The Gold Diggings of Cape Horn Part 9

I saw Ushuaia for the first time under rather unfavorable circ.u.mstances.

The sky was overcast with storm clouds; roaring gusts of wind, laden with snow, came driving along at frequent intervals, and the region at the water level was buried under snow that was at no place less than two feet deep. It was on the 23d of May, just at the beginning of the antarctic winter. We had been steaming all the morning along the Beagle Channel, under the shadow, so to speak, of the glacier-covered range that overhangs the south coast of Tierra del Fuego, when at about noon the range turned away to the north from the channel, making a curve so that a half-circle of lowlands like the floor of an amphitheatre was left between it and the line of the range. Into the westerly side of this floor, where the waters could wash the feet of the lofty mountains, there projected a rounded bay, the mouth of which was well guarded, but not obstructed, by a low island and a long sandspit on the west. It was an ideal harbor, and, after what had been said of it on board ship, there was no difficulty in recognizing it as the site of the capital of Tierra del Fuego.

A little later we rounded the island and then the settlement came into view--apparently at that distance a single row of houses standing at the water's edge. Nor did a closer approach change the appearances very much, for although not exactly in a row nor washed by the waves, there was only about a score of buildings all told, and none of them was above a hundred paces from the bay.

And right curious these houses were. First of all, of course, was the capitol building, a one-story structure in the form of a right-angled U standing with the wings away from the sea.

This building was made of wood, and it was painted to that peculiar shade of red that in old times was so much favored by the Yankee farmer when he had put up a new barn. A little to the right of this stood the home of the Governor. This, too, was a frame structure, but it was in the form of a Central American _hacienda_--a low, rectangular affair, with a peak roof that ran down over all four walls to form a wide veranda on all sides. The rest of the buildings of the town can best be described by saying they were duplicates of the dwellings to be found in the mine camps of the United States. Every one had plain, unpainted wooden walls, and every one a corrugated iron roof. A few had garden plots enclosed with fences of split pickets, but the majority were unenclosed. They were all scattered along the narrow slope of one of the foot-hills of the great mountain range. This slope is in summer gra.s.sy.

Back of the scattered row of houses the first ridge had once been covered with a forest, but the trees for ten rods or more up the slope had been subsequently cut for fuel and other purposes, leaving a field of stumps. Above the clearing the forest rose rapidly in solid rolling ridges until six hundred feet above the sea. Then the forest thinned out, and in clumps and bunches of brush spread up the mountain side for a few hundred feet more, to disappear entirely at the edges of the glaciers and banks of eternal snow that were piled among the rugged rocks clear to the crests three thousand feet above the sea.

To add to the sombre aspect of nature incident everywhere to the winter season is the lack, in Ushuaia, of sunshine. The Beagle Channel is in 55 south lat.i.tude, so that in winter the nights are long and the days brief at best, while even such lengths of days as they might have in the open is cut down by the shadows of the lofty crests. The sun does not get above these crests until almost ten o'clock, and it disappears again soon after two o'clock. Even then its face is so often hid by the snow clouds above the crests that one may almost say that the village in winter is shrouded in perpetual gloom.

As a port Ushuaia showed a substantial wooden pier over one hundred feet long, built by the government for the use of its officials. At some distance from this was a smaller and more slender pier, built by a merchant. There was anch.o.r.ed in the bay the dismantled hulk of what seemed to be a big, worn-out, seagoing tug. It had really been a tiny cruiser, however. Another vessel of a similar model, but much newer and well painted, was a cruiser kept there at the call of the Governor, but just what he might want to call it for did not appear. Moreover, the tubes in her boiler had gone wrong and she could not have answered anybody's call. In addition to these two there was quite a fleet--say half a dozen sailboats of the sort used by Cape Horn gold-hunters--sloops and catboats from twenty-five to thirty feet long, while a tiny schooner that had once been used by the missionaries lay rotting on the beach some distance around to the west. The vessels afloat, as they veered to and fro at the ends of their long cables, gave some air of life to the harbor, an air that was increased by two or three Indian families, who were paddling about in the wretched little dugouts the missionaries taught them to make in place of their old-fashioned bark canoes of Viking model.

Here, then, in the score of mine-camp shanties along the beach and in two broken-down hulks afloat, lived the inhabitants of the capital of Tierra del Fuego. If the town itself was curious, its people and their manner of life were found to be no less curious when one came to get acquainted. Small and wretched as the place was, it had a complete outfit of the officials and a.s.sistants needed for the dignity and peace of the most populous territorial capital anywhere. There was a complete list of executive officers, with secretaries and servants; a complete list of judicial officers, with clerks and servants; a complete list of police officials, from a commissioner to a patrolman; a file of soldiers with commissioned and non-commissioned officers; a crew of sailors for the vessels, with the usual officers, a school teacher (male), and a matron for a girls' school.

The town had also six citizens--plain, every-day folks, not ent.i.tled to wear uniform. All told, the number of inhabitants was less than sixty. I went on sh.o.r.e to learn something more about the local government than what I could see from the steamer. They told me that the Governor was in Buenos Ayres working for an appropriation to make improvements.

"Improvements in what?" I asked.

"Just improvements about the place."

"How much money does he want?"

"Who knows? He ought to have $20,000."

"What one thing, for instance, would he do with the money?"

"Well, there is the shed back of the Capitol, where the sawmill is. That ought to be enclosed to keep the weather off the machinery."

"Would that cost $20,000?"

"It should do so. You'd make it cost that if you were Governor and had to live here. n.o.body gets pay enough to make it worth while staying."

"Will the Supreme Court sit to-day?"

"I beg pardon."

"Will any Judge hold court to-day?"

"Oh! Scarcely. What made you think such a thing likely?"

"When are courts held, then?"

"They aren't held. No cases to be tried."

"Not even a police case?"

"No. Do the people you have seen look like criminals?"

"Certainly not. Where can I find the school-house?"

"There is none."

"Where do they hold school, then?"

"They don't hold any."

"Why not?"

"There aren't any children here."

So the questions and answers ran about all official doings, if that term may be used in connection with the life in the town as a capital.

The truth was that the executive department of the government had nothing to execute, so to speak. The courts had no dockets, the police had no beats to patrol, and no criminals to arrest. The soldiers did not even stand guard, nor had the sailors either a watch or lookout to employ them. Of all the government employees there was but one cla.s.s that had any employment worth mentioning. The cooks and their a.s.sistants had to labor daily. Even these were well-nigh out of a job when I arrived. Owing to negligence on the part of some one in Buenos Ayres, the supplies of flour and about all other kinds of food had been allowed to run out. We carried thirty half-starved sheep to the settlement from Punta Arenas, and these were hailed with delight, because everybody there except the plain citizens was on short allowance.

I made a tour of the place, wading through snow up to my knees. I found three people engaged in useful occupations. One was a squaw, who was pulling the hair from an otter skin in the store run by one of the plain citizens. In the kitchen attached to this store an Englishman was getting dinner and a German was cutting meat for sausage. In all I saw three women in the place, but it was said three more could be found.

There was not, they said, a heating stove in town, nor was there a cord of fuel in any one pile. The men were usually found standing in what might be called the sitting-rooms of the houses, or in stores conducted by the plain citizens. They usually had their hands in their pockets.

All wore heavy sack coats, which were kept b.u.t.toned to the chin, while some had m.u.f.flers about their necks. The plain citizens were composed of Englishmen, Italians, and Germans in equal numbers. Three of them were Argentine citizens, and the others were cosmopolitans.

When, in the course of conversation, I referred to a trip I had made to some Colorado mining camps, the plain citizens with one accord brought out specimens of ores that I might pa.s.s judgment on them. When I protested that a brief residence in a couple of mine camps would by no means make a man a judge of ores, they thought I was over-modest. They all had specimens of gold dust, but aside from this there was nothing of value save a chunk of iron said to have come from a limitless bed, and a piece of ore from which a Buenos Ayres a.s.say had obtained an enormous per cent. of nickel.

I asked about the gardens. They said that cabbages, turnips, carrots, parsnips, and a few other hardy vegetables flourished in the season. I saw cabbages and turnips as big each as a peck measure, but the potatoes were in no case larger than an English walnut. The wild gra.s.s of the region was said to be very nutritious, and the appearance of the fresh meat I saw in the stores indicated that it was so. One merchant, Mr.

Adolph Figue, had taken up enough prairie land on the west side of the bay to carry 6000 sheep or more, and this he was stocking with every prospect of success, because the Rev. John Lawrence, in charge of the missionary station, had very fine flocks and herds in the same region.

The stores were established for trade with the prospectors and Indians.

It will readily be believed that prices were high. The prospectors bought goods with gold dust, while the Indians traded furs, weapons, and models of their old-fashioned canoes for the goods they wanted. The traders found a sale for the curios on the Argentine naval transports that call there every three weeks. The stocks carried in the stores were liquors, navy bread and other cured foods, tobaccos, clothing, and cheap cloths, and miners' tools. The goods are named in the order of the demand for them.

When asked if there was anything there to interest a sportsman, one replied:

"No. We get all our game from the Indians."

The Indians did the only out-door work that I saw done on sh.o.r.e. There were goods landed from the steamer, and a gang of Yahgans from the Mission hauled them from the little pier belonging to the merchant up to the merchant's store, a distance of perhaps 150 yards. In spite of the depth of snow, they used a hand-cart for that purpose. I did not see a sled or toboggan in the settlement. If any one there knew how to make and use a sled, he did not, apparently, have the energy to use his knowledge. In fact, no white man seemed to have energy enough to do anything. As said, everybody stood about m.u.f.fled to the chin and with his hands in his pockets. They gazed out of the window at the bay and the mountains; they gazed at the goods behind the counters in the little stores; they gazed at the blank walls and read for the ten-thousandth time ordinances and edicts issued by various officials and pasted up there. Doubtless all would have been glad to sit down--to gaze from comfortable arm-chairs instead of standing up to do it. But they couldn't do that. There were no arm-chairs, for one thing, and then the rooms, having no fire, were too cold for comfort when a man sat down.

On the whole, a more cheerless life than that of the people of this austral capital would be hard to imagine. They do not work. They do not read. They do not converse more than is necessary. They neither flirt, frolic, fight, nor fish. They have no interest in botany or zoology, and they keep no record in meteorology. Their interest in geology is confined to the finding of pay dirt, and they look for that in only the most desultory and cursory manner. A stay of three days is, in winter at least, enough to make any one agree that "n.o.body gets pay enough here to make it worth while staying." Even the chance of enclosing a shed at a cost of $20,000 would not keep a Yankee there much longer than the time needed to enclose a shed.

ON A BEAGLE CHANNEL RANCH.

From Ushuaia we steamed away east for thirty miles, and there found, as the sailors said, that the mountains on the north side had all fallen down. In place of lofty peaks and rugged crests of rock, snow, and ice, there were on the north side low, rounded hills, with luxuriant pastures and beautiful forests. South and west lay Navarin Island, and this was one huge ridge that reached far above the clouds. That is to say, the land on the north of the channel was open to the sun and sheltered from the fierce, cold storms that came from the colder regions south and west. The change of climate was remarkable. There was neither snow nor ice in sight save on Navarin Island and the distant mountain tops, and even then it did not descend within several hundred feet of the sea.

In the midst of this charming district, living on the sh.o.r.e of a little bay that afforded excellent anchorage for our steamer, we found the Rev.

Thomas Bridges, the founder of the Ushuaia Mission, but who for seven years had been engaged here as a ranchman and farmer. All of the pasture land in sight, and more, too--eight square leagues lying along the Beagle Channel--belonged to him. On the prairie-like Gable Island he had a flock of 4500 sheep that needed no other attention than an occasional visit and shearing in the season. On the mainland he had herds of cattle, a band of horses, and a great drove of pigs. He had miles of picket fences enclosing his pastures. He had a great garden patch on a sunny slope, where all the hardy vegetables grew in profusion and potatoes attained a size to make the Ushuaia product seem worthless. His house was a great, two-story frame enclosed with iron--in form and convenience like the house of an English country gentleman of wealth--though the appearance, due to the iron, was somewhat _outre_.

There were sheds and storehouses near by, and a pleasant pavilion on the lawn that overlooked the bay. Afloat was a great lighter for carrying the produce of the farm to the steamers and the imported goods ash.o.r.e, besides a regular fleet of small boats, cutters, and sloops, for pleasure and for visiting various parts of this estate, with its twenty-four miles of water front.

Nor was the interior of the mansion in any way behind the general appearance of the estate. There were rich articles of furniture, a library (probably the only one worth mentioning in Tierra del Fuego), pictures, and bric-a-brac. As a home, the house showed but one thing that could be criticised, and that was the room in one corner where clothing, food products, tobaccos, tools, etc., were kept for trading with prospectors and Indians, but that has probably been removed by this time to a separate building erected for the purpose.

The family of Mr. Bridges consisted of himself and wife, his wife's sister, two charming girls under sixteen, and three st.u.r.dy boys, only one of whom, a lad in his teens, was at home, the other two being on other parts of the estate. To aid these in the work of the estate, there was a small colony of Yahgan Indians living in little houses that were located behind a hill out of sight of the great house. The squaws had been taught to do housework, of course, and the men the heavy work of the farm. In addition, each male member of the family had a young Indian valet.