PATAGONIA.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 4192, 27 August 1874, Page 3

PATAGONIA.

The following letter, addressed to the Otago Daily Times by a recent visitor to Patagonia, will, we believe, be read with interest : As at various times the route home, via the Strait of Magellan, has been proposed for the New Zealand Mail Service, a few notes on that passage and parts of Patagonia adjacent may not be devoid of interest to some of your readers. The fearfully disastrous failure of the great expedition under Admiral Sarmiento, tent by Philip 11. of Spain for the purpose of colonising the Strait; and the reports of Drake, Cavendish, and other voyagers, of the stormy seas, the rapid- and dangerous currents, and the everrigorous and tempestuous climate, combined for more than two centuries to make Patagonia a term incognita, which, if ever thought of by the outside world, was pictured as a region realising the frozen honors of the inferno or the gloom and driving mist of mythological fable. So little had Spain thought of her barren possession that when Chili and the Argentine Confederation of the River Plate threw off the yoke of the mother country, the sovereignty of Patagonia was left a moot point, for though both the young Republics claimed the territory, the opinion that it was utterly valueless prevented either from actively enforcing its claim. But the introduction of steam, and the first successful passage made through the Strait by an ocean steamship, at once changed what had hitherto been a dangerous and extremely difficult navigation, interesting only to some scientific explorer - , or of use to an occasional hardy sealer, into a great by-way between two oceans, and the dormant claims of the two republics were revived. Whilst the Argentines, however, contented themselves with much loud gabble in the Congress House at Buenos Ayres, and with pompous diplomatic notes, asserting their rights, Chili quietly and gradually got a hold in the Strait that nothing short of superior force will compel her to give up; and, emboldened by the supineness of her adversary, she now claims the whole of Patagonia up to the Bio Negro—the boundary of the Argentine States. By last advices, the dispute had waxed wanner, and it was probable that the possession of the debateable territory would be decided by an appeal to arms. Should this take place, there is little doubt as to the final result of the contest if confined to the two parties interested, the weak and disorganised administration of the Argentines, with their farce of a navy, rendering them no match for the more energetic Chilians and their well appointed fleet of English-built ironclads. The chief of the small Chilian settlements in the Strait is Sandy Point, situated about 120 miles from the Atlantic entrance, being nearly on the line of demarcation running north and south between the somewhat bare hills and dry, grassy plains, which stretch to the eastward as far as the Atlantic, and the snow-clad mountains and dense forests, with almost perpetual rain, which lie to the westward or Pacific side thus presenting on a larger scale much of the physical features of the Canterbury and Westland sides of the New Zealand Alps. The climate in the vicinity of the Strait may be likened-to that of Scotland; but though cooler and more boisterous in summer, it is not so severe in winter. There is much reason to believe that the seasons have been growing milder since the period of our earlier accounts of the Strait; and this is confirmed by the steady increase of average temperature as shown by the meteorological observations made at the Government House .during the twenty years’ existence of the Colony, The soil is of fair medium quality, and though it appears but poor after the rich pampas of the Plate, affords in many parts extensive and good pasturage. After more than 300 miles of travelling with heavy packs into the Indian country, the horses of the writer's party got back to Sandy Point much fresher than when they started. The Patagonian Indians are more capable and placid in temper, and better disposed towards those who treat them fairly, than any •

aborigines that I have ever met with; and when the country begins to be opened out by stock settlers, much less trouble may be anticipated than with their Northern brethren, the Pampas Indians in the Plate and the Araucaunians in Chili. As the whole of the available country in the neighboring Falkland Islands—distant from Sandy Point about forty-eight hours’ run—has been taken up, the settlers have for some time looked with longing eyes on the grassy plains of Eastern Terra del Euego and South Patagonia. The climate is almost identical, added to the advantages of an abundant timber supply and constant steam communication direct with England. So impressed was a friend of mine—an old settler in the Falklands—with what he saw of the country, that I heard by a mail or two since that he was bringing over from his own run 5000 sheep, with which to take up new country in the Strait.

Extensive beds of coal of great thickness, and of similar quality to that of Lota, in Chili, are found in various parts close to the shores of the Strait. The mines near the town are being carried on by a company formed in Valparaiso, a tramway four miles long worked by locomotives bringing the coal down for shipment to a wooden mole at the port. None has yet been exported, the constant demand from the numerous passing steamers exceeding the present supply. The Company possesses the exclusive right of coal mining, subject to the payment of the exorbitant royalty of 1 dollar per ton, for twenty-one years, in all parts of Patagonia and Terra del Fuego, an extent of territory larger than the whole of New Zealand ; but with the rapid increase of steam traffic through the Strait, it is hardly possible that maritime nations will long submit to such a monstrous monopoly in an article of vital necessity. The gold washings in the little river close to the town are occasionally fairly productive. The return of one year’s export, when worked out by the number of miners on the washings, gave an average to each man of about £3 per, week ; these results being obtained by the rude and primitive old Spanish process of washing in a wooden bowl or “ bateo,” nothing like hydraulic or systematic ground sluicing being attempted. The little town of Sandy Point, when the writer left there last winter, might contain about 800 inhabitants, and was growing rapidly. Five lines of ocean steamers were running through the Strait, most of which touched at the port, and the constantly increasing steam traffic is beginning to tell in the decreasing number of sailing vessels which round the Horn to and from the West Coast of South America. The large and powerful weekly boats of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company almost invariably arrive at Sandy Point in thirty-three to thirty-five days from Liverpool, and this could, doubtless, be shortened by three or four days. If ever a line be established from this part of the world, the geographical position of Otago would almost certainly make Port Chalmers the point of departure, and allowing fifteen days from here to Sandy Point, the run home to England might easily be accomplished in the much-talked-of forty-five days, without a single change on the road. When that day arrives, the voyager from New Zealand will have an opportunity of seeing -what is bound to become, before long, of an importance which was hardly dreamed, of a short time back.

The healthy and bracing, but somewhat severe, climate is not to the taste of the Spanish American. ' In all probability, the resources of Patagonia will be developed by pioneers from the hardier Teutonic races of Northern Europe, and in a few years she will be another added to the many instances of the great revolution wrought in the present day by steam navigation on the face of the world. ■