THE SOUTHERNMOST TOWN IN THE WORLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14017, 24 March 1909, Page 9

THE SOUTHERNMOST TOWN IN THE WORLD.

The seemingly hopeless inhospitable region of Fuegia, spurned as a possession even by England, has within a decade been appor- , tioned between Argentina and Chile. Longitude 68deg. 36min. west divides the area of Tierra del Fuego almost in half. I The eastern part and the islands to the j east were allotted to Argentina, the western part and all islands to the south and west to Chile. ■''.;. ' This was the region in which the cold Fuegian midsummer • found me, anchored off a lone penal colony of murderers and felons midway along the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego and three hundred miles south' and east of Punta Arenas. . • j Less than thirty years ago a thousand to fifteen hundred Yahgans visited this bay every year. Now, in its innermost corner, where once glistened his village filiell-heaps, lies a white man's town. The falling anchor splashed a mass of spray into the air and sent a flock of wild kelp-geese winging 6borewards. Shortly the ; frigate's launch 'Vv-d " a converging wake to where a small pier, decayed ■ and broken, thrust .its nose impertinently into the ; bay. ;:■ Landing, I walked its short length, and stepped into the southernmost town of the world. Ushuaia (Ooshoowia), . " Mouth of the bay," ; the wild Yahgans named their Tillage, and Ushuaia it has remained." " .;, ; ' With the exception of the little steamer Oreste, which makes trips irregularly from P.unta Arenas, ;.hd an occasional " tramp,", which loads with timber or brings supplies, few vessels.arefseen. ' Tri-monthly, mas-o-menus (more or less), the Argentine transport Piedra-buena crawls down the coast from Buence Ay res, often with pri- ! soners in her hold, but seldom carries any j back, and''once a year an Argentine warship drops ; anchor in the bay. Thus is Ushuaia practically cut off from communication with the rest of the world ; for, as. | yet, no wire sings its lone chant through ' I the deep mountain forests behind the town, j or creeps its subterranean way fifteen huni dred miles north to the.Mecca of the South American world, Buenos Ayres. - ' - - j; Save for the settlement Ushuaia, two sheep * ranches, three lumber camps, ah. abandoned mining camp,- and a few isolated settlers, these regions are weird and deserted. Here in the white hush of win- ! ter > and 5 grey cold of summer the penal eclony lives ; and works. But the climate is healthy, and perhaps its very rigours are i conducive to quieting the bloody passions j which formerly dominated and still seem to brood over .many who. live within its confines. ';;'/*"''" : :;;••_.■••.•-■*';"•'+;:■■; . ■ .--;;" v ; _ The population may be divided into two parts; the . half who stay because they have to, and the other ha If who 1 stay because—well, it is not necessary to go into pasts at Ushuaia. ■ - : A roadway runs the length of the town. 1 The bay laps it on one side; on the: other | front v the' principal buildings—a little church of . the padres, a schoolhouee, the headquarters of the Vigilantes (constabulary), the governor's house, a few shops and saloons. The rest hundred houses or so—ramble up the several side streets, until they thin out among the stamps of some timber lands from which they have sprung. ; The houses are mostly built of boards, some of corrugated iron, and are ill . adapted to protect the inhabitants from the rigours of a subantarctic climate. A single telephone wire connects the governor's house and Vigilante headquarters with the .two prisons, while a limited system of electric lights sheds its welcome rays through the long dark winter months. These two institutions are the raison d'etre for this little nucleus of population, numbering less than five hundred souls. ■