The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-23
Impressive and beautiful Scenes in
the Archipelago, and Their
Background of Glaciers.
THE WORLDS FINEST SCENERY
THE NAKED ALACALUFE INDIANS
AND HOW THEY LOOK AND LIVE.
Experiences of Trip Through Upper
Among Icebergs and Glaciers.
Copyright. 1sss. BY Frank G. Carpenter,

Copyright. 1928. by Frank G. carpenter.)
CAPE FROWARD. Strait of Magellan.
Latitude 90 Degrees IS Minutes South Sept.
N.-At the tail end of our hemisphere. At
the lowest continental point of the world
Three thousand miles nearer the south pole
than the foot of the Samese peninsula at
the end of Asia. More than a thousand
miles below the Cape of Good Hope at the
bottom of Africa, with distance almost
equal to the thickness of the earth between
myself and the northern parts of the United
States, write for my American readers.
am on the steamer Itauri, in the Strait of
Magellan. Just opposite me the black rocky
walls of Cape Froward, the southernmost
point of South America, rise almost straight
upward to a height of 200 feet, and behind
them, glistening in the moonlight are the
glacial SHOWS of Mount Victoria, two thou
sand feet higher. am at the bottom of the
great Andean chain. Those hills are the end
of the mighty ridge which ties the conti-
nents 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 Klondike. The hills to the
SOuJnWaru are a part Oh IlefTe uel ucSOs
above Cape Horn, and that great white
frozen pyramdal cone which rises among
them is Mount Sarmiento. which pierces the
southern sky more than one thousand feet
above the altitude of Mount Washington.
Behind and in front of my ship, here as
black as ink under the shadows of the hills,
there turned to silver by the full moons
rays, flows the Strait of Magellan, that
saltwater 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 pas
sage between the oceans shorter by almost
1000 miles. Cape Horn is less than q.
couple of hundred miles south of 1t, but its
waters are always tossed about by terrible
storms. Tonight the Magellans are almost
as quiet as mill pond. and the Itauri is
steaming as smoothly through them as the
boat which carries away the hero in the
Swan song Of "Lohengrin." We are now al
most midway between the Atlantic and the
Pacific. We entered the strait by what is
known as Smyth's channel opposite Desc
lation island, about thirty miles from Cape
Pillar, which marks it's western end. We
could see the two massive rocks of the
cape as we turned to the eastward They
rise almost precipitously for distance OF
$500 feet and when the air is clear they
are in sight for many miles. Beginning
here the strait runs southeast to Cape Fro
ward. 1t then turns to the northeast, WIDEN
ing here and there as it goes, until 1t ends
at the Atlantic between Cape Virgin and
Cape Holy Ghost. The channel is 365 miles
long, and it's width varies from two to
twenty-four miles. AT times our vessel has
been within a stones throw Of the shore,
and again in the misty air, where the cham
mel widened, the waters seemed to almost
bound the 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 is little else than mountains, which
are now snow-dusted and in many cases
loaded with vast glaciers slowly sliding
down them to the sea. 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 Fuego. The
last is bigger than many of our American
states and it 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 Pat
agonia on the east, and on the west a con-
tinuation of the archipelago OF TERRA del
Fuego. These islands, as well as the strait
and almost all of TERRA del Fuego. belong
to Chile. She has an area Of land here,
which she calls the territory of the AIagel-
Ian, of 1900 square miles, half again as
large as the State of New York and almost
twice the area of Ohio. Some Of the Chilean
naval vessels are now here engaged in sur
veying the channels and harbors. but the
greater part Of this region is almost as un-
known as it was when fernando Magellan.
a Spanish navigator, discovered the strait in
1870. The land and the people have been
misrepresented by passers-by from Darwin
down to within recent years. and it is only
lately that opportunities have been offered
for careful investigation. Even now the
savages 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
government vessels are, however. making
heauway. and within few years this great
archipelago will be a terra incognito no
longer.
CLOUD LAND OF PATAGONIA.
The generally accepted belief regarding
southern Patagonia and TERRA del Fuego is
that they are something ike the coasts or
Greenland or those Of the arctic seas. The
Biographies represent them as wastes az
ice and snow, desolate. forbidding and terri
BILE to the traveller. For the past four days
have been winding In and out of the chari-
nels along the west coast of lower Pata-
gonia. Ny sail has been through series az
Scenic panoramas that cannot be surpassed
in the world. We entered the archipelago
by what is known as the Smyths channel
route about four hundred miles above here.
and coasted slowly along through one
channel after another until we came into
the strait proper at Desolatson island.
Darwin compared the glaciers Sarmiento
in TERRA del Fuego to one hundred frozen
Niagaras. The waters along the lower end
OF western Patagonia present combinations
which make you think OF a hundred Lake
Comos, Lake Genevas and Lake Lucernns
tied together in one overwhelming, ever
changing river. Here are the beauties Of
the Thousand islands Of the st. Lawrence.
added to BY snow-capped mountains kissed
by the sun. and mighty glaciers sliding
down into masses Of dark green vegetation.