Page:A history of Chile.djvu/449

 CHILE OF TO-DAY 403 it is well-protected, with a good depth of water and room for any number of vessels which may anchor there. Coquimbo has a good safe harbor, well-shel- tered on the west, south and east. Valdivia has an ex- cellent, though rather small harbor. Other ports are Caldera, Huasco, Constitucion, Tom^, Coronel, Ancud and San Carlos. The nitrate and mining districts have made a number of important ports in the north, such as Iquique, Antofagasta, Pisagua and other small places. Many new ports along the whole coast line have at- tained some degree of importance since the middle of the century, which were not opened before. In the north the harbors are open to the sea and blocked with dangerous reefs, so that ships must an- chor some distance out. At Iquique there are several small moles, but these being insufficient, vessels are loaded and unloaded by carriers who wade through the surf with great burdens upon their backs, or with light- ers which ply back and forth from the moles. Along this whole northern coast line towering cliffs rise with almost perpendicular escarpments from the seashore. They are dark, barren, forbidding and frown with beetling brows over the ocean. At the places where the gorges, or old river beds, run down to the water's edge, little valleys spread out and upon them the towns are built. The cliffs rise from 1,500 to 2,000 feet above the water and increase toward the interior to 3,000 and 4,000 feet, and then to 8,000 and 10,000 feet as the Andes are approached. Chile lays claim to numerous islands, the most im- portant of which are Chiloe and the islands south of it forming the archipelago of that name. There are more than a hundred of them, about half of which are well settled and possess excellent harbors. There are numerous islands south of this archipelago which Chile