eastern TERRA del Fuego; auC
the boundary line between Argentine pos
sessions and those of the ChilianS runs
straight down through the middle, thu!
dividing it half and half
BETWEEN THOSE RIVAL POWERS.
There are half dozen other islands O.
considerable size, each larger than any O.
the Philippine group, Cyprus Crete anC
most OF the West Indies; besides innumer
able smaller ones, some of them being moth
ing but great rocks lifting their bald head
out OF the sea. All of them are mountains
CT Mora or less magnitude, and evidently
continuation Of the great Andean chain
thus interesting channels, including tn
straight itself, being gorges and ravine
which the ocean has over-howed. Viewed
IN this light the mighty Andes, by far tn
longest caain Of mountains on the globe
really ,ern.nste at Staten Land, an ISLAM
lying considerably farther TO the southeas
thar even Cape Horn.
BY the way, the celebrated straits do nc
run, SIS mast people suppose in an almos
GireDt line east and west between the tw
Oceans. Catering from the Atlantic,
snip first rUas more south than west, unit
about half way through the channel, whe
C1-sZrV hraaa oil af 81 = 10,
her former course, and keep that direction
due northeast, until she energies into th
Pacific, Thus, as you see, the strait form
an angle near the middle, Cape Eorwar
being the projecting point, the most south
erly bit OF land on the continent. Beloy
this, the islands stretch four hundred mile
northwest and southeast, between Cap
Pillar and Horn, and about two hundre
and twenty miles east and west from th
first named cape and that called Esperit
Santo; while southwark it tapers to littl
more than one hundred miles between th
Horn and Staten lslsnd.
Most of the islands rise straight up OF
Of the water, from one thousand to fiy
hundred feet toward the lowering sky witt
out any intervening foothills,
COVERED WITH ETERNAL SNOW,
for in this far south land, as in countrie
at an equal distance north of the equato
the line of perpetual winter begins not fl
above the sea. 1t is hard TO believe IL
statements of travellers that beyond thes
forbidding hills there are rich valleys ar
grassy plains, lakes, rivers and beautifr
scenery. in short that every prospe
pleases and only man is vile'' IN the int
Tor of King Charles domain.
Strange 10 say, the farther from Il
equator one voyages down the western siC
OF the archipelago, the less snow he see
and finally where the weather ought to
coolest it disappears altoge her. givir
place on the heights fronting the ocean
sombre forests of ever-greens or rath
ever-yellows, the livery of Antarct
beeches. This lack of snow where sno
is most expected is due TO the prevailir
western winds, which come laden Wi
moisture from over the limitless Paciti
melting the snow as 1t falls.
Seen from distance there is nothir
especially striking about the island of Ho
or Hoorn, whose celebrated cape is ueare
TO the south pole of any discovered Ian
rs il is the stormiest and most dreaded
mariners. But interest increases with
nearer view of the high, bleak cliffs tn
form the southern promontory, which to-
ering 10 height of l,500 feet. can be di
tinguished from the decks of passing We
sells fifty miles away. Close by is It'll
group of misunderstanding, high and ru
ged; Wallaston, Herschel and Dece
whose mountains rise in sharp peaks fro
1000 to 1900 feet high, all composed
green stone in which horneblende, felsp
and iron are conspicuous, their lower {
clivities thicky clothed with dark fores
1t was the Englishman, Drake, l beliey
who first
SIGHTED THE CAPE,
about the year 1873; and nearly forty yea
later, lin 1916, the Dutch navigate
Schouten, named it Hoorn from his natl