Concepción, Chile

“ There are many Germans in Concepción, south of which they grow ever more numerous. Along the Avenue Pedro de Valdivia, squeezed between the river and the hills in the outskirts, live scores of men of this nationality who came out less than half a century ago as simple clerks and who now have sumptuous mansions and large estates—quintas they are called in Chile—a single row of them eighteen blocks long on this one avenue boasting such names as “Thuringia” and “Die Lorelei” and the top-heavy architecture which goes with them. ”

“ Beyond these great twin centres of movement lies all the fast-developing agricultural and manufacturing south—Talca, a rapid and promising growth; dusty Rancagua, looking towards the big interior copper camp; Chillán, head of a great fruit region; Concepción, most agreeable of cities, nestled beside the bright Bio-Bio in a bower of woods, with its fine port, Talcahuano; the coal-mining sea-border towns, Coronel, Lota, Arauco, Lebu; Temuco, one of the most prosperous of all the vigorous young southern towns, placed in wonderfully productive country ”

“ It was not only with the aborigines of their new country that the Spanish settlers in Chile had to contend. Nature had in store for them a species of catastrophe which was admirably adapted to test their fortitude to an even greater degree. Thus in 1570 the newly-founded city of Concepcion was brought to the ground by an earthquake, and some eighty years later the larger centre of Santiago became a heap of smoking ruins from the same cause. ”

“ Concepción is another city showing legitimate and steady increases—75,000 people today as compared with 14,000 fifty years ago. Iquique, another of the new nitrate towns, has about 50,000 people, appearing in statistics, like Antofagasta, only twenty-five years ago.
Agricultural and industrial Chillán, in the south, has over 40,000 people; Temuco, opened to the general population of Chile only after “the Frontier” was broken down in 1882, made its first appearance in the census of 1885, and has now 35,000 people. Valdivia, with but 3000 people in 1865, now has 30,000. ”

“ It was not long before O’Higgins, then but thirty-five years old, was regarded as the leader of the “Penquistos” (southerners of Penco or Concepción, who wanted to see that pleasant city restored to her ancient pride as capital of Chile) , in opposition to the rich central group, with Santiago as their stronghold and the Carreras as one of the most ambitious families. ”

“ Since the census of 1895 the population of Punta Arenas has been largely increased by the discovery of gold in the vicinity. The twelve provinces first mentioned, which include the celebrated “Vale of Chile,” comprise only 17% of the area of the republic, but the census of 1895 showed that 72% of the total population was concentrated within their borders. The four desert provinces north of Coquimbo had only 8% of the total, and the seven provinces and one territory south of Concepción had 20%. ”

“ The south of Chile, whose capital was Concepcion, virtually formed a distinct country. The people called themselves “Penquistos,” to distinguish themselves from their northern neighbours, who styled themselves “Chilians.” Their troublesome neighbours, the Indians of Araucania, had accustomed them to war; their pastoral and agricultural pursuits made them strong and hardy. Their society included a class of free peasantry, among whom the army of the frontier found recruits, and from whom sprang the most distinguished leaders on both sides in the war which followed. ”

“ Population—.The population of Chile is largely concentrated in the twelve agricultural provinces between and including Coquimbo and Concepción, though the next six provinces to the south, of more recent general settlement, have received some foreign immigrants, and are rapidly growing. In the desert provinces the population is limited to the mining communities, and to the ports and supply stations maintained for their support and for the transport, smelting and export of their produce. ”

“ Cousiño Park at Lota has become the pride of Chile.
By far the most important town is Concepción, also in the coal district, and which is known as the southern capital. It has had many serious struggles with the Indians, gaunt famine and the still more terrible earthquake. It is really a fine city of about fifty thousand inhabitants. The last serious earthquake occurred in 1835, when nearly the whole town was destroyed. It is situated on the banks of the Bio-Bio River, and has for its port Talcahuano at the mouth of that river. ”

“ Chile is in need of many first-class modern hotels built on the North American style, but not cramped for room like in the United States, and with the guests' rooms large enough for comfort. Santiago, Valparaiso, and Concepcion have good hotels, but in the other cities they are poor. It would not pay a North American to build a hotel south [519] of Concepcion because in that region German influence predominates, and in many places the German population outnumbers that of the native. For years to come after the war the North American would be boycotted there. ”

“ I am giving their names and population together with those of their capitals and their population according to the estimate of 1917 in Héctor F. Decoud's Geografia de la Republica del Paraguay, Asuncion, 1917. The population of these district capitals includes the commune as well as the town, for with the exception of six cities, Asuncion, Villa Rica, Caazapá, Villa Encarnacion, Villa Concepcion, and Villa del Pilar there are no incorporated places in the republic:—
Total population, 828,130 inhabitants exclusive of about 50,000 wild Indians living in the Gran Chaco. ”

“ The cathedral at Santiago is the church of the archbishop, and a magnificent residence for his use stands alongside of the church. The bishoprics are known as Serena, Concepción and Ancud. Two ecclesiastical vicarages [271] have been established at Antofagasta and Tarapacá.
The Catholic Church in Chile, however, is as different from the same church in the United States as it is possible for two branches of the same general head to be. There is no spirit of liberality, and no general purpose to recognize religious freedom except as it is compelled by law. ”

“ Wealth in coal has brought a large number of factories and mills to the prosperous city of Concepción, was a factor in the establishment of the chief naval station of Chile in the fine bay of Talcahuano—the best-sheltered port of Chile—and developed smelting and metal-refining works at Tomé, to the north of Talcahuano, and in Coronel and Lota, farther south. ”

“ From north to south these are Tacna, Tarapacá, Antofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo, Choapa, Aconcagua, Santiago, Colchagua, Curico, Talca, Concepcion, Cautin, Valdivia, and Llanquihue. Four provinces are maritime, Valparaiso, Maule, Arauco, and Chiloé; their eastern limits are defined by the summits of the Coast Range and do not extend to the central valley. Chiloé is an archipelago. In the littoral provinces the [227] climate is cooler than in others whose latitude is farther south owing to the breezes that blow from the Pacific. ”

“ Nearly three hundred miles south of Santiago, capital of Chili, on the Pacific coast, is situated the city of Concepcion. It stands on the right bank of the river Biobio, six or seven miles from its mouth, and contains about twenty-five thousand inhabitants. The people seem to be exceptionally active and enterprising, though at this writing suffering from the effects of the late civil war. It is the third city in point of size and importance in the republic, and dates from over three hundred years ago. ”

“ Still, one cannot but feel that with such possibilities hanging over the locality, there must be few people willing to expend freely of their means for substantial building purposes, or to make Concepcion a permanent place of abode. Human nature adapts itself to all exigencies, however, and the place grows rapidly, notwithstanding the discouraging circumstances which we have named. It is not the native but the foreign element of the population which is doing so much for this region. ”

“ Great things are prognosticated for Concepcion in the near future by its friends, and it is already the principal town of southern Chili. The streets are well paved, and lined by handsome business blocks, together with pleasant dwelling-houses, built low, to avoid the effect of earthquakes, the universal material being sun-dried bricks, finished externally in stucco. The façades are painted in harlequin variety of colors, yellow, blue, and peach-blossom prevailing. ”

“ All around loom giant peaks of the Andes, their white crests among the clouds. In the smiling valley, clothed in the green of perennial summer, is Santiago. Long, quiet streets, badly paved, are lined with handsome houses, French and Spanish in architectural design; many of them palatial in proportions. The lack of industrial life and commercial activity, and the peaceful repose of this daughter of Latin America, give to the capital of Chile more the appearance of [Pg 239] an indolent Oriental city than the metropolis of an ambitious young Republic. ”

“ The Province of Ñuble, of which Chillán is the capital, has an area of 3407 square miles and a population of 166,245, being the fifth in Chile as to the number of its inhabitants. Its eastern part is mountainous and very sparsely settled, the great bulk of its population living in the highly cultivated central valley. Its level lands are a fine rich country given up to the growing of cereals, principally wheat, and to all the vegetables known to the temperate zone. ”

“ Concepción, which was founded by Valdivia, but has been several times destroyed both by Araucanians and by earthquakes, is now a substantial modern city of 50,000 inhabitants, the third in size in the Republic. ”

“ Thinking of Chile, one sees a picture of southern orchards and wheat fields, of cattle pastures, of pine forests; of copper mines in the inhospitable heights of the mountains; or perhaps of the great, burning nitrate pampas of the north. Rarely is a thought given to the southernmost city in the world, Punta Arenas, with its tributary sheep-raising plains, its beech woods and fisheries, coal and gold mines, and its extraordinary rise from misery to immense wealth in the course of a few years. ”

“ With the exception of the business section, Santiago is an extremely reserved, conservative, and quiet old place. It can also be called serious. After nine o'clock at night, even on the Ahumada, all is quiet, a pleasant contrast to the din and racket of Buenos Aires, which murders the darkness, making sleep impossible. There is but little gayety about the Chilean metropolis; the aristocracy of the city, which can boast of the purest white blood of any American capital, form a society into which a foreigner, no matter how prominent his antecedents are, is seldom admitted. ”

“ The province of Santiago, bounded N. by Aconcagua, W. by Mendoza, S. by O'Higgins and Colchagua and W. by Valparaiso and the Pacific, has an area of 5665 sq. m. and a population (1895) of 415,636. It forms part of the “Vale of Chile,” celebrated for its fertility and fine climate. ”

“ Between the forbidding lands of the extreme north and far south and the frontiers of mountain and sea, lies fertile Chile—fruitful, gentle, brisk, well-watered. Nitrate and copper have their great populated camps, but they are artificial towns; the Magellanic city of Punta Arenas has a firmer root, but both north and south are new, and have received rather than produced. The Central Valley of Chile is the great garden of South 3America, one of the most enchantingly lovely, the most frankly friendly, regions in all the world. ”

“ It seems as though nature had deliberately tried to compensate here for the arid and the stormy end of the belt by showering beauty upon the intervening strip. There is none of that strange illusory quality, the sense of living in a mirage, that attends upon tropical regions. Central Chile is fresh, dewy-bright, with the familiar sweetness of the temperate zones of western Europe. ”

“ Villa Concepción, 130 miles up the river from Asunción, the third if not the second city of commercial importance, with a population given as 16, 25, also 30 thousand, is a port for yerba, cattle, quebracho, and sugar. The town of one story houses has better streets than those of the Capital, and a comfortable inn. ”

“ The main streets are well paved with cobblestones, but the side ones are poorly paved with small smooth stones, very distressing to walk upon with thin-soled shoes. The buildings are well built and red brick is more common than [316] in the cities farther north. However, there are in Chillán frame houses, which in the neighborhood of Santiago are conspicuous by their absence. There are several plazas, but the principal one, O'Higgins, is the best, and in my estimation is the loveliest in Chile. ”

“ But the dark rich earth, the lusty crops, the blossoming orchards and hedges, the green pastures with their sleek cattle, create a scene of genuine content. The holdings may be new, yet they are plainly homes. Chile possesses mines, but they drain rather than create populations; growing industries—weaving factories, 200grain mills, and a score of new employments which tend to concentrate wealth and culture; but it is in her farming lands that the truest cradle of the race, the frankest and strongest people, the most cheerful spirit, is found. ”