Chapter III

The long series of groups of islands beginning with Chiloé, about two-thirds of the way down the coast, is said to be nothing more than a partly submerged section of the Western Cordillera. Above the surface of the water, for a distance of about eighty miles, they still have an average elevation of about two thousand feet. Embraced in the Chonos Archipelago, between Chiloé and the Taytao Peninsula, are more than a thousand small islands, rocks, and reefs, and then come the large islands of Wellington, Madre de Dios, Chatham, Hanover, Queen Adelaide, King William’s Land, etc., each fringed by groups of little ones and all following the mainland in a graceful curve and separated from it by the Messier, Sarmiento, and Smyth Channels, which, together, extend for three hundred and sixty miles, from the Penas Gulf to the Strait of Magellan. As the steamer glides through, at times so straight are they and such is the uniformity of the shore line on either side, one fancies one’s self in a wide river in the interior of the continent; at others, when openings among the islands appear and the water stretches for miles toward the sea or far into the recesses of the Cordillera, it seems more like a great lake.

The fjordlike formations recall the more celebrated channel off the coast of Norway leading to the North Cape. Indeed, it is generally agreed by those who have seen both that there is little to choose between them, for, in both, the indentations and mountains of the coast and islands are similar in character; if there is less variety in the Chilean one, if the rainstorms are more frequent, to compensate for it there is a much greater and more attractive wealth of vegetation. From the water’s edge to a height of fourteen or fifteen hundred feet, the slopes, and even the smaller islands, are covered with an unbroken mantle of beautiful, dense, green forest that presents an astonishing contrast, in this inhospitable region, to the bleak, gray rocks and bluish-tinted ice sheets above and the pure white snow caps on the summits beyond.

In the country from Valdivia south to Smyth Channel, many of the trees, particularly in the ravines and sheltered places, are tall and shapely and their trunks and lower branches are incrusted with mosses and entwined with flowering creepers and vines, many with a sort of mistletoe that has clusters of dark-red blossoms; one of the creepers, called angel’s hair, is delicate and filmy and hangs from the branches like threads of lace, and there is an undergrowth of ferns and shrubs and bamboo. These last often shoot up as far as the tops of the trees and seem to mat them together so that they form arbors over the pathways between. Farther south and in the region of the Strait, these woods lose something of their mysterious beauty; here they are composed principally of antarctic beech, gnarled and bent by the winds, and the thicketlike undergrowth is somber and forbidding.

Emerging from the channel, for the first time the steamer encounters heavy rollers, which come dashing in through the broad gateway to the Pacific, not far to the west. Here, even in summer, it is seldom that there is neither storm nor fog, but, when it is clear enough, one can see the tempest-torn promontory of Cape Pillar, at the end of Desolation Island, the southwestern portal of the Strait. Eastward the conditions improve; the water grows smooth again and the clouds are usually lifted above the lower mountain tops; the scenery grows still more impressive than in the channel—only it is solemnly impressive now—at least, so it strikes most travelers. The Strait is much wider; the steamer is far enough away from the shore to enable one to see above the shoulders of the mountains to their summits, yet not so far that the distance renders them too indistinct; the water is steel gray, the bases and buttresses of the mountains take on a shade of purple, the summits seem whiter than ever, and over all, except during the comparatively rare intervals when the sun shines, are leaden clouds. In the center of the Strait, where the continent proper comes to a wedge-shaped point known as Cape Froward, and up to the eastern arm, only a few miles away, lies Punta Arenas, the southernmost city in the world.

In the jumble of ranges forming the transmagellan continuation of the great Cordillera of the Andes, the most important is that named after the scientist, Charles Darwin, who was the first to explore it, on the long western arm of the Island of Tierra del Fuego. The highest and most conspicuous happens to be the nearest to this remarkable port, and, as no better idea of the region in general could be conveyed, it seems to me, I quote from the story of a visit to Mt. Sarmiento, made by Sir Martin Conway the same summer he climbed Aconcagua, rather than attempt a description myself. He says:

“The sun was shining quite hotly and the ice was almost
dazzlingly brilliant. After scrambling with difficulty onto the
glacier and wandering about the moraine area, we returned toward
the shore, finding an exit through the forest at a much narrower
place. The air was cool, the sun bright; there were little puffs
of breeze; it was the very perfection of a day for active
open-air life. Yet the clouds still hung stationary on the
summit of Sarmiento. We lay awhile on the shore beside the
rippling waters; then rowed away in hopes of seeing our
mountain’s misty veil lifted if only for a moment. The long,
late midsummer sunset was at hand. A tender pink light, far
fainter than the rich radiance of the Alpine glow, lay upon the
surface of the glacier and empurpled its crevasses; it permeated
the mist aloft. The cruel rocks, incrusted with ice, and the
roof of the final precipice, with its steep ridges and icy
_couloirs_, were all that could be seen. The graceful,
ice-rounded foundation rocks of this and all the other mountains
around slope up to the cliff and jagged _arêtes_ above and make
each peak beautiful with contrasted forms, massive, yet suave of
outline beneath, splintered and aspiring above. In one direction
we looked along the channel of our approach, in another, for
twenty miles or so, along Cockburn Channel, with a fine range of
snowy peaks beside it, prolonging Sarmiento’s western range.

“The water was absolutely still; we floated with oars drawn in.
Looking once more aloft, I found the mist grown thinner. The
pink light crept higher and higher as the cloud dissolved.
Suddenly—so suddenly that all who saw it cried out—far above
this cloud, surprisingly, incredibly high, appeared a point of
light like a glowing coal drawn from a furnace. The fiery glow
crept down and down as though driving the mist away, till there
stood before us, as it were, a mighty pillar of fire, with a
wreath of mist around the base, and, down through all the
wonderful pink wall and cataract of ice to the black forest and
reflecting water. We had seen the final peak now—a tower of
ice-crusted rock, utterly inaccessible from the western side. A
little while later, the fair _couloir_ had faded away, mists had
gathered and night was coming on apace. We rowed away for the
steamer, but had not gone very far before a faint silver point
appeared above the mist where the glowing tower had stood. The
cloud curtain rolled slowly down again and all the summit crest
was revealed, cold and pure. Then the southwest ridge appeared,
and finally the entire mountain, like a pale ghost, illuminated
by some unearthly light. A moment later the clouds rolled
together once more and solid night came on; we hastened to the
steamer for warmth, food, and sleep.”

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