Identifier: gri_spanishameri00chil (find matches)
Title: The Spanish-American republics
Year: 1891 (1890s)
Authors: Child, Theodore, 1846-1892
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Harper & brothers
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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e Iquique. It is a poor port,blocked up with dangerous rocks and reefs, which prevent ships ap-proaching the shore. There are several small moles, but these areinsufficient for the traffic, and consequently you see men wading inthe surf up totheir waists with burdens on their shoulders. The sys-tem is most primitive. The ships are anchored at some distance, in abay to the north of the town, and the loading and unloading are donewith lighters. When there is no mole at the disposal of the lighter, itis brought within forty or fifty yards of the shore and the cargo dis-charged into small boats, which are beached in the surf, and unloadedby the wading wharfmen. Along the waters edge are shabby ware-houses and piles of nitrate in sacks. To the north are many sailingships riding at anchor on the glassy water. To the south are thesmoky chimneys of silver-refining works. In the background risebrown and barren mountains some 2000 feet high, zebraed with zig- 152 THE SPANISH-AMERICAN REPUBLICS.
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UNLOADING FREIGHT ON THE BEACH AT IQUIQUE. zag paths of a lighter shade, and striped along the lower spurs withpointed sand drifts, which themselves whirl and swirl until they grad-ually grow into crests and hills of respectable size. These mountainsspring up about two miles from the shore, leaving a flat and aridsandy plain on which the town has been laid out with streets fifteen ^ THE NITRATE DESERT OF TARAPACA. 153 to twenty metres wide, a fine carriage-road along the sea to the south,an agreeable plaza ornamented with Norfolk Island pines, and a cen-tral monument in the Gothic style in honor of Arturo Prat, themodern naval hero of Chili. I remarked with renewed surprise thisSouth American taste for Gothic when I entered my hotel beneath adepressed Gothic archway with stucco mouldings. No style could beless adapted to a land where earthquakes are permanently dreaded.On one side of the plaza is ahandsome theatre which seems ratherlarge for the population; on the other sides are some

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