The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-08-31
TURTLES AS MOTIVE POWER.

| From the New York Tribune.
Speaking about turtles" observed
| the weather beaten traveller who had
| joined a party of drummers seated in
| the smoking room of a palace car,
why have literally seen millions of
them at once. The sea for miles around,
as far as the eye could reach, was"
where was this?" asked an inquisi-
tive drummer.
Near the Galapagos islands, off the
west coast of South America" was the
reply, and then, as the other passen-
gers settled back in their seats, the
weather beaten one spun this yarn:
You see," he began, ''we were in a
little schooner and were on our way
from Callao to st. Ambrose island for a
load of guano. Well, the wind sudden
~ died out, and we began to drift. This
state OF affairs kept up for several days
until early one morning we spied land
ahead over the port bow 1t was about
seven miles away, l should think
NOW, You may not believe it, but
we suddenly ran into shoal of big sea
turtles that were SO close together you
could hardly see the water. They were
there in millions and tremendous fell
lows, too, some of them weighing, I
should judge, more than SIX hundred
pounds They lay all about the schoon-
er's sides, and didn't seem to mind US
bit.
eve were out of our course, and it
began to look as if we never would get
: = ],
tlemen, l conceived an idea. 1 told it
to the carpenter, and he thought it was
great, too. And this is how it worked:
''We-that is, the carpenter and my
self-stepped over the vessels side and
let ourselves down on the back of
great turtle, gently as we could. Did
he mind it? Not bit. He just raised
one of his fiippers and winked his eye at
US, as if he would have said: Now, what
are you fellows up to, anyhow?
''We had a lot of strong, flexible wire
aboard and each of US had c coil of il
over our arm. We each carried pair
of pincers, too. Then we started to
work
''We punched a small hole in the
after part Of the turtles shell and fas-
tened an end of wire in it and made the
other end fast to the anchor chain.
Then we stepped over to another tur-
tie and repeated the operation. We
soon had about dozen turtles fastened
In this manner.
''The fun then commenced. We
fred off small cannon we had sta
toned on the fo'c'stle deck, and you
should have seen the commOtion. The
sea was dashed to foam, and the big
brutes scuTried in all directions, tum-
bling over each other and darting
about like mad.
Our schooner was buffeted about
and jolted like a freight car being
coupled to bally engine. But our
turtles were fast. They could not es.
cape. and soon we were forging ahead
at a ten knot clip.
We'll, sirs, in less than two DAYS we
had those turtles trained SO that they
would go wherever we wanted them.
They would stop or drive ahead or
sheer to port or starboord. We had
rugged bits into their mouths and had
fish lines for reins. ! did the driving,
and rare sport it was, tell you.
$50 We bowled along until we
reached st. Ambrose, and there we
came to anchor about mile off shore.
Two of the turtles we harnessed to
large, fat-bottomed lighter, and owing
to the rapidity of the trips we loaded
up our schooner in very short time
''Then we hoisted anchor and pointed
for Callao. We reached there in seven
days 1t seemed too bad, but as we had
no further use for our turtles we sold
them to marketman, who shipped
them to San Francisco
But what did the turtles eat during
all this time?' queried the inquisitive
passenger.
Eat" replied the narrator, with |
scorn. Don't you know that turtles |
can go without food for weeks and |
months at time? Why, when I was |
travelling up the Orinoco'-
At this point, however, the train /
pulled into the station and fifteen |
minutes for refreshments interrupteS |
all further discourse