WHEN word was cabled from Chile just before Admiral Evans's fleet swept in and out of Valparaiso harbor on February 14 that the fleet had passed through the Strait of Magellan safely, there was probably a feeling of relief in Washington. Admiration for the successful performance of a great feat of seamanship was probably expressed generally throughout the world. The passage accomplished, it was easy to say that all along every one who had any sense knew that it would come out all right and not for one moment had there been any real cause for anxiety. Of course, of course!
Nevertheless all the world knows there was great anxiety and even dread lest something serious might happen in navigating this most treacherous and dangerous passage in the world. Even the foreign press said that it would be a supreme test of American seamanship to take a fleet of sixteen battleships, to say nothing of the auxiliaries, through those waters.
It is comparatively easy to take one or two ships through the straits. Two or three hundred skippers perform that task with success every year. Time and again have our warships, singly and in groups of two or three, gone through with ease. But here were sixteen monster ships that had to go through in single file and within about 400 yards of one another, with no place to anchor and without the possibility of stopping, buffeted by swift tides and currents, in danger of running into the sheer cliffs of mountains or of striking hidden rocks in fog or possibly snow. If any serious mishap had occurred there was nothing to do but go right on. You couldn't lay to in these waters. If fog hid the way you must keep on and trust to picking up headlands here and there, and you must maintain your sustained speed of ten knots, because each vessel would then know where its immediate predecessor or follower ought to be.
Certainly it was a difficult performance, one fraught with great danger and grave responsibility. The chief point is, however, that the fleet got through without the slightest mishap. It was done as easily as entering the harbor of New York. There was not the slightest manifestation of undue concern by any of the officers of the fleet, but it cannot be denied that every one was keyed up to his best and all were glad when the roll of the Pacific was felt. When it was over all hands looked at one another and said, in the French expression, "It is to laugh."
But you want to know all about it? Is there an impatient call for details of this much-heralded trip of dread, a breathless demand to know how many close calls and narrow escapes there were from hitting sunken rocks, gliding against precipices, scraping the paint from the ships' sides, dodging willywaws? You want to learn how many men were nearly swept from the decks by overhanging cliffs and limbs of trees, how often icebergs choked the narrow places, how many times the treacherous Fuegan Indians, "the lowest form of humanity on earth," lit their fires as signals that there would be fine plunder and good eating of humans when one or more of these ships went on the rocks; whether it was true that the officers and crews went without sleep or food until all dangers were passed?
Well, if you guessed any or all those things you must guess again. None of 'em happened. Of course the winds blew fiercely at times, but they do that every day in the year in the Magellans. Of course the tide rips caught the ships at certain critical places and twisted and turned them somewhat. Of course the rain fell occasionally and now and then shut out from view a most beautiful glacier or snow field just when you wanted to see it most. Of course the clouds obscured the mountain tops from time to time. Of course the currents and tides swept through the various reaches like mill races. Of course a willywaw or two came out and smote us, and of course there was fog.
But if you want to know how easily the passage was made let it be said the last thirty miles of it was in a mist that thickened into a dense fog, obscuring the land on both sides completely for hours and only now and then lifting for a moment's revelation of some rock or headland. Yes, the American fleet not only went through the dangerous passage, but it actually sailed through miles and miles of fog in doing so, and it was done in as smart a fashion as if the ships were on the high seas and not in the most fearsome strait in the world, intervals and speed being kept perfectly. After all, even if the men on the fleet pretended to make light of it, the performance was a fine piece of navigation. Admiral Evans has just reason to be proud of it and so have the American people. It couldn't have been done better.
There was reason for dread. Hadn't all the timid folk spoken of the terrible risks to be run? Hadn't the superstitious lifted up their voices and pointed out that in the fifty-two wrecks that had occurred in the strait in, say, the last twenty years, exactly twenty-six had been of vessels beginning with the letter C? Didn't we have the Connecticut to lead us? And worse than that, wasn't it the Chilean cruiser Chacabuco which had been sent to Punta Arenas as a national compliment and to act as escort about half a mile in front of the Connecticut? One ship beginning with C was enough, but here were two. That surely was wilful defiance of all the high signs and deep portents. And, then, didn't we start out from Punta Arenas on Friday night at the eleventh hour? Hadn't the moon just gone down, and who knows but that a darky had failed to catch a rabbit over in the graveyard on the beach yonder and so had missed having his left hind leg in his pocket (or whatever the details of that superstition are)? And so there was no adequate guarantee from escaping death and destruction. Certainly it was ticklish business, a task for the ignorant or the foolhardy.
But, speaking seriously, what the maritime world thinks of this region is revealed best probably by the nomenclature of the various headlands, islands, bays and capes. A study of the charts presents such names as these: Desolation Island, Point Famine, Famine Reach, Point Mercy, Delusion Bay, Dislocation Harbor, Useless Bay, Disappointment Bay, Spider Island, Corkscrew Bay and Cormorant Island, to say nothing of Snow Sound and Snowy Inlet. Why, the very contemplation of the chart was sufficient to give a landsman the shiverees!
The Strait of Magellan is 360 miles long and the width varies from about a mile and a half in the narrowest part to twenty-five miles. The strait is in the form of a letter V with the right part curved down a little at the top and the left part extended above what would be the correct proportion of a well-shaped letter. The short end reaches out into the Atlantic and the long end into the Pacific. The short right end is barren of fine scenery, the grandeur of the hills being reserved for the long or western end. Down at the point of the latter is Cape Froward. Coming from the eastern end there is about fifteen miles of rugged scenery before you make the turn to the northwest. Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, as the English call this hustling, modern city, is about two-thirds down the eastern side on a broad stretch of water known as Broad Reach. Opposite is Useless Bay, probably so called because it is useless to go over there to find an exit from the strait.
It is desirable, almost necessary in fact, to make the run through the strait in daylight. To do this you enter, say, from the east as early in the morning as possible so as to make Punta Arenas by night. Leaving that port you start at night, about midnight. You have about forty-five miles of broad deep water with no difficulties in navigation to Cape Froward, which you reach by daybreak. After that you can go through the western end of the strait by daylight and reach the Pacific about nightfall.
The strait has half a dozen lights in it, but in time of fog or fierce snowsqualls these are of little value unless by accident you happen to pick them up. Again the tide races through the strait at the rate of never less than three miles an hour and in some of the narrow places it has a speed of from five to six miles. Where the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific meet there are cross currents and disturbances that catch even the most high-powered ship and swing it here and there, despite careful work of the helmsman.
Still hundreds of steamships go through safely every year and a close study of the chart revealed only three places which occasioned anxiety to the fleet officers.
One of these places is Sarmiento Shoal that juts out into the Atlantic for miles from Cape Virgins, the Argentine headland, 135 feet high, that marks the beginning of the eastern end. It really is no more dangerous to cross, for example, than the shoals of Nantucket. The fleet came down to the shoal about noon. There is one place where there are nine fathoms of water and it has a width of only four or five miles. The task is to fix the place of crossing from bearings and then to cross it. When the exact spot was reached a fierce black cloud came up and obscured things. With it came a strong southwest wind that made things choppy. Over the narrow part of the shoal the ships headed. Once or twice, perhaps because the looks of the water or the lead may have given warning, the flagship made short turns. But in half an hour it was over and the fleet turned to the northwest, past Dungeness light, five miles below Cape Virgins, and marking the real entrance to the strait, which is now under the entire jurisdiction of Chile. From the mast of the Chilean signal station there fluttered flags which said, in the language of the international code:
"Enter Chilean waters; welcome distinguished American seamen; pleasant voyage."
The fleet voted the sentiment all right, even if the verbiage was somewhat unusual. There was a quick run up into the broad waters of Possession Bay, close to the entrance of the First Narrows. There are two narrows on the run to Punta Arenas and here is where the tide runs strongest in the strait. If the tide is against you it is better to anchor and wait for the turn. There is a good anchorage in the bay and about 4 o'clock of the afternoon of January 31 the mudhooks were dropped in a boiling sheet of water that in its actions resembled the lower part of Chesapeake Bay in a storm.
At daylight the next morning the fleet was under way again with a favorable tide. The First Narrows are ten miles long, two wide and have water forty fathoms deep. There was no trouble in just skimming right along. Then the ships entered another big bay, Philip Bay, and after about twenty-five miles of deep water came to the Second Narrows, twelve miles long. This passage also has a swift tide, but the waterway is about three miles wide and very deep, and no one had any concern about getting through. It was as easy as rolling down hill.
Then came the waters of Broad Reach, the wide sheet of water that stretches clear down to Punta Arenas. At the very beginning there is one of the two really difficult places in the strait to navigate. The reach has extensive shoals. Santa Magdalena Island, with a lighthouse on it, faces an oncoming ship and there are two channels, one to the north and the other to the south. Small vessels usually take the north passage, called Queen's Channel, but larger ones take the other, known as New Channel. There are two buoys which indicate dangerous places from tide rips and shoals.
Well, the fleet officers were a little nervous as they saw those tide rips. Soon it became evident that the current was dangerous. It was difficult to keep exactly on the course. Twice the Connecticut made turns to overcome the sweeping effect of the tide and keep well clear of shoals. The long line of ships kept zigzagging here and there, but in less than half an hour all the dangers of the first leg of the strait had been passed. There was nothing but fine deep water all the way to Punta Arenas, where we dropped anchor about noon.
All the experts of the fleet, the men who had been through not once but several times before were unanimous in declaring that the worst was over with the passage of New Channel and it made every one feel good. If that was all there was to going through Magellan, why on earth had there been such a big scare about it all? It didn't compare with navigating the Chesapeake in a fog or a storm and it seemed farcical to make so much fuss about it.
The fleet lay at Punta Arenas for six days, taking on coal, giving liberty and the officers going through a round of official receptions and other courtesies that made the stay one day longer than was expected because of the unusual courtesy on the part of Chile in sending a cruiser down to Punta Arenas to greet the fleet bearing a Rear Admiral, our Minister to Chile, Mr. Hicks, and our Consul at Valparaiso.
The departure of the fleet at night was set for 11 o'clock. Before that time slow-moving lights in the harbor showed that the Chacabuco had changed her station to be near the head of the procession when the start was made. Other lights had revealed that the six torpedo boats of our flotilla had been taking up cruising positions on the right and left flanks of the line that was to be formed. Just before 11 o'clock the signal had been made from the flagship to prepare to get under way. The ships had hove short. At the stroke of 11 the red and white lights flashed from the flagship and they were answered from all the ships. At once anchor engines began tugging at the chains, and soon on every ship the officer in charge of the fo'c'stle sang out:
"Up and down, sir!"
That meant that the anchor was directly under the bow of the ship and was leaving the mud, the chain being straight up and down. In a moment or two the call was:
"Anchor's aweigh, sir!"
That meant that the ship was now swinging with the tide and bells were jangled in all the engine rooms to go ahead slowly. It was all still, only a few lights on each ship were showing and soon the harbor presented the appearance of twenty-five or more craft slowly moving in one direction as if stealing away down the broad Famine Reach softly so as not to disturb the slumbers of the town. But the town wasn't asleep. Half the population was out to witness the departure. The thousands of electric lights showed that. As you drew away from the place it looked as if you were leaving the north shore of Staten Island and going up New York Bay, so thick were the lights on the land.
The Connecticut was quite close in shore and headed toward it. She made a sharp turn, and the Kansas, Vermont and Louisiana and the others fell in quickly. There were gaps in the line for the ships that had sought better anchorages, and these were filled in when the proper time came. Gradually the line became compact and within fifteen minutes one long column of American warships was gliding southward at a speed of ten knots, the Chilean flagship off the starboard bow of our flagship, all silently stealing away in the beautiful starlight night from hospitable and attractive Punta Arenas. The start was made as smoothly and easily as in broad daylight. There was no fuss about it. The fleet had gone about its business in a businesslike way. That business was to get through the rest of the strait in the easiest and safest manner.
You went to bed at midnight leaving orders to be called at 4 A. M. so as to come on deck and see the flagship turned toward home at Cape Froward, the lowest continental point of land in the world. You got out just abeam of Cape San Isidro, with its flashing white light, and you found yourself in the midst of rugged scenery. The sky was overcast and a strong wind, like that which churned Possession Bay when the fleet entered the eastern end, was blowing. Bare mountains and rocks stood out in the gloom. Soon the shadows began to purple the hillsides and rocks; there was visible a strip of green which you made out to be trees reaching half way up the black mountain sides. Then the clouds lightened; everything stood out clearly in a gray light and you knew it was time for sunrise.
The clouds broke to the east and suddenly there shot through them six great shafts of crimson light as if they were the rays of an enormous searchlight in the east, rays colored by passing through bright red glass. You stood on the bridge fascinated and almost enthralled. Then you saw the edge of the snowfield of Mount Sarmiento far to the south. The clouds hid its brow but as they broke occasionally you could catch a glimpse now and then of a glacier gripping the mountain sides with the strength and permanence of the ages and you knew that truly you were looking at God's country, not the country of home, as most folks the world over call God's country, but one that revealed the majesty of creation.
So on and on you went in the narrow channels bordered by rock-faced hills and mountains, green from the water half way up their sides. Some of the mountains were entirely of stone with abrupt sheers like the sides of the precipices in the Yosemite. Waterfalls leaped from cliffs here and there and now and then one could see a stream rushing down the hillside, foaming and roaring, its waters madly dashing to complete obliteration in the swirling sea where the immutable laws of gravity sent them. It seemed a pity that a thing so white and pure should find an ignoble end, but the power of the sun's rays had set the forces of perpetual motion in those leaps and bounds and the same streams will dash down to the sea doubtless as long as the sun's power lasts to heat the edges of the glaciers and try to rob them of their strength. You saw great peaks and short ranges. Every one had a different light upon it; every one differed from another in formation.
But this is an account of navigation rather than a description of scenery. The ships went along in the slack water easily and smoothly and again you wondered at the stories of the difficulty of steaming through this wide deep strait. You passed through Froward Reach into English Reach, and miles away, straight ahead, you saw the Thornton Peaks, where Jerome Channel cleaves a way into the large mysterious and only half explored Otway Waters, a body of water like one of the Great Lakes at home. You saw no channel ahead.
As you approached these mountains it was like the turn in the Hudson up in the Highlands, where you seem to be headed for the rocks with no way of escape except by turning back. You knew from the chart that you were then approaching Crooked Reach, that runs beside the island called Carlos III. Soon you saw a bend toward the left and then you stiffened yourself a little, for you knew that in less than half an hour you would be in the one dangerous place of navigation in the western half of the strait. It is necessary to make an S curve in Crooked Reach, something like the one in the Subway at Fourteenth street, only it is one six or eight miles long and not of a few hundred feet.
Just before you reached the line running from Jerome Point to the upper end of the island of Carlos III. you saw black lines in the water running from shore to shore, now only a little more than a mile apart. These lines were foam-crested and they marked the meeting place of the tides of the Atlantic and the Pacific. The officers had no time now to look at scenery. Here was serious work. The Connecticut crossed the first one and so intent were you in watching preparations to cross on your own ship that you scarcely noticed her movements. But what was the matter with the Kansas, directly astern? She was swaying off to starboard violently. Then she made a swoop to port. Queer kind of steering it seemed! Perhaps it was the Connecticut that had swayed this way and that. Wait a moment.
Soon the Kansas got fairly straight with the Connecticut and then the Vermont took to dancing sidesteps this way and that. The helm was being shifted constantly in the endeavor to keep in the middle of the road. It was the Louisiana's turn next. Standing on the bridge you scarcely noticed any deviation, but when you looked at the line of ships behind you knew that the Louisiana was having its troubles keeping straight and when you saw the quartermaster twisting the wheel about, now this way and now that, you knew that this ship had been doing fancy stunts far from home.
Then you looked at those behind. On they came, and that straight line, the pride of any one who has seen it from day to day, went zigzagging, twisting and turning, thrust here and there until it resembled the twists of a snake crawling along the ground rather than a fleet of majestic ships sailing in a straight line. Once again a similar performance of the fleet occurred and you began to realize what the dangers of navigating Magellan meant. You realized that with high-powered vessels such as these ships it was easy to correct the swaying of the tides and currents, but you understood what smaller ships had to contend with.
We were going through at the most favorable season of the year, but you shuddered to think what it must be to be caught here in the winter, perhaps with darkness coming on, no place to anchor and a blinding snowstorm or a fog hiding the way and your steamer having hard work even to hold its own against the terrific current that might be running against you. Oh, yes, then you knew what a task, a dangerous task it was to brave the perils of Crooked Reach and you were glad you were on a warship with strength enough to scorn nature's effort to hurl it against the rocks.
You passed dangerous Anson Rock and you soon glided out into Long Reach, an arm of the strait that runs for fifty or sixty miles to the northwest almost as straight as a taut rope, and you then took up your glasses to look around. You saw the little island just off Borja Bay, where the famous post office of the strait was situated, a place where sailors rowed ashore to leave their letters to be mailed and their newspapers months old to be read by those who followed them. You could see the signs nailed to the trees giving the names of ships that had called, the dates and the ports to which they were bound. All that is done away with now that Punta Arenas looks after the mails and gives hospitable welcome to sailormen, but those signs, some of them a half century old, told tales of hardship, of shipwreck, of misery to many a man who could read what they really meant.
Then you began again to watch the mountains. Far down Snowy Inlet you saw the sloping sides of Mount Wharton and a magnificent blue glacier sloping down its broad reaches. It had teeth all over the lower part where it had cracked under the sun's rays, but back for miles and miles, as far as the eye could reach, the blue ice extended until it hid itself in the vast snowfields of the mountain's top. You were glad that the sun's rays came out from time to time to show you a patch of the top of the mountain, for then you understood what Darwin meant when he compared some of the glaciers in the strait to "a hundred frozen Niagaras." You knew that you were looking at one of the greatest accessible ice patches in the world outside of the ice cap of Greenland.
The wind began to strengthen and black outbursts of it were seen coming toward you from time to time. Then at last you began to realize what a willywaw is. It is a fierce blast that comes down from these mountains with well defined limits like the ray of a searchlight in the night. One moment you do not feel it and then you shoot into it and it tosses you about, churns up the waters, roars and barks at you and you feel that a demon from the hills is trying to tear you to pieces. Half a dozen times one of these willywaws got started for the fleet and then the sun came out, the clouds broke up and the blast was dissipated. You could see it all with your eyes, you didn't have to imagine it. It was as if some big policemen had scattered a crowd that had begun to torment a procession and had said "G'wan!" It g'wanned all right. Finally a big one gathered force that laughed at the policeman, and it fell upon us. With it came mist and dashes of rain. It spat in our faces. It wrapped our coats about our legs in knots. It shrieked and howled at us, and when we staggered through it it laughed at us, as if to say:
"You may be a great fleet of warships, but I'm not afraid to tackle you, just like any other ship or set of ships. I have fun with every ship that goes through here, and if I don't one of my rough brothers does the business. No one who goes through here can escape a willywaw. How do you like being tousled up? Ha! Ha!"
All that the writer of this cares to say is that willywaws are rude things, the rudest kind of things he has ever met, and he's glad that you can find them nowhere else in the world than in Magellan Strait. Like the man who made a mistake in matrimony, he is willing to sing hereafter the old song:
"Once was enough for him!"
When you got past that willywaw you began perhaps to speculate on the height of the mountains and you were surprised to learn that they are not high, as snow-capped mountains go; that they varied in height from 3,000 to 4,500 feet with occasionally a monster in the distance from 5,000 to 7,500 feet tall. They looked like the Alps or the Canadian Rockies. You soon realized that it was because they rose directly from the water and there was no slope to them before they began to shoot upward, as is the case in the great mountain ranges of the earth. The fact that they were snowclad, like all the other great mountains, also made you feel as if they were as high as such elevations.
As hour after hour passed you saw why it was that one writer had said that if you had taken the Himalayas, the Andes, the Alps, and had moved them all here and had submerged them up to their necks you would get scenery like that which the strait presents. As you looked at the mountains and saw the bays here and there you began also to realize what another writer meant when he said that a hundred Lake Comos, Lucernes and Genevas could not present the lordly beauty of some of these bays and inlets. Perhaps you compared the trip with that of the Inland Sea of Japan. If you did you could only say:
"This is grand; the Inland Sea is beautiful."
And when we began to reach the end of Long Reach and to get into the wide open waters of Sea Reach and the fog shut us in completely many a person then was not altogether sorry, for he had been surfeited with it all. We went down to dinner just as the ships began to feel the Pacific's swells. The wind from the northwest began to blow violently and soon after 8 o'clock word was passed that we had passed Cape Pilar, where no shipwrecked mariner ever escapes, and that the fog had lifted and those on the bridge had caught a glimpse of it. There had been thirty miles of fog navigation in the strait itself. Two hours later as the ship was plunging and careening in the gale—they always have a gale or extremely heavy swells at the Pacific entrance to Magellan—we heard that the Evangelistas Islands, four rugged rocks with a light on one, had been seen, and then we turned in, knowing that in an hour or so the fleet would be headed due north, every turn of the screws bringing us nearer home. On the whole, every one was glad that if the fog was to be it had shut off the view of the mountains and glaciers and bays just after it had been finest. We had seen the strait at its best and there was not a man who did not feel something of awe over it, believing as he did that he had been in sight of the grandest handiwork of the Creator that the earth presents.
"And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters.
"And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so."
Any one who has sailed through the Strait of Magellan can easily believe it was there that God began to divide the waters from the waters. Any one also who has sailed through the strait into the heaving, tossing Pacific, wrongly named for that part of the world, could realize the full significance of what was in the heart of a sailor of the midwatch who sang softly to himself as you passed him:
"Rocked in the cradle of the deep!"
AN act of international courtesy, unprecedented in American naval annals at least, and probably unprecedented in the world's history, occurred yesterday in the harbor of Valparaiso, Chile, when Admiral Evans sailed in and out of the harbor, saluting the port and then the President of Chile in person. It was a demonstration which in not only its immediate but its far-reaching effects was worth probably more than a quarter of a century's exchange of diplomatic notes and expressions.
Moreover, for sundry reasons which the intelligent observer of more or less recent events can appreciate, there was no better place on the South American continent for such a remarkable performance. Especially gratifying to Admiral Evans were the cordial messages of thanks and esteem he received by wireless. The last time he sailed away from Valparaiso kind words did not follow him. Thus does time and a marked advance in naval power work wonders in international affairs.
The greatest honors that the fleet of any nation could pay to the head of another nation were paid to President Montt. They were precisely such as the fleet paid to President Roosevelt on the departure from Hampton Roads. They differed only in their setting. The flag of another republic was at the main. Three times as many people witnessed the spectacle in Valparaiso as observed it in Hampton Roads. The saluting was in a foreign port, girt about with lofty hills instead of the low lying and far distant shores of Chesapeake Bay. Elaborately dressed shipping, flying the flags of half a dozen nations, added color to the scheme.
A great city terraced up the mountain sides made a holiday to gaze, first in silence and then with cheers, at an armada which meant not conquest but a visible message of safety from conquest by European Powers, and an assurance that not only Chile but every other Power in South or Central America could pursue the path of commercial and intellectual development secure from the envy and avarice of other parts of the world. Exhibiting that fleet to Chile was like showing her a paid-up, interminable insurance policy of peace, made out in the name of all American peoples. Judging from the responses it elicited Chile liked the way the policy read.
Few harbors in the world are better adapted for such a scene. There is no deep bay, no narrow channel to choke the entrance. The harbor is simply an open roadstead of the Pacific. All that Admiral Evans had to do was to turn to one side, sweep along the city front just outside the line of moored shipping and pass on. He was on the broad swells of the Pacific again within an hour from the time he had turned in shore. It was an hour of education for Chile, with a lesson in it that otherwise she could not learn in years, and at its conclusion there was such a genuine note of appreciation in the exchange of farewells that any student of the forces that work for good or evil in international affairs must have been glad that the courtesy call was made.
One also could understand somewhat the feelings of Admiral Evans, who, after it was all over, sent this characteristic Evans message to the fleet in words that every man on every ship understood thoroughly:
"The Commander-in-Chief thanks the officers and men of the fleet for the handsome way they did the trick to-day."
It was handsome and it was stirring. Of course the word trick was used by the Admiral only in a colloquial sense; there was no trick about it, for it was simply going a little out of the way to be nice and decent to a people who for many years had mistrusted us and had said things too. But what is the use of being a big nation if you can't be big hearted with it and show that you don't hold resentments? A thousand to one that Chile's sincere friendship will be ours for many, many years to come.
Unusual as this cruise is, it is the unusual and unexpected that have come out from it as its salient features. The profound indifference of the people of Trinidad to the fleet was unusual and something of a bump. The exuberant welcome and unrestrained hospitality of Brazil was unusual. The salutes to the flags exchanged between the fleets of Argentina and the United States on the high seas were unusual. The despatch of a cruiser on the part of Chile to its most remote port and carrying our Minister was unusual. The Vice-Admiral salutes given all along the line to Admiral Evans, whether by accident or design, were unusual. Having a warship escort the fleet through almost the entire length of its coast line, as Chile did, was unusual. Lastly the departure from an established programme to run into the greatest harbor of another nation to fire salutes to its flag and President was unusual.
From the moment that the fleet headed out into the Pacific from the Strait of Magellan, in company with the flagship Chacabuco carrying the flag of Admiral Simpson of the Chilean navy, there was much speculation as to the kind of reception it would receive in Valparaiso. The great cordiality shown by Admiral Simpson and the Chilean authorities in Punta Arenas bespoke the warmest kind of a welcome. But speculation still continued, and indeed there was little else to do, for a fog settled upon the waters, which, added to the turbulent condition of the Pacific, made the trip for several days one of comparative gloom. Occasionally the fog would lift and you could catch a glimpse of some of the other divisions of the fleet. Once after nearly twenty-four hours it vanished completely and there was a genuine ring of satisfaction over the sight it must have presented to the Chacabuco far off to the westward, for there was the entire American fleet exactly in position, sailing precisely as if there had been no fog to hide the ships from one another. But everybody knew that it would be so.
"That's going some; wonder what the Chilean Admiral thinks of that?" was heard on all sides.
Then the fog shut in again and for two days more the fleet ploughed on. It was in a column of divisions formation, that is, the four ships of the first division were abreast of one another and 400 yards apart. Twelve hundred yards astern the ships of the second division were in a similar formation. The third and fourth followed in the same way. Sometimes the fog was so thick that on the Louisiana, which was on the left flank of the first line, we couldn't see our nearest neighbor, the Vermont. The Connecticut, off to the right, would toot her letter on the whistle, the Kansas would toot hers at once and then the Vermont would sound hers, followed by the Louisiana. The steering was done by compass almost entirely. Occasionally we would find the Vermont inching over to us and she would loom up out of the fog quite near, but her whistle would say:
"Give me a little more room, please; the Kansas is crowding me over. When she goes back toward the flagship, or the flagship eases off a bit, I'll go back. Just a little room, please!"
Then the Louisiana would swing off and a fog bank would cut off sight of each other. Then there would be another lift and it would be found that one ship was a hundred yards or so ahead of the others, or perhaps that they were exactly in line. The searchlights on the ships were thrown abeam so that for most of the time it was comparatively easy to tell where your immediate neighbor was. Sometimes we could hear the ships of the other divisions whistling faintly and we wondered whether the fleet formation had been broken seriously by currents or faulty steering, but every time the fog lightened there the ships were, shifted now and then a little, but in the main exactly where they should be.
Then the Chacabuco signalled that she intended to run into Talcahuano, the Chilean naval port, and would send messages of our safe passage through Magellan and also notify the Chilean authorities of the hour of our arrival in Valparaiso. The two Admirals had agreed upon 2 o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, February 14. The day after the Chacabuco left, the air cleared. She agreed to meet us again at noon on February 13 at a certain latitude and longitude and sure enough shortly after 8 o'clock on the 13th, her smoke and that of three torpedo boats accompanying her was made out. On they came and they were abeam at exactly noon. Behind them was a large passenger steamer, loaded down with folks from Concepcion, Chile. That ship ran close to the fleet and gave its passengers a fine view. Then those in the fleet knew that Chile took intense interest in the passage.
It was necessary to slow to nine, then to eight and then to seven knots so as not to reach Valparaiso ahead of time. The sea calmed, the sun came out and a more perfect afternoon was never witnessed on the ocean.
Daybreak on the morning of the 14th showed a lowering sky. Just before 9 o'clock the Chilean coast could be made out and then the fleet made one or two turns and twists, apparently to kill a little time. Admiral Simpson took his place at the head of the column which had been formed and his three torpedo boats took up positions on our right flank, the side nearest to the city in the harbor, so as to protect the line from any intrusion. Just before 1 o'clock we could make out the people on the high hills south of Angeles Point, fittingly named for a great cemetery sloped up the hillside. The place was black with spectators. Around the point we could see the puffs of a salute, given probably by one of the forts or ships to note the arrival of President Montt. Then we came close to Angeles Point. The beach was thronged. There were tents where jimcracks were being sold and double decker tram cars were loaded to the limit. It seemed as if all Valparaiso had come out to that place. The glasses were turned upon Fort Valdivia, just beyond Point Angeles. It is a naval station.
Suddenly a midshipman discovered that there was a sign in English on one of its terraces. It said:
"Welcome!"
"That's mighty nice to whitewash a lot of stones in that way, isn't it?" said an officer on the bridge.
Three minutes later the navigator sang out:
"Captain, that sign isn't made of stones. It's made of men!"
A dozen glasses were focussed upon the sign at once. Sure enough, stretched upon the terrace there lay a human sign, made up of sailors or naval cadets in white. It took three mens' length to make the height of a single letter. Two men were required for the top and the bottom of the letter O. These men must not have been entirely comfortable for they lay there fully an hour, but the sign was as immobile as if it were made of stone. That compliment touched the kindly feeling of every one on the ships. It made a sensation. No one had ever seen anything like that. There was no way of answering it in kind, as you can in saluting; you could only look at it in dumb amazement and feel grateful.
You were glad then that the compliment had been paid to Admiral Simpson of allowing him to lead the fleet in with his little cruiser—no Chilean naval officer ever had such a post of honor—and all the ships took keen notice of the signal from the flagship to fire a simultaneous salute of twenty-one guns when notice should be given. As the fleet turned in the glasses revealed a large collection of ships, some of them old whalers, lying in the harbor. Grand stands had been built on various eminences for the people and hundreds of white parasols showed that the fair sex was alive to the great sea-show.
Half an hour before the fleet approached the harbor it was noticed that a great canopy of blue sky rested over it. Out where the fleet was it was still lowering. Abreast of Fort Valdivia the fleet emerged into the sunshine and stood clearly revealed. Every ship had a bright new American ensign at its gaff and foretruck. At every main there was a Chilean ensign. A fresh breeze started up and blew the ensigns out proudly. Nature helped dress the ships in their best.
Around Point Angeles the Connecticut swept slowly and majestically. She got well inside the harbor and was almost abeam of Duprat Point when a set of flags fluttered to the signal yards. They said:
"Prepare to salute!"
The flags hung there until all the answering pennants were shown and then they wavered an instant as they began to fall, and at once the sixteen battleships roared out a salvo such as no one in Chile had ever heard before. The effect of the thunder was electric. The wind fortunately blew the smoke away from the ships. People on the shore were seen to jump and run. All along the shore line below Fort Valdivia they began to race back toward the city and harbor by the thousands. It was literally a stampede. Great clouds of dust engulfed them and partly hid them from view. It made those on the ships laugh.
"The town has gone out too far and now has to run back," they said.
Not so; a glimpse along the waterfront showed that what Lieut. Gherardi, commanding the little Yankton, which had arrived the day before and was anchored in the harbor, all beautifully dressed, had sent by wireless early in the morning was true. Gherardi said there was intense interest in the fleet and all the stores and banks had closed for the day. A clear space in front of the shipping was preserved. Hundreds of launches, sailboats and rowboats were out on the water. The hills were black. The highways running down to the waterfront were filled. Flags were everywhere. All Valparaiso was out to see the great parade, and for a time it seemed that she was looking on in awe. Then there came sounds of cheering from shore and occasionally the sound of "The Star Spangled Banner" was heard as some band played it.
In less than two minutes after the fleet had fired its salute Fort Valdivia responded with twenty-one guns. Then three or four miles across the harbor at the other entrance puffs of smoke could be seen, showing that an army fort was giving its greeting and saying:
"Glad to see you!"
Admiral Simpson sent a message to Admiral Evans that President Montt was on the training ship Gen. Baquedano, clear across the harbor, near Fort Callao, which had fired the army salute. The fleet went into the harbor, made a slight turn and then sailed for about half a mile in a straight line close to the shipping and about a mile from shore. Then it curved away again toward the harbor entrance, following the lead of the Chacabuco. It now closed the entire harbor. Silently it approached an anchored training ship, whose yards were manned. The ship was crowded with high governmental functionaries and their families and friends. In one corner of the bridge the President could be made out with glasses. The Chilean ensign with a coat of arms on it, the President's standard, was at the main. When within 100 yards of the Baquedano the Chacabuco began its salute of twenty-one guns to the flag of its President. A slight interval of silence followed and then the Connecticut roared out its personal greeting to the head of another nation. As each American ship approached it fired twenty-one guns. The air was filled with smoke, but the strong breeze blew it away and set the sixteen ensigns of Chile and the thirty-two of the United States all vibrating and snapping out almost as plainly as if you could hear it:
"Hurrah!"
In solemn state the ships passed the uncovered President. He received then and there such a tribute of honor as no other President of Chile ever received. He saw a collection of warships such as no other South American President, with the exception of President Penna of Brazil, ever saw. He had the satisfaction of witnessing a friendly tribute such as no other nation ever received from the United States. Whatever was the effect upon the President and the people of Chile, it thrilled those on the American warships.
For a mile or two beyond the Chacabuco led the fleet and then it turned and fired a salute to the American flag as it headed back to Valparaiso. The Connecticut answered with twenty-one guns for the Chilean flag, signalled to resume the cruising speed of ten knots—and the spectacular call on the President of Chile and the people of its chief seaport was over. Altogether nearly 800 guns were fired in the saluting. It was like the roar of a battle.
In ten minutes after the Connecticut had fired its salute to the President and before some of the American ships had begun theirs Admiral Evans sent this message to Admiral Simpson on the Chacabuco: