The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1894-08-30
TURTLES AS MOTIVE POWER.
The Weather Beaten Ira Weller Tells of an
EXperience in the South Pacific.

The Weather Beaten Traveller Tells of an
Experience in the South Pacific.
speaking about turtles observed
the weather beaten traveller who had
joined a party OF drummers seated in
the smoking room Of 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 inquiei-
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 We're in
little schooner and We're ON our way
from Callao to st. Ambrose island for a
load of guano Wen. the wind sudden
ly 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. / should think.
Now, You may not believe it. but
we suddenly ran into a shoal Of big sea
y
could hardly see the water. They were
there in millions and tremendous fell
lows. too, some of them weighing. |
should judge, more than SIN hundred
pounds. They lay all about the schoOn-
er's sides, and didn't seem to mind us d
bit.
I'VE We're out of our course, and il
began to look as if we never would get
out of the mess we We're in. Then. gen
tlemen, ! conceived an idea. l told il
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 d
great turtle, gently as we could. Did
he mind it? Not bit. He just raised
one Of his tiippers and winlled his eye at
us, as if he would have said: Now, what
are you fellows up to. anyhow
we had lot of strong. flexible wire
aboard and each of us had coil of it
over our arm. We each carried pair
of pincers, too. Then we started to
work.
I'VE 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
fired off d small cannon we had sta.
toned on the fc'c'stle deck. and YOU
should have seen the commotiOn. The
sea was dashed to foam and the big
brutes sculried in all directions tum.
bling over each other and dartine
about like mad.
Our schooner was buffcted about
and iolted like a freight car being
coupled to a bal1y engine. But oul
turtles were fast. They could not es
cape. and soon we were forging aheac
at ten knot clip.
''Well. sirs. in less than two days we
had those turtles trained so that they
would 90 wherever we wanted them
They would stop or drive ahead OF
sheer to port or starboord. We haC
rugged bits into their mouths and had
ISL lilies lOE ItlllS. tlltl lII6 ClTlN ing
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 sever
| 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 a time? Why. when | was
travelling up the 0rinoco -
At this point, however, the train
pulled into the station and fifteen
minutes for refreshments" interrupted
| all f,1rt har discourse N Y Herald