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 THE CIVIL WAR OF i8gi 347 Antofagasta, Taltal and Puerto Olivia, have been built up by the immense industry, Iquique being now the seventh city in Chile. Thus it will be seen, that though the wealth of Old Chile was in the south, including the cities of Santi- ago, Valparaiso, Concepcion and the large towns, and though Balmaceda had the government machinery and army at his disposal, yet the possession of the four northern provinces by the revolutionists gave them no inconsiderable advantage. There they organized a fairly well-ordered government, and, with abundant revenues procured Manlicher rifles, drilled troops and assumed all the outward appearance of seceding states. Bolivia even went so far as to recognize them as bel- ligerents. The "Itata" being detained, did not reach them with her smuggled cargo from California, but the "Maypo" got through on the 3rd of July, to Iquique, carrying several thousand rifles, a large amount of ammunition, four Krupp field-batteries and twenty-two cannons. The northern army was thus far better equipped than that of the south, and in far better morale, though it seemed likely, at the lively rate at which recruiting was going on, that President Balmaceda would be able to crush them by sheer weight of numbers, his army at different points soon numbering altogether some forty thousand men. If the government succeeded in getting away from France the new cruisers "Errazu- riz" and "Pinto," built there for Chile but held until the French supreme court could decide whether they should be consigned to the Chilean government, with the small fleet Balmaceda would then have, the revolu- tionists might, it was thought, be cooped up in Iqui- que and their revolt be summarily crushed. The cruis- ers, however, were always reported on the way but never came. They were in time released by the French