Valparaíso

“ Our steadfast anchors sleep. Saturday, March 7. Valparaiso, at a first glance, instead of justifying the name it bears—the vale of Paradise—might rather be called some outpost of purgatory. Its wild crags, its scorched hills, and dark glens might well be supposed to lead to that intermediate abode of condemned spirits. You are puzzled to know why a city should be there. Without encroaching on the sea, there is hardly room enough, between the base of the steep acclivities and the surge, to set up a fisherman’s hut. The harbor is but little better than an open roadstead. ”

“ The earth, like the sea, casts up on its beaches much human driftwood. Valparaiso is no exception to this rule, and here may be found wanderers, beachcombers, and roustabouts of all nationalities. Primitive landing facilities give its rascally boatmen the whip-hand over arriving or departing travelers. Many languages are spoken, English not the least important among them. Along the docks the roto stevedore works barefoot and bare-legged even in the winter season; over all the town rests a pall of aggressive, rather conscienceless commerce which offsets its scenic beauties. ”

“ There is not a building whose walls have not vibrated to their force. There is not a rock on which they rest, but is of volcanic origin. The soaring peaks of the Cordilleras, which overhang them, rest on craters that may at any moment throw them heaven-high. And yet who does not sleep sound in Valparaiso? Such is peril, when it has become an old familiar acquaintance. ”

“ We caught many with fishing-lines baited with pork. We also took in the same way many albatrosses. The white ones are very large, and their down is equal to that of the swan. At last Cape Horn and its swelling seas were left behind, and we reached Valparaiso in about sixty days from Rio. We anchored in the open roadstead, and spent there about ten days, visiting all the usual places of interest, its foretop, main-top, mizzen-top, etc. Halleck and Ord went up to Santiago, the capital of Chili, some sixty miles inland, but I did not go. Valparaiso did not impress me favorably at all. ”

“ Scene in the Harbor of Valparaiso, showing the Arturo Prat Statue
The port, as is natural, is cosmopolitan. The German colony is largest, and after that the Italians in numbers, though in influence they are hardly so strong as either the English or the French. The French community is self-contained and is an important factor in commerce. The Britishers, chiefly from Scotland, are in everything except retail trade. Though the English language is common, Valparaiso is the one city in South America in which I heard German spoken oftener. ”

“ Little can be said commendatory of Valparaiso; and truly I think the most rabid of limners would meet with difficulty in getting an outside view from any point; for, owing to formation of the land, furrowed into scores of ravines by the rush and wash of creation, with the town running oddly enough along the ridges, or down in the gullies, it becomes a matter of optical skill, for a single pair of eyes to compass more than a small portion at a glance.
The houses are mean; streets narrow and nasty ”

“ On this trip from Valparaiso we had experienced fine weather, for a wonder, and made (for us) a record run of twenty-five days. The weather had been beautifully fine.
A faint breeze right ahead brought us a heart-quickening perfume—that smell of the land which even the most desert place seems to possess, and which only the "deep-waterman" knows how to appreciate to the full. Your landlubber's nose couldn't detect it. As I climbed to the bridge after tea, and took a good long sniff of it, I determined that this would be my last trip. To the devil with ploughing the raging main! ”

“ It was not a too happy voyage on which a company of seven had set out—four boys, two men, and Captain Clarke. For two weeks they were scudding under a bob jib with the roughest of weather, after which the wind moderated, and at the end of forty days they made the Island of Massafurp, about thirty degrees west of Valparaiso, their destined port, but were unable to land. The whole distance to Valparaiso was four thousand nine hundred miles, and was overcome in sixty-eight days. But what days! What suffering and weariness were compressed into a voyage of that length in a small boat! ”

“ It [206] is estimated that about one-fourth of the population are whites.
Leaving Callao we had a fine breeze, set studding-sails alow and aloft. When abreast Valparaiso, the wind veered around into the south and blew a stiff breeze, which obliged us to lay off and on for a few days. The wind dying away, we put into the harbor of Valparaiso, which is the most singular one I ever entered. The water is of vast depth, being upwards of fifty fathoms within a short distance of the town. We spent some little time on shore, which we enjoyed very finely indeed; found the natives kind and hospitable. ”

“ We departed from Valparaiso in a cart drawn by oxen, and arrived on the morning of the twenty-fifth at Quillota—a small town situated in a beautiful and fertile valley on a river thirty-six miles from Valparaiso.
Here we have hired a house and live with a widow and two daughters, young ladies of fifteen and seventeen; they are very sociable, and much pleased with us. They can read Spanish, and they take every possible pains to teach us the language. They are very frank and friendly, and seem a much void of guile as little children. ”

“ The rides around Valparaiso are almost destitute of interest; for many leagues the main roads lead over dry and hilly ground, with no relief from their dullness, except an occasional glimpse from some more elevated ridge, of the broad Pacific or the shining snow-capped Cordilleras far in the interior. There are neither forests nor grasses, nor yet running water. Even in the most secluded valleys, the herbage is pale and withered, and vegetation stunted. ”

“ The tramways, the common use of motor cars and electricity, the good paving and good shops, the beauty and fashion of the Chilean women, the beautifully built and equipped houses, the good restaurants, the plentiful supply of newspapers, the appearance and avocations of the people, render Valparaiso and the Chilean capital among the front-rank cities of the world. ”

“ They flow together with a congeniality of spirit, which is the source of a thousand pleasures to them as well as the stranger. Their society is the all-redeeming charm of Valparaiso. Their hospitality is open as the day, and warm as their soft clime. You forget in their company the rude rocks and barren hills around you. The earth without may be covered with brambles, but you feel for the time in a sort of Eden whose flowers have escaped the primal malediction. I do not wonder that this is the favorite port with the officers of the Pacific squadron. ”

“ The houses are usually one storey, very plain and unpretending but scrupulously clean. The stranger who wanders though Guillota, and becomes sensible of the filth and dust in the streets, and the entire absence of comfort within-doors, is apt to puzzle himself how the place came to be selected for a summer resort of the fashionable world, as indeed he may marvel how the Spanish navigators, to whom Valparaiso is indebted for its name, contrived to associate the idea of the Vale of Paradise with its sandy hills and glades bare of vegetation. ”

“ The features of Valparaiso, which strike the stranger with the greatest force, are perhaps the elegant articles of ornament which are presented in the fancy shops. They seem as much out of place here as a jewel in a swine’s 201snout. And yet they are not out of place; for higher forms of fashionable life are seldom encountered. Those little cottages, which gleam from the toppling crags, are garnished with furniture on which the Parisian artist has exhausted his skill. ”

“ We found Valparaiso very much improved since our first visit, more so, in fact, than would be generally believed for a Creole town. Streets had been newly paved and extended, whole squares of fine warehouses, and long rows of dwellings completed; all tending, with a rapid increase of population, to make the port most flourishing. As in the Islands and Callao, the discovery of the El Dorado of California had thrown the entire community into a state of feverish excitement, which was augmented by every fresh arrival. ”

“ Valparaiso is yearly increasing in extent and in the numbers of its inhabitants; but the town makes little improvement in beauty. That quarter which is built along the Quebradas is certainly susceptible of no improvement, owing to the unfavorable locality, and it is only the newly-built houses on the heights that impart to the town anything like a pleasing aspect. In laying out buildings in a place like Valparaiso, the aid of art should make amends for the defects of nature. ”

“ Valparaíso, like nearly all the commercial centres of South America, is a collection of shapeless huts and magnificent palaces, standing side by side and hanging in long clusters from the sided of the three mountains which command the town. The streets are narrow, dirty, and almost deprived of air, for the houses, as in all American towns, have a tendency to approach each other, and at a certain height form a projection of four, or even six feet over the street. ”

“ For forty-eight hours, we sailed lightly [Pg 40] along the base of a compact ridge of mountains that rose like a sea wall, seamed into ten thousand furrows, the summits fringed with lofty forest trees, and not a cloud visible in high heaven, then appeared a green, shelving point, of waving pines and verdure, terminated by a reef of fearful, black rocks. Giving this a wide birth, we shortly entered a wide, sweeping indentation of the coast, in shape of a fish hook, with the barb at the southern end, furled our sails, and moored ship in the Bay of Monterey, forty days from Valparaiso. ”

“ The residents entertain house parties on that [61] day and all attend the track. They become very enthusiastic, and few who have the money neglect an opportunity to stake it on the horses, for all are posted on the records of the various animals listed in the races, and each one has his or her favourite.
The province of Valparaiso does not extend quite to the Cordilleras, but it does reach out several hundred miles into the Pacific. Some four hundred miles west of Valparaiso lies the island of Juan Fernandez, which is generally known among English-speaking people as Robinson Crusoe’s Island. ”

“ Despite earthquakes and northern gales, Valparaiso continues to be the most flourishing seat of world trade on the western side of its Continent, the only South American rival of San Francisco, Seattle, and Vancouver. It is also the centre of the coast trade of the Chileans, the only Spanish-American people who have shewn taste or talent for seafaring. We felt ourselves back in the modern world when we saw a Stock Exchange, having since we left New York passed near no city possessing that familiar appliance of civilization. ”

“ One might almost imagine that an English climate had found its way down south, as well as English trade, manners, and customs. Valparaiso—the “Vale of Paradise”—hardly justifies its presumptuous title, for although trees and verdure are plentiful enough, the bay cannot for a moment be compared for beauty with the magnificence of Rio de Janeiro on the other side of the continent. The impressions received are entirely different from any others to be obtained in other parts of South America. ”

“ Viña del Mar is not only a suburb of Valparaiso whither many Englishmen and others go in the afternoon for sports, and where many business men of Valparaiso have homes, but it is also a fashionable summer resort for the wealthy residents of Santiago and other parts of Chile. It is a charming place with a pretty railway station near a large and attractive plaza. Many carriages stand near, in one of which for a few pesos a pleasant drive may be taken around the town and out to the hippodrome or race track, a mile or more outside the city. ”

“ This is Valparaiso, where the wanderer who has been musing among prehistoric ruins and Bolivian volcanoes finds himself again in the busy modern world. The harbour is full of vessels from all quarters,—coasting steamers that ply to Callao and Panama, sailing ships as well as steamers from San Francisco and others from Australia, mostly with cargoes of coal, besides vessels that have come from Europe round Cape Horn or through the Straits of Magellan. ”

“ For these reasons they proceeded to Valparaiso, where they took two ships and killed some Indians, but all the Spaniards escaped on shore. Valparaiso is in lat. 35° 5' S. And about eighteen miles inland, [100 English miles] is the town of St Jago, abounding in red wine and sheep. They kill these animals merely for the sake of their tallow, with which alone they load many vessels. Here they received letters from the captain of the Flying Hart, one of the squadron under Verhagen, who had been treacherously captured by the Spaniards ”

“ The city has a population of nearly 250,000, but, as some one else has remarked, “As the principal port of the west coast, and, in a way, the ‘downtown’ for the capital and the rest of Chile, Valparaiso seems more important than its mere population would indicate, and, although the newspapers and street signs are in Spanish and Spanish is the language generally spoken, it has little of the look of the old Spanish-American town.” A large element of the population is foreign. The Germans are said to have the largest colony and the Italians and French to come next in order. ”