Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-11-15
TRAINED TURTLES.
4 True Story Told by a yeracious Tr.,
 eler.


 Speaking about turtles" observed the weather beaten traveller, who had joined n party of drummers seated in the smoking room of Q Pullman car, why, have lit- orally seen millions of them at once. The sea for miles around as far as the eye could reach was"-
 "where was thisi" asked an inquisitivu drummer
 Near the Galapagos islands, of the west coast of South America, !" was the re- ply, and then, as the other passengers set tied back in their seats, the weather beaten one spun this yarn:
 You see" he began, i've ere on a lit tie schooner and were on our way from Callao to St. Ambrose island for a load of guano. Wen, the wind suddenly died out, and we began to drift. This state of affairs kept up for several days until one morning we spied land ahead over the port bow. It was about seven miles away, I should think.
 Now, you may not believe it, but WIG suddenly ran into n shoal of big sea tur- ties that were so close together you could hardly sec the water. They were thero in millions, and tremendous fellows, too, some of them weighing, slould judge, moro than 600 pounds. They lay all about the schooner's sides and didn't seem to mind us Il bit.
 we WSFe out OI OUT course, anu It De- gan to look us if we would never get out of the mess we were in. Then, gentlemen, l conceived an idea l told it to the car penter, and he thought it was great too. And this is how it worked: "We-that is, the carpenter and myself stepped over the vessels side and let ourselves down on the back of n great tur- tie us gently as we could. Did he mind it? Not bitl He just raised one uf his flip -H,,l- E l., would have said, Now, what are you fel- lows up to anyhowf'
 "We had n lot of strong, flexible wiro aboard, and each of us had n coil of it over his arm. We each carried n pair of pinchcrs too. Then we started to work. We punched n small hole in the after | part of the turtles shell and fastened an end of wire in it and made the other end fast to the anchor chain. Then we stepped over to another turtle and repeated the | operation. We soon had about a dozen turtles fastened in this manner. "The fun then commenced. We fired | of a small cannon WIG had stationed on the fo'c'stle deck, and you should have seen the commotion. The sea was lashed to foam, and the big brutes scurried in all directions, tumbling over each other and | darting about like mad. Our schooner was bufTeted about and | jolted like freight car being coupled to q balky engine, but our turtles were fast, They could not escape, and soon we wcrt forging ahead at n ten knot clip. | Well, 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 starboard. We had rigged bits into their mouths and had fishIines for reins did tho driving, and rare sport 1t was, tell you.
 'So we bowled along until we reached St. Ambrose, and there we came to anchor about a mile offshorc. Two of the tur ties were harnesscd to n large flat bottOmot lighter, and owing to the rapidity of tn, trips we loaded up our schooner in q yer, short time.
 ~Thcn we hoisted anchor and pointed for Callao. We reached thorc in sever days It seemed too bad, but as we haC no further use for our turtles we sOlC them to n marketman, who shipped then to San Francisco.
 But what did the turtles cat during al this time:" quericd the inquisitive passen ger.
 "Eatl" replied the narrator, with scorn Don't you know that turtles can g, without food for weeks and months at time? Why, when was travelling up tn Orinoco"-
 At this point, however, the train pullc' into the station, and "l5 minutes for re freshments'' interrupted all further dis course.-Chicago Times.