"There is no country in the world which has so valuable a working class (with the possible exception of Japan and China). They are descended from the Araucanian Indian and the Spanish Andalusian or the Basque. They are hardy, vigorous and excellent workmen, and their endurance and patience are almost Indian. Of their bravery and determination it is unnecessary to speak, for these qualities appear on every page of the stormy history of Chile. Generally, they are short, dark-eyed and black-haired people. They are intelligent, and quick to learn anything requiring handiness and craftsmanship. They have, of course, many faults: at intervals they drink to excess when they can, and they are hot-blooded and quarrelsome; knives will be drawn and a fight started on very small provocation. As regards honesty, they are certainly no worse than others of their kind, and in the country districts they are better than most. Perhaps, economically speaking, the fact that they live and work contentedly on exceedingly low wages (chiefly on beans) is one of their most important characteristics."[22] [22] _Chile_, loc. cit. [Illustration: THE MALLECO RIVER AND BRIDGE, CHILE. Vol. I. To face p. 206. ] Of the vineyards and pastures, the many industries, the famous wines of the country, the cattle, the industrious folk, the forests and the fishing, the great mining enterprises, copper and all ore, the rivers and the railways, the German colony of Valdivia and the pleasing towns of the coast we cannot here speak in detail. Chile is fortunate, industrially, in her great coalfields at Lota and elsewhere in the south, which form the basis of considerable industry. The seams in some cases dip beneath the Pacific. Chile is a land that offers much by reason of its temperate climate, and these more southern regions may be expected to attain to greater importance in the future. For a thousand miles, perhaps, the littoral still unfolds to the south, with great fiords and forests, terminating in a maze of channels which line the coast of Patagonia to Magellan Strait and Cape Horn. There is a race of hardy Indian boatmen here, a tribe which, it is said, "throw their women overboard in a storm to lighten the canoe." It is a land cold and stormy, with a little-known interior, which the early explorers described as being inhabited by giants or people with big feet--hence the name of Patagonia. For hundreds of miles the Pacific slope is a thick, continuous forest. Nevertheless, in the Strait of Magellan lies a prosperous Chilean colony, where vast flocks of sheep thrive--the colony of Punta Arenas, the world's southernmost seaport.