The first German settlers arrived about 1850, and they continued to come in considerable numbers for the next decade. The first emigrants arrived in the German barque _Hermann_, after a journey of one hundred and twenty days from Hamburg. She brought seventy men, ten women and five children. They had been lured by the promises of an immigration agent who described the country as flowing with milk and honey. When they arrived everything was in hopeless confusion, for titles were uncertain and the country was an almost unbroken forest. The colonists began work under these discouraging conditions and the face of the country soon showed alteration. Puerto Montt was founded, and a good road built through the trackless and swampy woodland to Lake Llanquihue. The influx of Germans has continued even to this day, and many will be found who can speak no other tongue than that of the Vaderland. On the journey from Santiago to Puerto Montt no less than a dozen provinces are passed. Many of these are comparatively small, such as O’Higgins, which is about the size of Delaware, to Llanquihue, which corresponds with our own state of Indiana. Most of them run from the Andes to the coast, but Arauco and Maule are purely coast provinces. The names of the provinces in this section, and their order beginning with the one adjoining the province of Santiago, are as follows:—O’Higgins, Colchagua, Curico, Talca, Maule, Linares, Nuble, Concepción, Bio-Bio, Arauco, Malleco, Cautin, Valdivia, and Llanquihue. Along the coast between Puerto Montt and Valparaiso are several ports of more or less importance. Among these are Constitucion, situated at the mouth of the River Talcahuano, and Coronel. The latter is the Newcastle of Chile, for it is in the midst of many coal mines. Many of these mines run out under the Pacific for long distances. The seams of coal are from three to five feet thick. They are under a strata of slate and shale, which is so compact as to be absolutely water-tight. It is a strange experience to run out in these mines, which form a veritable catacomb of corridors and chambers, and realize that perhaps at that very moment some of the great ocean steamers are majestically sailing the blue waters directly over you. I know of no similar mines except those of Whitehaven, England, where the galleries run out several miles under the sea and seem to be headed for the Isle of Man.