[Illustration:  BERNARDO O’HIGGINS.

The first President of the Republic of Chile.

A.  Rischgitz.]

From that day onwards the Chilian navy maintained its status, and continues to rank as one of the most efficient in the world.  This was proved shortly after its reorganization in the war which broke out in 1879 between the Chilians and the allied Peruvians and Bolivians.  Hostilities were brought about by the vexed question of the ownership of the valuable nitrate provinces.  These, Chile claimed, constituted the northernmost of her territory, to which Peru retorted that they formed the southernmost portion of her land.

The naval engagements which ensued demonstrated to the utmost the high spirit of the Chilian sailor and the efficiency of the school in which he had been trained.  The action in which the two small Chilian vessels, the Esmeralda and the Covadonga, fought so heroically against the Peruvian ironclads, Huascar and Independencia, was, of course, the most famous of the war, and the memory of this is jealously guarded by the Chilian navy of to-day.  No question of victory on the part of Chile was ever involved in this particular action, since the miniature guns of the small Chilian vessels could, under no circumstances, take effect on the Peruvians, giants by comparison.  It was merely a sublime demonstration of the extent to which Chilian resistance could be carried.  Thus the Esmeralda, refusing to surrender to the very last, went down after a prolonged and desperate engagement with her colours flying; while the tiny Covadonga, having lured one of her opponents into shallow water, and thus caused the Independencia to run aground, blazed away her final volleys of small shot, and retired with all the honours of war.

Inspired by examples such as these, the Chilian navy maintained its traditions to the full, and although the Peruvian sailors fought gallantly enough, they could make no headway against their opponents.  On shore the fortune of war was similar, and the highly disciplined Chilian army, advancing to the north, occupied Antofagasta, Cobija, and Tocopilla.  But the tide of battle was not arrested at this point.  It flowed to the north again, and the deserts in that neighbourhood witnessed a number of engagements, in all of which the Peruvians and Bolivians were worsted and forced to continue their retreat.  The important town of Arica was captured on June 7 after a peculiarly sanguinary engagement.  Port Pisco was the next to fall, and now Lima itself, the capital of Peru, was threatened.  So resolute was the Chilian advance that no efforts of the defenders could succeed in preserving the city, and on January 7, 1881, Lima fell into the hands of the Chilians.