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Updated: May 12, 2025
Muffling the feet of the Peruvian Andes is a long narrow strip drifting dunes of rock waste known as the Atacama Desert. In comparison with this awful desert, the Sahara is said to be a botanical garden. Here during a part of the year a fierce, relentless sun pours down its burning rays on the shifting sands, keeping the air at a scorching heat both day and night.
In the middle of the fifteenth century the famous Topa Inca Yupanqui led his armies across the terrible desert of Atacama, and, penetrating to the southern region of Chili, made the river Maule the boundary of his dominions, while his son, Huayna Capac, who succeeded him, pushed his conquests northward, and added the powerful kingdom of Quito to the empire of Peru.
A long unsettled dispute as to the extended boundary between the Argentine Republic and Chile, stretching along the Andean crests from the southern border of the Atacama Desert to Magellan Straits, nearly a third of the length of the South American continent, assumed an acute stage in the early part of the year, and afforded to this Government occasion to express the hope that the resort to arbitration, already contemplated by existing conventions between the parties, might prevail despite the grave difficulties arising in its application.
A residual difference touching the northern boundary line across the Atacama Desert, for which existing treaties provided no adequate adjustment, bids fair to be settled in like manner by a joint commission, upon which the United States minister at Buenos Ayres has been invited to serve as umpire in the last resort.
Valdivia set out on the 28th of January, 1540, with 150 Spaniards, amongst whom Pedro Gomez, Pedro de Miranda, and Alonzo de Monroy were destined especially to distinguish themselves; he crossed first the desert of Atacama, which even at the present day is considered a most troublesome enterprise, and reached Copiapo, standing in the midst of a beautiful valley.
Almagro left Chili in the greatest haste, crossed the stony and sandy desert of Atacama, where he suffered as severely from heat and drought as he had done in the Andes from cold and snow, penetrated into the Peruvian territory, defeated Manco-Capac in a great battle, and succeeded in approaching the town of Cuzco, after having driven away the Indians.
"There is, two hundred miles from here, an important farm, the Farm of San Felice, which belongs to one of my brothers, and it is to his house that I am going for my trade. If you wish to follow me you will be well received, and the means of transport to gain the town of Atacama will not fail you. My brother will be happy to furnish, them."
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.
"'I was, as I thought, careful to note all of its surroundings so I could come again when I should wish to get the rest of my hoard. I say I did this carefully, but a year and a half later when I came to get the rest of my treasure I could not find it. I could not even find the island, though I went over the ground from Titocaca to Atacama a hundred times. "'I could not even find the lake!
The Spanish portion is situated between the latitudes of 24° and 37° south, and is divided into thirteen provinces; of which the following is an enumeration, with a short account of each, beginning on the north, at the desert of Atacama or frontiers of Peru.
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