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Updated: June 11, 2025
There was no Bolivian navy, if we except a few steam- launches and old spar-torpedo-boats; there was nothing, therefore, to fear in that direction; but, as the Chilians had not as yet had time to advance their forces overland up the coast, a contingent of five hundred regulars was put on board the ships to effect the occupation of Antofagasta; two hundred and fifty being put on board at Valparaiso, while Admiral Williams had been instructed to call in at Caldera Bay, in order to embark the remainder.
"I guess you're elected, Mike," the skipper continued. "The second mate has quit. However, it isn't going to be very hard on you this time. I was speaking to the skipper of that schooner in the berth ahead of us, and he gave me a recipe for killing the perfume of a cargo of green hides." "If he'd given it to us in Antofagasta, I'd name a ship after him some day," Mr. Murphy mourned.
A particularly keen look-out for hostile ships was kept, in view of the alarming incident in Caldera Bay, but nothing of a suspicious character was sighted, and on the evening of the 13th of February the fleet anchored before the town of Antofagasta, the principal seaport of Bolivia, lying in a half-circle at a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore.
However, thanks to a clean keel and fair winds, they made a smashing passage and their sufferings were not unduly prolonged. Immediately on his arrival at Antofagasta the young skipper reported by cable to his owners, thereby eliciting the following reply from Cappy Ricks: "You stole ship. If you value your ticket bring her back with cargo agent provides."
I will be relieved when I get good and ready, and I will not be ready until I get back from Antofagasta. Shipped crew yesterday afternoon. All arrived drunk. Next morning all hands sober. Realizing predicament, riot resulted. Fearing lose crew, Murphy and I manhandled and locked in fo'castle. When your telegram arrived it found Murphy minus front tooth, myself black eye.
After this the war was continued in a desultory and discouraged fashion by the allies until at the end of 1883 peace was signed, and, as has been explained in a previous chapter, Bolivia lost her coast-line, while the Chilians took over the definite ownership of the provinces of Antofagásta and Tarapacá.
"What are your plans with reference to the Retriever? Do you wish to bring her back from Antofagasta in ballast?" "Why, certainly not. Hunt a cargo for her, Skinner. We might just as well let the man Peasley know that though he's gone he's not forgotten. Use the cable freely and see if you can't pick up something for the return trip that will make those two firebrands sick at the stomach."
The mate was a bucko, a slugger, according to Steve, and was hated by all, for most of them during the throes of seasickness had had a taste of his fists. On the seventy-second day out the El Dorado was twenty-seven hundred miles off the coast of Chile, having run a swelling semicircle to get the benefit of the southeast trades, and being far south of Antofagasta.
The month of February in the latitude of Valparaiso corresponds approximately to the month of August in the northern hemisphere, and it was a beautiful, sunny, and very hot morning when, on the 7th of that month, the Chilian fleet, consisting of the Blanco Encalada flagship, the Almirante Cochrane battleship, the corvettes O'Higgins and Chacabuco, with the sloop Esmeralda, steamed out of harbour, on its way to Antofagasta, the principal seaport of Bolivia.
For some years Chilean companies and speculators, aided by foreign capital mainly British in origin, had been working deposits of nitrate of soda in the province of Antofagasta, or "the desert of Atacama," a region along the coast to the northward belonging to Bolivia, and also in the provinces of Tacna, Arica, and Tarapaca, still farther to the northward, belonging to Peru.
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