The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-16
Chilean Frontier Towns and Govern
ment Auctions at which Land Is
Sold in 1,OOO-Acre Lots.
THE CHANCES FOR INVESTMENT
BIG FARMS WHICH WILL SOON BE
CLOSED OUT AT MORTGAGE SALE.
Chilean Coal Mines Under the Pacific
Ocean Which Are Worked by
Means of Electric TrolIeys.
copyrighted, 1898, BY Frank G. carpenter.>

copyrighted 1898, by Frank q. Carpenter)
CONCEPTION, Chile, Sept 16.-I have
just returned from trip through the back
woods of Chile, a region which travellers
seldom visit and of which many who have
visited this part of the world would doubt
the existence. Northern Chile is a, desert.
For one thousand miles south of the Pc
ruvian frontier there are not enough trees
to furnish switches for the public schools
1 rode hundreds of miles south of Santiago
through irrigated farms, where the only
trees to be seen were those planted along
the borders of the bitches, and it was only
in the neighborhood of Conception that 1
found woods of any size. From here have
gone a days ride by train to what is known
as the frontier. / passed many vast farms
cut out of the forest where the stump
filed fields reminded me of the newly
settled regions of our wooded Northwest.
South Chile is covered with forest. 1t con-
tains some of the best land in the country,
and it has so much rain that the farms do
not require irrigation. This country has
been wilderness until within recent years.
Now the government is opening it up TO
settlement The railroads are being steadily
extended further south and new towns and
villages are springing up along them.
A CHILEAN FRONTIER TOWN.
These frontier towns remind one of the
new settlements of the United States. Take
Temuco, for instance, where I spent some
days last week. 1t is twelve years old, and
it has 10, 900 people 1t covers about as much
space as an American city of the same size.
It's streets are wide and filled with black
mud, and it's one and two-story houses
which line them are wooden. They have
Of tbov, mar
shanties Every house has flag staff, and
although the climate here is about as cold
as that of Washington, not house has a
chimney. The people generally believe that
fires are unhealthy, and like the Chinese,
rely upon their clothes to keep them warm.
The Iemuco streets cross one another at
right angles, and in the cenrer of the town
there is a park or plaza of about an acre,
where the military band plays and where
the people walk about on Sunday afternoons
and stare at each other.
1t has a club, where you find the last
English German and Chilean papers. 1t has
three hotels, two French and one German,
all of which are better than the hotels of
towns of the same size in the States. 1t has
plenty of saloons, where raw alcohol is sold
to the poems or laborers and the Indians,
but fewer than an American town of its
character where the liquors are drunk on
the spot. 1t has Catholic churches, and al
ready our own Methodist Episcopal people,
who have done so much for education in
Chile, have established missionary church
and a school here. The street scenes of
Temuco are different from those of our
frontier. There are more queer costumes.
There are dark-faced Indians, Germans and
well-dressed Spanish Chileans. Men with
ponchos over their shoulders, dark faces and
the air of brigands drive the oxcarts which
lumber through them. Each man carries a
goad fifteen feet long, and directs the oxen
by striking them on this side and that.
Now and then you see teams of six and
eight of these beasts. The oxen are the only
draught animals, excepting the six ragged
horses which haul the two cabs between
the railroad station and the hotel. 1t is in
oxcarts that the thousands of bushels of
wheat raised near by are brought to the
markets. Oxen everywhere do the blowing,
the hauling Of lumber, the draying and
everything that heavy horses or mules do
with u.s. The method of yoking the oxen is
the same here as all over Chile. The yoke
rests on the neck just back of the horns
1t is tied by straps to the horns and all
of the pushing or pulling of the cart or nlow
must be done with the head The yoke is
a heavy piece of wood, and so fastened that
one OK cannot move his head without the
other, and so that it is impossible TO swing
it from side to side. The tongue of the
frontier cart is as big as a telegraph pole
1t is part of the cart itself, and as the
oxen work they have the weight of this
resting on their horns. 1t seems cruel in the
extreme, and the oxen seem to me to move
painfully along with protruding eyes, as
they drag their heavy loads
HOW LAND rs SOLD.
In company with Don Augustine Balzac.
the government inspector of colonization.
l made trip into the wilderness over the
thirty kilometers of new railroad, which is
almost finished but not yet ready for traf-
nc. The road is being built by the state to
open up new lands, and it is part of a sys-
tenn which will extend from one end of ag-
ricultural Chile to the other The road is
well built with sixty-pound EngIash rails
and the English four feet eight gauge. 1t
will cost, excluding the bridges, about sI2-
900 gold per mile The rolling stock will be
American, and it was in a Baldwin engine
and on American hand cars that we made
part of our journey over the line The
steel bridges, and there are two, each of
which cost more than a hundred thousand
dollars, were bought from France, although
why America did not get the contract l do
not know, large number of the best of the
present railroad bridges having been i'm
ported from the United States The sta
tons were built and wide space fenced in
about each of them. There are as yet no
towns about the stations. The government
regulates such settlements. 1t lays out the
town lots. giving them at low prices to
actual settlers. The railroad town boomer
thus has no chance along the new state
lines of Chile. The other government lands
are sold in large lots and at auctions which
are held in different parts of the country
one or twice a year. Just now money is
scarce here and valuable lands go very
cheap. The land is usually sold in pieces
Of 1,5O0 acres, but one purchaser can buy
at each sale UP to 5000 acres, and if he
wants more he can. Of course, purchase the
additional amount through third party
or under another name. At such sales a
quarter of million acres are sold at
time. The land brings from $l.75 to sS3 gold
per acre. according to its position and char
acter. and the buyers must pay only one
third cash and the remainder without in
serest in ten equal instailments running