The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-12-30

The Inoffensive sea turtle leaning against
the walls of a restaurant, with the omlnous
sign "to be served this day" hung about Its
neck, but family suggests the excitement
and series of adventures that have often
led TO its capture and humiliation or the
activity and life that characterize its move
ments in its natural element.
It happened that the writer was once on
a reef in the Mexican Gulf during the
turtle season, and one day the beef in our
iaider having given out and fish being
monotonous as a regular diet, a turtle
hunt was proposed. Ii was little early
in the season, but our cook aud general
factotum had seen signs" so it was
believed that a night or two would be
productive in sport IS we'll as meat Four
kinds of marine turtles were found in
these Waters-the green and loggerhead
''to the manner born" and attaining q
weight of from ZOO to 1000 pounds: the
hawksbll, that rarely attained a weight
of over twenty, and the big leather or
ocean turtle, seen only on rare occasions.
These with the Durrowing gopher on some
of the keys constituted the representatives
OF the tribe.
The green and loggerhead turtles were
the objects of our search, and one clear
moonlight night found US rowing 10 Log
geThead Key, about five miles away, the
oars OF the big boat bending beneath the
powerful strokes of the black crew, who
sang curious song that accorded well
with the sound OF The oars and the sparkle
and fash of he waters.
Loggerhead was narrow strip of sand =,
about two and n half miles in length, that
reached out toward Yucatan from the
Florida peninsula. On it is the tallest
light IN the United States, a shaft that
rises ike a CLEOPATRA needle out of a
desert of sand, cactus and bay cedar. AS
the boat cruGched on the sands the keeper
came down and gave us welcome
a man who sees a human being once in
three or tour months, or whenever the
lighthouse steamer gets around, and who
in the meantime has the crabs, birds aad
wife-if he is fortunate in having one-as
companions. This keeper vas blessed in
that way, or, as he told me, he would
surely have gone mad at times, and we
soon found a welcome in the ample brick
hOuse that the Government had provided
1t was SAID that the keeper had found
some pirates gold, and that he only re-
tanned the position TO develop some places
regarding other treasure. When this was
suggested he laughed and said he wished
1T was so.
The island was undoubtedly the head
quarters for many pirates in he old days,
and in examining the reef the writer once
found an old cannon bearing the Spanish
coat Of-arms. 1t was in very shallow
water near an island and was possibly
lost in an attempt to fortlfy the latter; the
channel here was very circutOus. On a
key not ten miles from Loggerhead the
lighthOuse-keeper of the central island of
the little group found some gold washed
out of the sanus, according 10 the reports.
amounting to over $4,000. and there are
legends gelore regarding he islands.
After enjoying the hospitality of the
keeper and letting him see and hear US
talk. we betook ourselves to the beach,
that was pure white sandy belt exleud-
ing around the entire island to width of
a bout nifty feet, when began the bay
cedars and cactus that constituted the
trees OF the island and served as protec-
ton TO innumerable sand and soldier
crabs, guls and their young.
Along this beach we took our stations in
parties OF IwOs about 1000 feet apart. and