From the railway station to the centre of Santiago is a two-mile ride on a fine parkway, the Alameda de las Deliciosas. It has rows of trees, muddy little brooks, and a shady promenade. Statues to some of Chile’s more famous heroes have been placed in the centre of the promenade, and stone benches, more artistic than comfortable, line its sides near the brook. This sounds rather romantic, but the waters of the stream, which is in reality a ditch two feet wide, are so dirty that it suggests an open sewer rather than a mountain brook.

During our stay some one became disgusted with either the brook or the stone benches and exploded a bomb under one of the latter. It happened late in the night and nothing was hurt, except the bench, which was quite demolished. Had the bomb gone off earlier in the evening there would have been a list of casualties, for all the world walks up and down here in the cool of the evening admiring the view of the Andes. The strictly fashionable world confines itself more often to the pavements of the principal plazas where it may be found about nine o’clock, on evenings when the band is playing, walking slowly round and round, enjoying a glimpse of itself. But the broad Alameda, as wide as three or four ordinary streets, is distinctly the more popular resort, and on festivals like Christmas or New Year’s, it is thronged with merry-makers.

At the end of the Alameda, beyond the centre of the city, is the romantic rock of Santa Lucia. Santiago owes its situation to the fact that this precipitous hill of solid rock was left by nature in the centre of a rich, fertile plain. The rock formed a natural fortress and was fortified by the Spaniards when they first came to Chile. After having been the scene of numerous bloody battles during Chile’s colonial days, Santa Lucia is now a wonderfully attractive park with fine driveways, well-made paths that command splendid panoramas of city, plain, and mountains, and a theatre and restaurant on its summit. The view is remarkably fine. The city spreads itself out on all sides although the principal plaza and the business district lie more to the west. The snow-capped Andes, the most characteristic feature of Santiago scenery, rise majestically to the east. Low foot-hills bound the western horizon. The fertile plain, which is none other than the great central valley of Chile, lies to the north and south. Magnificent vineyards yielding a larger crop of wine than those of California itself, are scattered over this valley. Chile repeatedly reminds one of California by its climate, its fruit, its mountain scenery, and its arid coast. California has one advantage, its width between the ocean and the Sierras, particularly in the fertile region, is so much greater than that of Chile.

The hotels of Santiago are not so luxurious and modern as those of Buenos Aires, yet we found the “Annexo B” of the Oddo to be perfectly comfortable. It is really a “bachelor apartment hotel.” No meals, except early coffee, were served there, so we took advantage of the generous hospitality of the two leading clubs, the Club Santiago and the Union. Wearied as I was by the dismal brown desert of southern Bolivia, the gardens and fountains in the patio of the Club Santiago seemed like Paradise itself. To be able to sit at small tables, served by courteous waiters, and enjoy immaculate linen and the best of food and drink, was sufficiently novel to be charming, but only half as welcome as the restful green of the trees and the pleasant splash of the fountains.

We soon discovered that the coolest and easiest way to see Santiago was from the second story of an electric car, especially when the upper tier of seats was covered. The fare on the roof is intended for the pocket-books of second-class passengers and is only five centavos (a cent and a quarter!) which makes it cheaper to take a car than to walk. Unfortunately for the pleasures of life in Santiago, fashion frowns on any one who climbs the stairs when he can afford to ride below.

Our friends would not even allow us to ride below, however, and put us instead into a kind of “hack” that is known here as an “Americano.”

It seems that several generations ago, an American resident introduced a carriage which he thought peculiarly adapted to Santiago. It might be described as a two-seated rockaway. This vehicle soon became a vogue and is now the established style for hackney carriages. There are victorias for hire on the principal plazas, but their rates are extortionately high while those of the “Americanos” are ridiculously low. It is well they are, for otherwise no one would patronize them. They seem to be without springs, cleanliness, or any ordinary comforts. They are not without fleas and other insects. As you go bumping and rattling over the cobblestones of Santiago in one of these antiquated vehicles you come to wonder whether the Chilean’s proverbial dislike of Americans has not been intensified by the discomforts he has suffered in the “Americanos!”

The first Pan-American Scientific Congress was the fruit of an idea started some years ago in Buenos Aires where delegates from a few of the South American countries met for the first Latin-American Scientific Congress. That was followed by a second which met at Montevideo, and a third, at Rio, each showing an increase in numbers and importance. Plans for the fourth Congress were left entirely in the hands of a Chilean organization committee who decided that the time was ripe to include the United States in the list of invitations and make the Congress Pan-American instead of Latin-American. The visits of a number of distinguished North Americans, including Secretary Root and Professors Moses, Rowe, and Shepherd, had done much to pave the way for friendly feeling between the scientific men of Chile and those of the United States, and the proposal of the organization committee met with hearty approval. Owing to the efforts of Secretary Root and Professor Rowe, the United States Congress passed an appropriation to send an official delegation to the Congress. A number of our leading universities likewise appointed delegates.

The programme suggested for the Congress was replete with all manner of topics for discussion and covered almost the entire field of knowledge, from questions of sanitation to those of international law, and from the antiquity of primitive man in America to modern methods of primary instruction.

As was to be expected from such a comprehensive programme, the intention was not so much to bring out the results of the latest research as to furnish topics that would be sure to interest the delegates. Even the meetings of our learned societies in the States are largely social. To many of those who attend the chief attraction is the opportunity of meeting others who are interested in the same lines, and the programme is merely an excuse for the meeting. The Pan-American Scientific Congress was not far different. It offered an excellent opportunity for the scientists of Latin-America to renew old acquaintance, and it gave the favored delegates from the United States a chance to make new friends among men whose interests are chiefly intellectual.

Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that few of the papers presented new facts or the results of prolonged and scholarly research. Nor is it at all remarkable that the most animated discussions took place in the sessions devoted to international law and politics, education, and political science. These are topics on which every man has ideas which he is not afraid to express. And these discussions served as a means of introducing men that might not otherwise have met.

Politics were kept in the background, as far as possible, but national feelings occasionally found opportunity for expression.

Chile is the one country in South America that has never had and cannot have a boundary dispute with Brazil. The Portuguese-American Republic is not likely to meddle with West Coast matters, and Chile has nothing to gain from troubling the beautiful harbors of Rio and Bahia. Indeed, so lacking have been any causes of friction between the two Republics that they are fond of emphasizing the entente cordiale that exists between them. It was natural, consequently, that the third Latin-American Scientific Congress, meeting in Rio under Brazilian organization, should have chosen Santiago as the seat of the fourth congress, and it was a return of the courtesy when the organizing committee at Santiago, composed of Chileans, selected the local Brazilian Minister as President.

The Congress opened with formal ceremonies, fine music, and much oration. In answer to the roll-call of republics, the leading delegate from each country responded with befittingly felicitous remarks.

It is true that the learned Brazilian who replied, when the name of his country was called, with a speech in Portuguese lasting nearly an hour in length, stretched the friendly feelings toward the Brazilian delegation almost to the breaking point. Few of the audience could understand enough of what he said to follow his wordy address. Almost everyone thought that its unnecessary length, added to the fact of its being the only address of the evening that was not in Spanish, the official language of the Congress, was at least a breach of good manners.

The state of mind of the Chilean audience was reflected in the daily papers the next morning when full space was given to verbatim reports of the speeches made by the representatives of all the other republics and not even a synopsis was accorded to the speech of the learned Brazilian. The Brazilian delegation took umbrage at this and also at the ovation that was given the Argentine representative whose speech was short, crisp, and filled with expressions of friendship. Like the Mexican delegate, he had appreciated the fact that there were of necessity seventeen other addresses, and that five minutes devoted to cordial greetings was better than fifty minutes of erudite information. A month afterwards when the Brazilian delegation was on its way home, I read in the newspaper reports from Buenos Aires that the Brazilians felt that the Chileans had gone out of their way to make friendly overtures to Argentina, Brazil’s natural rival. But the only things of which they had any cause to complain were brought about by their own unfortunate mistakes and in no wise indicated any desire on Chile’s part to weaken the ties of her long friendship with Brazil.

Another interesting thing in the formal opening

meeting was that although the Peruvian delegate received one of the most enthusiastic and heartiest ovations of any, he took it in stolid silence, making no motion and giving no sign that he heard or understood what was going on. As a matter of fact, he and his colleagues felt out of place. Peruvians hate and dread Chile and feel grievously wronged by her continued occupation of Peru’s southernmost provinces, Tacna and Arica. Consequently, they accepted all the Chilean overtures with very bad grace, feeling that it would have been much more desirable to have had fewer fine words and more kind actions. It was apparent that the Chileans were doing everything in their power to try and patch up the quarrel and let bygones be bygones, but the Peruvians felt that the demonstration lacked the essential quality of sincerity which, of course, could only have been given by a sacrifice of the provinces of Tacna and Arica which Chile had no intention whatever of making. Throughout the meetings the Peruvian delegates held themselves somewhat aloof and took part in the exercises with a certain dignity which showed how little they enjoyed being the recipients of Chilean hospitality. The Chileans were undoubtedly annoyed at the cool reception of their friendly overtures. It is entirely possible that this contributed not a little to Chilean excitement over the incident of La Corona, of which I shall have occasion to speak later on.

The greater part of the time of the Congress, counted by hours, was given over to receptions and teas, breakfasts and dinners, visits to vineyards, public works, and exhibitions, military tournaments, picnics, and balls.

Hardly had we got settled in our hotel before invitations began to pour in, and we soon found that the hospitable Chilenos had made up their minds to overwhelm us with kindnesses from the moment of our arrival until our departure. Never did a city give itself over more heartily and more gracefully to entertaining an international gathering. For three weeks, hardly a day passed that was not marked by elaborate entertainments. Balls, distinguished by elegance and magnificence, were attended by the youth and beauty of the most aristocratic society in South America, clad in the height of fashion and behaving just as society does in other parts of the world. The Club Santiago was repeatedly the scene of banquets whose brilliance would have rather startled those good people in the United States who think of South America as being something like an African jungle.

Most of the outdoor festivals were held at the racetrack where a fine large grandstand, capable of seating ten thousand people, faces a beautiful field and the magnificent snow-capped Andes. Here, on a sunny afternoon, Santiago society met in a battle of flowers for the benefit of charity. The participants, either standing on the terrace in front of the grandstand or driving by in handsomely decorated equipages, were neither noisy nor boisterous and yet entered heartily into a very pretty event.

One evening was devoted to the volunteer firemen of Santiago. Following a parade was a distribution of premiums for bravery and length of service. As there is no paid fire department, the city depends on these volunteers for fire protection, and it has always been fashionable to belong to one of the best companies.

For over three hundred years Santiago has been the home of Spanish families of distinction. Their income has never been so swollen as to tempt them to extravagant display or so small as to drive them to petty pursuits for the sake of gaining a livelihood.

In such matters as magnificent hotels, expensive restaurants, luxurious clubs, and showy automobiles, Santiago readily yields the palm to Buenos Aires. There has been no great boom in Chile at all comparable to that which Argentina has seen. Furthermore, earthquakes and fires have done their worst to impoverish a nation not too bountifully supplied with natural resources. To be sure, the enormous nitrate deposits of northern Chile have made the government able to distribute millions of dollars among its followers without overtaxing the population. Money has come in so easily from the export duties on nitrate that no Finance Minister has been greatly troubled by his budget.

Although Santiago cannot boast of as many evidences of wealth as Buenos Aires, she has other qualifications which give her the right to hold her head higher than any city in South America. The chief of these is her literary preËminence.

She has produced during the past generation more writers of ability than any other South American city. Easily first among these is JosÉ Toribio Medina, whose untiring industry and genius for bibliography have made him famous all over the world. Aided by a devoted wife, he has produced more scholarly works than any other man now living in South America, and more volumes of first-class bibliography than any in the western hemisphere. A born collector, he spent years in various parts of the world purchasing rare books in out-of-the-way places and making notes of unpurchasable volumes in the great libraries, until he had built up a magnificent collection of early Americana that is almost unparalleled.

His modest house is replete with interest. Three large rooms are lined from floor to ceiling with his treasures. One room is devoted almost entirely to early Mexican imprints. To see gathered together in one place ten thousand pamphlets printed before Mexico secured her independence, leads one to modify somewhat those conceptions of Spanish intolerance for learning which we have inherited from some of our older writers. To be sure, the pamphlets are mostly of a religious character. However much one may disagree with the dogmas they contain one cannot but admit that the intention of their publishers was to raise the religious and moral tone of the community. In the back part of Sr. Medina’s house are the rooms of the “Elzevir” Press. Here have been printed those sumptuous bibliographical quartos that are the envy of every librarian and the despair of the average scholar. As Sr. Medina was originally a printer, it is his recreation to assist in putting his volumes into type. It is not often in the modern world that one finds the whole process of making a book existing under one roof. Here are the sources; here lives the scholar who knows them; here he extracts their virtues; and from this same place he sends forth to the world the results of his investigations, printed and bound, ready for the use of the student.

Besides Sr. Medina, Santiago has produced a number of historians, men like VicuÑa Mackenna and Diego Barros Arana who for careful statement and concise diction have not been surpassed in South America. Even the late Bartolome Mitre of Buenos Aires, one of Argentina’s greatest statesmen and her greatest historian, never succeeded in getting away from the Spanish trick of efflorescence in language which greatly marred his work from the literary point of view.

Santiago’s literary preËminence is further shown both by the fact that in no other city in South America are there so many people who are fond of books and reading—witness the large number of new and second-hand book stores—and the excellent list of works that are published here every year. While Buenos Aires, with a population three times as large, can boast of a few booksellers whose shops are devoted to showy imprints, and who cater to the needs of those who buy their libraries by the yard, there is little evidence in Argentina of a discriminating group of booklovers like those who patronize the score of old book stalls in one of Santiago’s streets near the university.

On the outskirts of Santiago is an excellent manual training school where several hundred boys are lodged, fed, and taught all manner of trades, from printing to forging, and carpentry to carving. Particular attention is paid to electricity, and a large number of the students become practical electricians. At the exhibition of the year’s work we were particularly impressed with the fact that the school is able to sell nearly all the articles made by the students. Churns, derricks, chairs, and bells, well made and cheap, gave evidence that the school was run on sound business principles.

Not far off is the Quinta Normal, a fine large reservation where normal and agricultural schools rub shoulders with museums of fine arts and natural history. The result is a charming place for study and a delightful public park.

During our visit, the annual fine arts exhibition was in progress and included a number of extremely meritorious paintings by Sotomayor, a Spanish painter who has recently been engaged by the Chilean government to teach in the Art School. Chile is certainly to be congratulated on the class of teachers that she brings from abroad for her schools, and her latest acquisition is well up to the standard.

Chile’s appreciation of art and her policy of securing able foreign talent to teach her youth are greatly in her favor. She is in fact a young and vigorous nation. Her people are bred in a splendid climate, well suited to the development of a strong race. In fact the Araucanian aborigines were superior to anything that the Spaniards found in either North or South America. The early Spanish immigrants were an unusually good lot. And there has been a striking admixture of Anglo-Saxon blood as is shown by the frequency of English family names in Santiago.

As is well known, in the south of Chile there are many Germans and it is commonly cited as one of the danger spots of German expansion in South America. Those who argue so fail to take into consideration the remarkably strong hold that Chile has on her children. In no other part of South America do foreigners become so fond of the soil as in Chile. Even those of English ancestry are prouder of the history of Chile than they are of that of England. I have heard them go so far in praise of their adopted land as to deride England and predict her downfall. In Buenos Aires, on the other hand, they continually revisit the homeland and pride themselves on their close connection with it. There one sees little of that devotion to the country of their adoption which is in evidence here.

Among the spectacles provided for the benefit of the delegates, the most interesting was a military tournament that was worth going a long way to see. The Chilean cavalryman is a remarkably daring horseman. His Spanish and Araucanian ancestry have given him qualities that appeal to the eye and to one’s admiration of courage. Perhaps the most remarkable feat of the afternoon was the charge made by a squadron of cavalry over a burning hurdle. A brush fence, well soaked in kerosene, was erected in front of the grandstand and set on fire. Starting to windward, the squadron charged, vaulted over the flames and dashed away in the smoke, only to turn in the face of a strong wind which blew the smoke and flames into the very faces of the horses, dash back again, and in perfect order clear the fiery obstacle with as much ease and grace as though it had been a peaceful country fence. As an exhibition of training it was extremely significant.

President Montt,[1] who was extremely kind and courteous to us, and is one of the most able and honest officials that South America has ever seen, sent us an invitation one morning to attend the official inspection of the Military Academy. All the Chilean officers speak German and most of them have spent from two to three years studying in Germany. Like the army, the school is run on German models and is extremely well kept up. The neatness, discipline, cleanliness, and excellent sanitary arrangements were in marked contrast to most public buildings in South America. The cadets are a fine-looking lot of boys who are largely put on their honor. Few rules are made for their guidance but when any one is guilty of conduct unbecoming in an officer and a gentleman, he is permanently discharged from the academy. The instructors lay great stress on map-making. The exhibition of maps made by the students was remarkably interesting. The students are taught not only to make outline maps, but also to construct models of battlefields and even to draw sectional panoramas on a uniform scale. Three cadets are sent out to survey a position and to return in half an hour, each with a drawing which, fitted to that of his mates, will make a panorama that will enable the commanding officer to understand the situation and direct his forces intelligently. This is only one instance of the thoroughness with which the cadets are instructed. It is not remarkable that several other Latin-American countries have sent for Chilean officers to teach their cadets, and have even sent their own boys to study here.

The Congress closed on the evening of the 5th of January, 1909, with a grand banquet that was a blaze of glory. Eloquent speeches of mutual congratulation were delivered by the representatives of various parts of the two continents. Perhaps the most striking thing of the evening was the contrast between the speeches of that member of the American delegation who had been chosen to respond to the toast, “The United States,” and the one that followed it delivered by a brilliant young orator from Uruguay. As might have been expected, the latter was fiery, flowery, and ecstatic, while the former was dignified and well within the bounds of reason even in his compliments. The unexpected and very striking difference was that the American spoke better Spanish, pure Castilian, melodious and graceful. The Uruguayan speech was in the offensive dialect of Montevideo, harsh to the ear, resembling Portuguese in its guttural quality.

The only other speech of the evening that equalled the North American’s in beauty of diction was that of General Uribe Uribe, the delegate from Colombia. He ably upheld the reputation of his country for speaking the best Castilian in America. So far as one who is not a native may be permitted the privilege of judging by the effect on the ear, the inhabitants of Colombia and Peru speak the best, while the people of the countries of the River Plate speak the worst and most impure Spanish of any on the continent. The impurity is a natural result of their century-long dealings with the Portuguese in Southern Brazil; of the presence in their midst of a very large number of Italians whose speech is so like the Spanish that it easily corrupts it; and also of the fact that during the colonial epoch, Buenos Aires was not a centre of Spanish culture like BogotÁ or Lima. On the contrary, as is well known, Buenos Aires was filled with a fairly rough lot of traders who made their fortune by smuggling and other illegitimate transactions. However much we may be inclined to justify such actions on their part by the injustice of the Spanish trade laws governing the commerce of the Indies, we cannot be oblivious to the fact that the kind of individual who would be willing to make his living by smuggling would probably not take pains to speak his native tongue with either elegance or careful attention to grammatical rules. In Lima and BogotÁ, on the other hand, society was dominated by the official class, and however critically we may regard these proud Spaniards who were sent by their King to govern America, we must be willing to admit that they were likely to speak the beautiful language of Castile as perfectly as possible.

So much has been said of the inability of Americans to learn Spanish properly and to speak it gracefully (it is a common proverb in South America that English and Americans murder the soft Castilian) that it was a great pleasure to hear the official language of the Congress spoken better by a North American than by a South American. Furthermore, it was characteristic of their courtesy that the Spanish-American delegates at once complimented us on such an achievement.