Leaning out of our cockpits, after resuming our flights from Ilo, we looked down on that disputed area called Tacna Arica. Judging it only by scenic aspects, we wondered that Peru, Chile, and Bolivia should attach so much importance to it. Barring a few irrigated patches, as far away as we could see, it was dry and empty as parts of west Texas. On a desert plain sprawls the adobe village of Arica itself. From the air, it reminded me of flying over Tombstone, Arizona.

Due south 1,295 miles, down the long, straight-line, rough coast of Chile we flew, stopping now and then or dropping notes into the streets of towns like Arica, Iquique, and Tocopilla, as we passed.*

Soaring over Valparaiso, Chile's great seaport, we headed inland for Santiago, the capital. Circling above at sunset, we were struck by its size and magnificence. Laid out on a high, level plain, at the western feet of the snow-capped Andes, and dotted with symmetrical parks and plazas, here is indeed a city of beauty, the acme of Latin American architectural achievement. We were loath to leave it. However, after three days of entertainment and hard work on our planes, we were off. Here, as elsewhere, our hosts were astonished to see officers acting as their own mechanics.

Four hours' flight south, still along the Chile coast, we passed over the busy port of Concepción, center of a wheat, wool, and wine country at the mouth of the Bio-Bio. In his "Voyage of the Beagle," Charles Darwin vividly describes an earthquake which ruined this town in 1835. Near it now stands the Chilean Naval Base of Talcahuano.

CHILE'S LOWER COAST LINE AS WET AS PUGET SOUND

Streams, forests, green fields, and herds of sheep and cattle told us now that again we were in a temperate zone. Rains increased. Below Talcahuano it rained so hard we had to fly close together, barely above the breaking surf. Salt spray hit our machines, and the weather grew so thick that, with our planes flying almost

* See, also, “A Longitudinal Journey Through Chile," by Harriet Chalmers Adams, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for September, 1922.

wing over wing, it was at times barely possible to see the other fellow.

It was dark when wet, foggy Valdivia, built of wooden houses and looking much like Seattle in 1900, blinked at us through the rain. Here is a rough pioneer town of German colonists clearing forests and building homes. Kindly they helped us beach and care for our planes.

Before us now loomed the giant jump over the Andes. "We haven't had a pleasant day for nine years," the natives said, as they waded about in the wet dawn to see us off.

Fifty miles inland, due east over hilly forests, we ran out of rain into clear air. Before us, and to the right and left, unrolled a stunning panorama of blue lakes and virgin woods.

PLAYING TAG WITH DEATH IN DARK

CLOUDS ABOVE THE ANDES

But ahead, utterly obliterating the mountains we had to cross, were piled the biggest and thickest cloud banks we had ever seen. The whole Andean system, it seemed to us, was that morning shrouded in a universe of clouds (see page 475).

To poke our noses into those dark heights, where steep walls or unseen peaks might any instant leap from the gloom to wreck us, was no pleasing prospect. Yet there could be no turning back from bad weather. That had been our understanding from the start.

I signaled to circle and climb. It was our only chance. Whether our four heavy planes could make it, only the attempt itself could decide. Round and round we climbed, roaring and throbbing, higher and higher, colder and colder!

At 11,000 feet we were still dragging our tail skids through the clouds, groping for light and vision, if one can "grope" at 90 miles an hour!

Somewhere to the east we hoped there would still lie the sunny pampas of Patagonia; but, after two hours of climbing, Patagonia seemed even more remote than in our schoolboy days, when we read of its wild tribes and the stormy straits of Tierra del Fuego!

Suddenly, at 12,000 feet, we burst through the dark mists and shot out upon a vast, glistening, white cloud sea. Behind us an icy peak thrust its head through the

IN SEA OF CLOUD

Six thousand feet lower, boiling hot winds tossed us madly, but at least we were warm again and could use our hands and move our legs. "How I love the great open spaces," my partner scribbled. Below, for infinite miles, lay that Promised Land, the pampas. In a few hours we hit Bahía Blanca, a nonstop, over-the-Andes jump from Pacific to Atlantic.

But the San Francisco, flown by Captain Eaker, was not so fortunate.

Photograph by Ewing Galloway

"Somewhere over the Andes," he says, "my engine began to cough and spit and we began to come down. . . . We had either to take our parachutes and jump out or else nose the plane down and trust blind luck not to crash on some invisible peak. Had we been flying in the United States, we certainly would have jumped.

But our one great hope was to finish this Pan American flight and bring the good old San Francisco safely back home.

"Also, we figured that sitting on some isolated Andean peak, holding a lone parachute in our laps, wouldn't be much better than lying on the same peak in a mess of airplane wreckage. So we stuck to our ship.

"For 8,000 feet we slid down through

obscurity. Each second, we knew the next might be our last.

"But that day the air gods were kind. Like a glimpse of paradise, through a cloud gap a lake appeared below us. We breathed again. . . . Nearly eight hours afterward, flying by compass, we came to rest on the Atlantic Ocean.'

AROUND THE COAST OF ARGENTINA

From Bahía Blanca, busy shipping its wool and wheat, we sailed early, rounding the 565-mile coast of, the great Buenos Aires Province and landing at Mar del Plata (see page 478).

This Mar del Plata, or "Sea of Silver," is something like our Atlantic City, with its Rambla, or promenade, corresponding

to the boardwalk. A "human fair," it has been called, where the Argentine world of wealth and fashion comes to see and be

Here perennial visitors have their own villas and chalets; but much of the more giddy social life centers around the expensive hotels and cafés. At the glittering casino, where gambling is licensed, stakes were so stiff that no ordinary aviator could sit in.

Flying on up the 30-mile mouth of the Río de la Plata, we landed beside an Argentine battleship in the harbor of Buenos Aires and were received aboard this vessel (see page 477).

Then again upstream, past Buenos Aires. Along the water front of this mighty city we flew. To its long row of giant grain elevators, that tower above the harbor, ships of all nations come for corn and wheat. Through this open doorway 4,000,000 European settlers have passed,

to plow the pampas and raise the cattle that now help feed the world.*

Marble palaces gleamed through the silvery haze and long tree-bordered avenidas came into view, as we sailed over this city of palatial homes, luxurious clubs, and sudden wealth. Below us now spreads out the symmetrical race-course map of the Hipódromo Argentino, owned by a jockey club said to be the richest in the world. The rugs, paintings, and furniture in its clubhouse are far superior, we were told, to those enjoyed by the average king.

Ahead lay the beautiful, flat, government flying field, called Palomar, our immediate objective. It was a calm day. We were all serene, in pleasant humor; we

*See, also, "Buenos Aires and Its River of Silver," by William R. Barbour, in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE for October, 1921.

were confident that, now across the Andes, our real troubles were over. And yet Woolsey and Benton, two of my courageous companions and two of the best aviators who ever flew a plane, were to "go west" in a few seconds.

DEATH TAKES ITS TOLL

No man may ever fully explain how disaster came. It was all over too quickly.

We had never flown a more perfect formation. I was in the lead, piloting the New York, the San Francisco at my right rear, the Detroit in a similar position on the left. Behind, the St. Louis closed the diamond. An escort of three local planes flew with us.

I gave the signal to break formation, preparatory to landing, just after passing over Palomar flying field.

After seeing the Detroit turn up and away and going apparently far to my left rear, I glided gently downward and started a very slight turn to get in a position to make a landing. My attention was given to locating, over the right side of my plane, an Argentine flyer who had passed diagonally beneath me.

It was only a matter of seconds when I

glanced up and to the left. I caught a flash of black and yellow slightly higher and just off the rear of my left wing. Then we crashed.

The collision could not be averted.

Too much happened within the next few seconds for any brain to grasp it all.

Two planes fell as one in a violent. spin. Wreckage was flying all about.

I loosened my safety belt, and my effort to get free was aided by the centrifugal force of the spin. I was literally thrown out. The spinning mass hit me a terrible thud in my left side just as I pulled my parachute.

Now my chute was fouled, entangled in the falling wrecks. As we neared earth at terrific speed, I concluded this was the end.

But the planes suddenly broke apart. My silken cord commenced to tug at my shoulders. I was out in the air.

Two great pieces had been torn from my chute; a rip extended from skirt nearly to crown and broken shroud lines dangled loosely.

In falling I had only time to glance upward and see another parachute and