Norwich bulletin., 1922-11-23
IN THE DAYS NEWS
cH1LE's EARTHQUAKE VICTIMS

C h0OAn6 |
 Copiapo, Coquinbo and Vallenar. Chile, shaken by earthquake, are de- Scribed in bulletin from the Washing ton, D. C., headquarters of the National 1 Geographic Society as follows:
 'Copiapo is Chiles most historic town" says the bulletin, which is based on a communication to The Society byi Harriet Chalmers Adams.
 William Wheelwright, an American. l in 1851 built the first railroad in South | America from the port of Caldera, N50 miles inland to Copiapo. The little stream which borders it, now nearly | dry. now in full flood, was or first | | oasis after crossing the parched desert | | of Atacama. To traveierS of old, as to | 1 us, this strip of meadow land was a l God-given sight.
 ''To Copiapo. in the fifteenth century. | l marched the Incan ruler, Tupac Yupan- | qui, with his victorious army, to subju- | 1 gate the tribes Of northern Chile. l 'The 1nca's trail from Peru led down | the backbone of the snow-clad Andes i and across the burning desert. In 1885 Diego de A!magro. colleague of Pisar- TO, travelled the same road with a great army of Spaniards and Peruvians. horses and llamas, two Iucan princes acting as guides. "Old Spanish chronicles tell of the 1 terrible suffering from cold and thirs. endured by AlTnaero's men on ths Elk months march. The desert was strewn with their bones. Alluring were Copia- pos meadows to those who survived! "Almagro failed to subdue the soutil- ern natives. and five years later a Span ish army was again encamped in Copia- DO. led this time by Pedro de Valdivia } who kept on south to found Santiago.
 Tn the halcyon days of '49 when Cal ifoFnias gold lured men round the } Horn, Valparaiso became the great mart of the Pacific coast, supplying flour and other commodities to the California } miners. My pioneer grandfather used to tell me of those eventful days. Wrlef he was in Chile in the early ffties, Co., piapo was an important town, saarIns . the European opera season with SAntia- l go and Valparaiso.
 ''Wheeiwrigh's dream was of a tnanscontinental railway across the " Andes to Tinogasta, in Argentina, and on to the Atlantic; but the road never | got far beyond Copiapo.
 This great American also gave Chile
 its teiegraphic system and, after faii-
 ing to interest American capital in a I steamship line between Valparaiso and
 New York, turned to England and in-
 augurated in the early sixties the first steamer service between the west coast ] and Europe
 4 ''In 1892 a donkey driver. Juan Co o doy, discovered a silver deposit near Ce-
 piapo. and put the long-nAglected town
 on the map.
 'fGodoy's story reads like a romance
 Tired of loading his train of donkeyi 't toners. he started across the parnpa tC hunt the rowing guanaco. Sitting on ( |. rock to rest. he discovered that lis seat ' was Of silver. Returning home %V1si specimens, he shared the knowledge o :, hts discovery with an educated ac quaintAnce. who aided the ignorant maI to make the most of his find Godo.
 became the silver king of that period
 Tt was hard for us to visualize Co .i piapo'E past splendor in the fcrloF-
 little town that we found. Half tn,
 buildings were still In ruins. after tn.
 disastrous earthquake of the previou ] year. The hotel, kept by a sad-face,
 Englishman, had a decided tilt Door,
 and windows were damned and win 'e dow paRes missing. Our host apolo 2 gized for candle-light, saying that tn d gas-pipes were still out of commission n The stone bathtub, reached by a rick n ety flight of steps, had a somewhat tip Y sy appearance.
 --i But the Copiapinos have not - 'o courage. More than once earthquake
 have completely demolished the towu In this land where the extreme infre quence of showers is a hardship, the ie have come to believe that earthquake
 are forerunners Of much-needed sair
 Between uuakes they look to the cas- g. watching for heavy fall of snow I
 the Andes Then the river runs Af IS and the fields smile.
 From Copiapo a trail across tn D. desert leads to the mountains, so ste!
 ile, gnant, and forbidding; yet there ae a majesty in the Andean contour. Fro re cur bleak, upland camp at the sunse V hour, the coloring of slopes and erae ns was gorgeous beyond adjectivss to d is scribs. Pink deepensd to rose: rose | p terra-cotta; terra-cotta to purple. The
 each towering peak became sentin,
 guarding mysterious Promised Ian
 beyond the Andes.
 ve we passed the ruins Of long-aoaI nd doned stone dwellings, occupied, pei it's haps, in those remote days of pre.Inca " rule when these mountains had nI a. risen to their present height and this rt ng zion. was within the corn belt. ks Continuing south from Copiapo Il = tie by little the desert fora grew eros ry tufts Of grass ard utuatsa bush tB tz