Evening star., 1938-07-03
Ry CHARLES WELLINGTON FURLONG,

F. r. 6. S.
~ UE south of Washington-but nearly
I 5000 miles south-in an airline
and about 5000 by steamship. lies
one of the least known. semi-in-
habted regions of the world, vast mys-
terious archipelago comprising 30,500 square
miles. or three and one-fi fifth times the area
of Massachusetts,.
This terra incognit. is the Fuegian
archipelago which have defined as Fuegia.
It lies south OF the Strait OF Magellan. Its
Inhabitants are among the most primitive
of the world. some of whom until recent
years found still living the life of Stone
Age men.
1t took me seven weeks of steady steam
ing on the tramp steamer Celia, out of New
York, with but one stop at Montevideo for
coal, before 1 reached that southernmost
city of the world, Punta Arenas, lying in
broad reach in the eastern half of Magel-
Ian Strait. This little mecca of the Magel-
lanes territory, owned by Chile. was the
base for my expeditions into the neither
world. still farther south, whose aborig-
inal inhabitants Darwin had considered
the lowest order of humanity.
Men have passed through the Strait of
Magellan for four centuries and for more
than 300 years have rounded the Horn, yet
those passing through the strait rarely
landed on its shores, and those rounding
the stormy regions Of the Horn often did
% without getting even a glimpse Of the
land. And not until toward the end of
tho ho uoito
trate the interior Of Tierra-de- -Fuego.
Isles Center Of Dispute.
Probably no one nation sent as many
ships rounding the Horn as did our own.
and by far the greater number Of those
ships sailed out Of Boston and nearby New
England ports.
The guano industry off the coast of
Peru. the gold rush to California, and the
Far East trade stimulated the building Of
our unbeatable clipper ships epitomized by
Mackay's Flying Cloud. Sturdy whalers
out Of Boston, Salem, New Bedford and
the cape. challenged in their catch, the
combined whaling fleets of the world
Their range was from the coasts of Africa
and South America to the North Polar
Here they also mapped and charted, for
the first time sections Of the fringes of
that vast South Polar continent and added
. rare chapter to New England's maritime
history.
The very name TERRA -del-Fuego in
trigues the imagination, but rarely ever
appears in the headlines of our press.
Yet. few days ago. it appeared as the
geographical keynote in a territorial dis
put between two Of the leading South
American countries, Argentina and Chile
OF particular interest to Americans is
the fact that the Attorney General of the
United States. Homer S. Cummings, has
been chosen to arbitrate the contended
sovereignty Of certain disputed islands in
the Fuegian Archipelago. 1t is reported
that the islands in dispute are Picton,
New Lennox and certain adjacent islands
In Beagle Channel between TERRA del
Fuego to the north and the Dumas Penin-
sua and Navarin Island to the SOUTH
Teeming With Gales.
These obscure islands. uninhabited ex-
eept for a lone adventurer or two. are
washed by the gale-swept brine of the
extreme South Atlantic. They are not
even known by name to most readers.
The entire archipelago is a region grand
desolate, elemental, teeming with gales,
cold and disasters. The rocky, precipitous
shores are covered for the greater part
with rain-soaked bog and almost impene-
trable forest
/, Except for cormorants, penguins and
other fishy sea BIRDS there is an astound-
ing scarcity of animal life. Besides a
small variety of shellfish, an occasional
SEAL or young whale, a ground rat, and
IN Central and Northern TERRA dell -Fuego
the suanaco. nature supplies man with No
other diet A lone pioneer missionary on
the shores of Beagle Channel kept q
meteorological record one year, which read
Three hundred days of rain and storm
the other IS not pleasant"
Why the missionary? To minister the
gospel to as many of the primitive inhab-
1tants, the Yahgans, as he could reach
They are the worlds southernmost inhab-
itsnts and one of four tribes inhabitine
Puegia. The Yahgans are polygamous
Sometimes q man may have as many a.
four wives One Of the ways of acquiring
wife Is for a man to present the girl.
father with a canoe. the making of which
was a long and laborious task in those
regions. One strange Yahgan custom i
that the young men take the older womer
to wife, while the older men acquire tn.
= young girls. The theory among them
being that young man needs an Older
and experienced woman to aid him as
helpmate: later on he may acquire ar
extra wife or two, or three.
Besides these people, the white popula
ton of the regions is limited to few
hundred inhabitants and convicts in thu
Argentine penal colony, called Ushuwaia
midway along Beagle Channel, on tn.
south coast of TERRA del -Fuego. Two
sheep ranches occupy narrow strip o1
coast below the mountains and a few
isolated pioneer adventures here anc
there live on the edges OF some of tht
nearby islands.