e are many
earthquakes but they seldom do much harm. My first night in Chile was
spent in Los Andes and I had not been in bed five minutes until an
earthquake shock made it tremble like a leaf. But the people are so used
to it that they pay no attention whatever to these minor quakes. At the
time San Francisco was ruined, Valparaiso was all but destroyed but you
would never know it by a visit to the city now.

Chile includes a large part of the island of Tierra del Fuego. At the
very southern tip of this is Cape Horn. This is a gigantic rock fourteen
hundred feet high that juts out into the ocean and the great waves that
continually lash against it make it perhaps the most dreaded spot by
sailors in all the trade routes of the world. On all sides are wrecked
vessels and this rock has been named the Giant Headstone in the Sailor's
Graveyard.

It was the famous Magellan who discovered the water passage above Cape
Horn and it is called the Strait of Magellan. While safer than the route
around Cape Horn, yet many are the stories of shipwreck, hunger and
suffering told by those who went this way during the earlier days. Here
are some of the names of places along the Strait: "Fury Island," "Famine
Reach," "Desolation Harbor," "Fatal Bay," "Hope Inlet," and "Last Wreck
Point."

No one lives down at this point but tribes of Indians. It was the
signals and campfires of these Indians that caused Magellan to call the
island "Tierra del Fuego." The name means "Land of Fire." These Indians
are said to be one of the lowest classes of human beings in existence
today. Although the weather is very cold these savages wear but little
clothing--in fact, they wore none until of later years they began
getting cast off garments from wrecks and are now making some of their
own clothing from the skins of animals.

On this strait is located Punta Arenas, which is the southernmost town
in the world. It is directly south of Boston and farther south of the
equator than Winnipeg is north of it. Only about a thousand people live
here. Many of them are rough characters and live hard and comfortless
lives. This town is the only port within a thousand miles.

Although cold and cheerless most of the time, yet millions of sheep are
raised in this southern land and Punta Arenas is the shipping point. A
kind of coarse grass grows here that is nourishing and sheep thrive and
live for weeks alone on the open plains. Wool, hides and meat are
brought to t