Today in Postal History

This cover went into the mail in Hamburg and received a Hamburg CDS.
The sender requested routing Via Liverpool on its way to its destination of Antofagasta, Peru.
The sender also placed a neat handstamp boxed return address on the rear.
The sender also used a handstamp on the front to give another return address.

The routing via Liverpool indicated the use of the British packets.

I believe that the most practical route would
have been via the West Indies, Panama, and a Pacific coastal line.
To accomplish this, the cover would have to be diverted
from London to Southhampton rather than Liverpool.
The British packets from Southampton to St. Thomas in the Danish
West Indies were contracted to the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co.
From there mail was dispatched to Panama via
Royal Mail Steam Packets operating in the Caribbean.
The mail went across the Isthmus of Panama on the Panama Railroad.
The trip down the west coast of South America was on another British
packet route operated under contract by the Pacific Steam Navigation Co.

I do not know that there is an alternate routing using Liverpool.
The selection of Liverpool could have just been a mistake on the part of the sender.
I have received a suggestion that, if the cover did go via Liverpool,
the West India & Pacific Steam Ship Co. was a possibility.
I think rerouting to make use of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. is the most likely.*

Antofagasta is on the Pacific coast just south of the Tropic of Capricorn
and about 1100 km north of Santiago in present-day Chile.
Although some contemporary maps showed the border between Peru and Chile
to be the 24th parallel south, that was an error at this time.

The War of the Pacific 1879-1884 between Chile and Bolivia and its ally, Peru,
was fought over control of the rich nitrate deposits in the Antofagasta province.
Also at issue was Bolivian access to the Pacific.
In 1885, Antofagasta was occupied by Chile who had won the war handily.

A plan for resolving the border dispute was included in the Treaty of Ancón in 1883.
But the planned actions were not completed.

It was not until 1929 that the Treaty of Lima resolved some of the open issues.
The United States arbitrated in the negotiation of that treaty.

Even today there are ongoing border disputes in this region.
Perhaps one of the more difficult problems has been the fate of Bolivia
which lost its access to the sea as a result of the War of the Pacific.

The cover was backstamped as it passed through London on August 13.
It arrived in Antofagasta on September 25.
(The smudge on the back upper left is most likely an offset from an overinked cover.)

The cover is franked with a single 20pf. embossed ultramarine
Imperial Eagle issued in 1880-83 (Scott 40).

*Thanks to Kevin Preece for his question regarding the use of Liverpool.
As he noted, Liverpool was not the home port for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Co.
He has made the suggestion of the alternate line if the cover
really did go through Liverpool which I think is unlikely.

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