The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1898-09-04
WAYS OF GUANO POACHERS
EXCITEMENT OF THIETERY ON Low
ER CALIFORNIA; COAST.

NA@ AAAA oNA NsANk
San DIEGO. Cal, Aug. 28.-"From 1892 to
1895 I was engaged In the dangerous business
Of Ruano stealing" said n well-known skipper
here the other day. This business is car
ried on by shippers owning small vessels hav-
ing their headquarters in San Diego harbor.
There is lots OF good guano along the Mexican
coast, or rather was. for IL Is pretty well
cleaned up now. The little islands strung
along the Lower California coast. from San
Martins clear down below 'Tividad. also have
their deposits OF Ruano that brings SIS to $40
a ton delivered at San Diego.
THE right to gather this stuff Is claimed to
be held solely by the English company operat-
ing In Lower California. It farms out this
right to different persons. All these %oontrac-
tors are Town on the so-called. 'poachers.' the
fellows that go down In their schooners and
gather up a load and bring It out, regardless Of
customs duties. royaltysor anything else. The
concessionaires have appealed to the Mexi-
can Government. and the Government has sent
o steamer after these poachers once or twice.
Once they overhauled two and the crews spent
q couple Of years in jail. For all that. the
trade Of guano poaching has been profitable.
and therefore pursued by adventurous skip
pers. Ten days, with two or three men. re-
suits in a cleanup of from $50 to 500 each.
Some of the more enterprising of the skip
l pClbs ObItClullg lIOSo avn u kOOu huOWI-
edge Of the coast and speaking Spanish. COM
bined the time-honored profession Of snug
CLING with that Of guano poachinR. I was
one Of this kind. l have lived In Mexico for
years, and when l think OF the terrific duties
I have paid for the ordinarytnecessities of life.
l cannot bring myself to believe that n snug
gler is anything but a public benefactor. A
smuEGler into Mexico. 1 mean. No man
should smuggle into the United States. That
would be treason to the Stars and Stripes.
Many were the tight squeezes I had In that
business. My schooner. the Nautilus. was q
tight little craft OF twenty-five tons burden,
all given to freight except a little inclosed
cockpit where l and my men slept. 1 Gener-
ally had two men with me. In loading guano
1t took one man o~n,shore. ~.one;in the boat. and
one on the schooner to do 1t properly. Then.
In the delicate business of landing stuff on the
coast. 1t was necessary to have q lookout as
well as help in discharging cargo.
THE two best fellows l had were Charley
Iberich. a Russian Finn. and Swan Anderson,
a Norwegian. Both we're good sailors. strong
as bulls. and not afraid OF the devil himself.
We had to have such people to succeed. My
connections were all established in Lower
California, OF course. SO that l knew when and
where to land the cargoes. For a while l used
to land the stun and make trips down there to
collect for them afterward. but once l got wind
there was treachery somewhere. or, at least, I
smelled danger. and 1 barely got across the
line in time to escape a posse of rurales, AMI
that. too. by killing my horse. So from that
time l made my friends below the line meet
me when the goods were delivered. and plank
down the cash. 1t was rather inconvenient,
meeting in out-of-the-way coves and on bar
rem stretches OF coast in the night. but it was
business. and they had to do it.
MY best customers were a firm I will call
Chick 4 Gonzalez. They ran a store away
down at Rosalia. $50 miles south OF San Diego
and twenty miles inland. Chick was a Scotch
man. and his partner was a Mexican. Both
were about 90 years old and smarter than
steel traps. They were up to all the tricks Of
smuggling and gave ne n great many point
ers. Chick had been on a coast snuggler be-
fore he settled down on the peninsula. On the
trips when l took them down n cargo. 1 always
tried to get the Russian Finn and the Norwe-
gian for my help. They were good boys and
knew when TO keep still. They could lend a
hand at n line or give a signal to the lookout
on the hill or tend ship for me while l was
ashore dickering with Chick or Gonzalez.
Sometimes these trips yielded me $500 net.
and then l was generous with the crew, for
policy's sake, They went off promptly and
drank it up, but they never gave me away
1T was in November, 1895. that | had the
dlNthluIc lIlll ullSt Ilt ~ uulU int DuSl-
ness. You see. in order to throw the Mexican
customs officers Of the track it was necessary
right Ri f8"b here re'H in q San NIB Diego and aeS R have 'p Eot t apaes
yet, l know every one of them. l pass them
n the street and they look queer at me. but
to load up Off the foot of Second street, where
Chinatown runs down to the bay shore. It is
quiet, With three men there / have loaded
h hiabt the Ss schooner SsneT,I IN io 2 niEE E tc,iV W or three
we would IrOn down the stream md Gnil ont
some evening. unconcerned. on n little guano
BB]9offS6eer1eeSS t fbriR; heads Tss a abSth3F dtE sn here r meyer
ing. because we didn't infringe any Of their
laws; tb,s NIGHT We had sovero, oo,don..n..
were enough to make me think luck was
against me. but we stuck to II till We were well
cargo sae fell eEu into the n f%S V With a 6erir fR%e s Of she
and the Norwegian tumbied in with Il. He
G9Ty ~ one yell but was down 2nt9 him IN a
hour aiterward. one Of the lumber schooners.
and broke my, ji6boom of. That ought nt to
have held me back. but l was bound to get
We'll. we got, outside and five or six miles
out toward the CoronadQs before the lights Of
Point Iona were shut down. BY, that time.1 It
FIAT stretch Of coast q good vide f BERTH Th nMa
San Martin Island or along there and see how
the land lay. II the coast, was clear OF craft,
VIC were. W WOTk III 10 u nUUle laDulnH i mad
used and meet our parties on the night of Nov.
10. 1t was now the 9th,
the 18th. We made good headway against q
two or three schooners beating up the coast,
all guano poachers. SO far as / could make
out, the coast was clear. The poachers did not
seem Ss1 to be running away from anybody We
one schooner. the Alta Gracla. / think it was,
by hinging n pair Of trousers to the breeze
but IN this case rs the coast clear2'
or piece Of sail. which meant. Coast ali clear
,"One would think by this that we were all
right. / did not smell danger. even though
the accidents in the bay here might have made
hoodooed-that there. was a Jonah aboard.
Along about seven bells that evening. when it
TO eat and lit my pipe, We were still stand.
ing south-southwest, being somewhere of
Cape Colnett. After we had crossed the Amer
lean line we did not hoist any lights, We fg:
US In the, dark In case they had scratched up
some kind of craft to look for US.
Suddenly out Of the darkness and mist,
right of our starboard bow, doomed n big
,,Eltn nnafA . anl1ann la Ill ~