Indeed, before this fleet arrived here it is probable that not one person in a hundred in the United States knew where Punta Arenas was, and those who had some vague idea about it had an impression that it is one of those reformed penal colonies where the driftwood of humanity huddle together, tolerate one another because they are birds of a feather and eke out a miserable existence in trafficking with Indians, herding sheep, looting wrecks and spending their spare time in low ceilinged saloons gulping down liquor that would put knockout drops to shame. Well, it simply isn't true! Punta Arenas is a lively city of 12,000 residents, one of the best governed in the world, with all modern improvements except trolley cars, half a dozen millionaires and scores of men worth $500,000 or more, with one residence at least that would hold its own more than favorably with the residences on Madison Avenue in the Murray Hill part of New York, with excellent schools, with a "society" that knows as well as any on earth how to wear Paris gowns and to give entertainments as finished in all the delicate niceties as could be found in any capital. Punta Arenas isn't pretty in any sense and even the well-to-do are content to live in one-story houses with corrugated iron roofs, but it is a hustling, busy place where every comfort and luxury can be secured, and it has a pronounced twentieth century air about it. It resembles strongly a western Kansas or Nebraska town. Its climate is always cool but never seriously cold. The lowest recorded temperature in this place, which corresponds in latitude to Labrador in the Northern Hemisphere, is 20 degrees Fahrenheit above zero. The highest is 77. Why, there are two four-in-hands and one French automobile, this in a town, mind you, where there are no roads out in the country and no place except the town streets in which to drive! Any one who has seen these smart turnouts is justified in dropping into slang far enough to say that is going some! There was good reason for a preconceived unfavorable opinion of Punta Arenas. Recently there have been several flattering accounts published of the town and its life, but they have not received a wide circulation. Such accounts as were in the books of travel, with probably one exception, were repellant. Here is what William E. Curtis said in 1888, in his book entitled "The Capitals of South America," and dedicated to Chester Alan Arthur: