Gold mining is the occupation of the poor, and the idle population. This is not because gold is scarce or the occupation unprofitable, but because it requires little capital, and yields immediate returns. With a shovel and a pan, inexperienced men earn five dollars daily. The gold is widely diffused, but is seldom in very rich placers. Many of the creeks and the beaches of Patagonia, both on the Atlantic side and in the Strait of Magellan, are known to contain gold. The same is true of Tierra del Fuego. Even the mud of the streets of Punta Arenas is said to contain the yellow metal. The architecture of Punta Arenas is similar to that of the mushroom towns of the western plains. The houses are made of corrugated sheet-iron, and are altogether uninteresting, except in that they are constructed of material brought six thousand miles, while within a thousand yards is a virgin forest of excellent wood. During the short time of one year, electric lights, telephone, and telegraph plants have been established, a really good theatre has been built and several churches are in the course of construction. Nearly every house sells intoxicating drinks. Alcohol is said to be served even in the churches. Indeed, alcohol is at the base of all the crimes and most of the pleasures of Punta Arenas. [Illustration: Chief Colchicoli. One of Colchicoli’s Wives. Types of Onas.] Unlike the immigrants to the United States, the new-comers to Patagonia have remained as separate little colonies, and never made a homogeneous mixture as in our States. They await with yearly anticipation an opportunity of returning to their mother countries. The sheep-farmers and bankers are mostly British, the storekeepers generally German. The Anglo-Saxon is the ruling spirit, and in a very short time this long deserted no-man’s-land will be a gilded paradise stocked with the healthy mixture of northern races which has made the United States the most progressive of the new nations of the world. Southern South America is to be the Yankee land of the far south and for this, their absorption as stupidly suggested by Rhodes is entirely unnecessary. The people here are able to take care of themselves, and the Republican governments of Chile and Argentina are quite capable of managing their own affairs. CHAPTER VII FROM PUNTA ARENAS TO USHUAIA, THROUGH THE FUEGIAN CHANNELS USHUAIA, Dec. 28, 1897.