Evening star., 1898-10-22

and the northern parts of the United
States, I write for my American readers. L
am on the steamer Itaurt in the Strait of
Magellan. just opposite me the black. rocky
walls of Cape FrOward. the southcrnmOst
point of South America. r.se almost straight
upward 10 a height of 200 feet, and be-
hind them. glistening in the moonlight. are
the glacial SHOWS of Mount Victoria onAD
feet higher. I am at the bottom of the
great Andeau chain. Those hills are the
end of the mighty ridge which ties the
continents together. Loaded with copper,
silver and gold, they crawl from here ON
their sinuous way toward the north pole.
They span the equator. they drop their
heads at the Isthmus of Panama and end
only at the Arctic ocean. beyond the gold
mines of Alaska and the Klondixe. The
hills to the southwark are a part of TERRA
del FueEo. above Cape Horn, and that
great white frozen pyramidal cone which
rises among them is Mount Sarmiento. which
plerces the southern. sky more than 1.usD
feet above the altitude of Mount " ash.ng-
ton. Behind and in front of my slip. here
as black as Ink under the shadows OF the
hills. there turned 20 silver by the full
moons rays. flows the Strait of Magellan,
that salt water river. in which. moved by
the tides, the great oceans, the Atlantic
and the Pacific. rush together and clasp
their hands TO bear up the commerce of the
world.
The Strait of Magellan.
The Strait of Magellan makes the pass
age between the oceans shorter by almost
1880 miles. Cape Horn is less than
couple of hundred miles south Of II. but its
waters are always tossed about by terrible
storms. Tonight the Magellans are almost
quiet Il mill pond and the Itauri Is
steaUting smoothly through them as the
EGdJ which carries the hero i'm the
Swan song OF Loheng-in. We are now al
most midway between the Atlantic and the
Pacific. We entered the strait by what is
knONDS as STIlyth : channel, opposite Desc
latiOn Island. about thirty miles from Cape
Fllar. which marks its western end. We
could Sec the TWO massive rocks of the
cape turned to the eastward. They
Tise almost pTecipitously for a distance of
1.bD feet, and when the air is clear they
are IN sight for many miles. Beginning
Ecrc tn" Strai, runs southeast TO Cape Fro
ward. Il then turns to the northeast. widen
irg her and there as it goes until il ends
at the Atlantic between Cape Virgin and
CAPE Holy Chest. The channel Is 3tiJ miles
long. and its width varies from two to
twenty-Ipur miles. At times our vessel has
Iecn within stones throw of the shore.
ana again in ne misty air where the chan
LCl wideTle2, the waters seemed to almost
IJund til" horizon. This is So only in the
eastern parts of the channel. on both sides
of which the lands of Patagonia and
TERRA del Fuego are low. In the west
there i little else than mOuntains which
SIe now suOw-dusted and in many cases
loaded win vast glaciers slowly sliding
down them 10 the Below the Strait of
Magellan there is vast archipelago of
islands, the smaller of which are noun
tain peaks rising above the waves and the
largest the Island Of TERRA del F'ueso The
last ~ bigger than many of our American
states and IL has mountains and valleys .vast
forests and extensive plains which have
lately been transformed into some of the
biggest sheep farms Of the world. North Of
the strait lies the end of southern Patagonis,
on the east. and on the west a continual
ton Of the archipelago of TERRA del Fucgo
These islands. as We'll as the strait and al
most all of TERRA del Fueso belong to
Chile. She has an area of land here, which
she calls the territory of the Magellan. of
1000 square miles. half again as large as
the state Of New York and almost twice the
area 81 Ohio. Some OF the Chilean naval
vessels are now here engaged IN surveying
the channels and harbors. but the greater
Part " this region is almost as unknown as
1t was when Hernando Magellan. "a Spanish
navigator discovered the strait in l52a
tn land and the people have been misrcp-
resented by paSSerS-by from Darwin down
To within recent years, and II is only lately
that opportunities have been offered for
careful investigation Even now the saw
ages l see here are less known than the
tribes Of central Africa. and only the coasts
Of . few Of the islands have been explored
The sheep farmer, the gold digger and the
gov Crnnent vessels are. however. making
archipelago vii! be a terra incognita no
longer.
Southern Patagonia.
The generally accepted belief regarding
sou.hern Patagonia and TERRA del Fuego
Is that they are something; like the coasts of
Greenland or those of the arctic seas The
Biographies represent them as wastes of
zee and snow. desolate, forbidding and ter
rible 10 the traveller. For the past four
days have been winding in and out of the
channels along the west coast OF lower
Patagonia. My sail has been through a
series Of scenic panoramas that cannot be
surpassed in the world. We entered the
archipelago by what is known as the
Smyths channel route, about 400 miles
above here, and coasted slowly along
through one channel after another until
we came into the strait proper at Desola-
t!on Island Darwin compared the glaciers
Sarmiento I'm TERRA del Fuego to 100 frozen
Ntesaras- The waters along the lower end
OF western Patagonia present combinations
which make you think of a hundred Lake
Con.os. Lake Geneyas and Lake IIucernes
tied together in one ever-widening ever
changing river. Here are the beauties OF
the thousand Islands Of the st. Lawrence
added TO by snow-capped mountains kissed
by he sun, and mighty glaciers sliding