The semi-weekly messenger., 1908-03-06
New York Evening Sun

cannot De kept III the DdCh5lU Uuiiu
Notwithstanding an impossible loca
ton and a very difficult name, they
break into print with surprising fire.
quency, and just at present it Is their
luck to have tagged the Pacific feet
with the tale of Jeffs, marooned
American sailor from Norwalk, Conn
Their unpronouncable name Is wor-
rying cable operators and telegraph
editors throughout the civilized
world.
Their location itself, although in
salubrious and remote, is ingeniously
planned to add to their pre-eminence
In the society of islands. AS every
one knows the equator runs right
through Quito, the capital of Ecuador
and it was from the success of Quito
in the biographies and school rooms
that the Galapagos Islands took their
cue, apparently, for they are direct
ly on the equator, some 600 miles
to the west of South America and the
Ecuador coast. - -.--- go
Moreover. they present a singlarly
bizarre and memorable appearance,
looking like nothing else than beyy
OF volcanoes out for stroll; and
when one thinks of it, volcano, all
a figure in mid-ocean as would a bar
room or a cantilever bridge.
But the islands were not satisfied
to sit by slothfully, relying upon
their location and make up, and in
their short existence-they are many
thousands of years younger than is
South America or anything else there
abouts, the babies of the Pacific, in
fact-they have turned out a natural
history, and a human history which
the Oldest continent might look upon
with pride Their animals are fam
tastic and unique, and scientists have
been running out and looking them
over every little while since the year
1895, when Charles Darwin in the
Beagle first visited them and timed
the giant tortoise with watch and
pulled the tails of the lizards to see
them get cross. AS for human be-
ings, the old buccaneers used the
islands as a headquarters, and then
the South Sea whalers took to drop
ping in at the group, which they used
as a sort of postoffice And every
now and then a sailor would be cast
away on the islands to be taken Off
later wearing, perhaps, the regula-
tion trousers for which Robinson
Crusoe set the fashion and tell his
story to an admiring world.
Now it is Frederick Jeffs, of Nor
walk, Conn, who is adding a page
or so to the story of the Galapagos
Islands. He was a seaman on a Nor
wegian sailing vessel, the reports
have it, and when the ship went
down in a storm the captain and crew
put of in small boat and made
Indefatigable Island, one of the Gala
pagos group. That particular island
is uninhabited, but two others have
a few settlers and in some way word
of the castaways was brought to
GuayaquiI, the seaport of Ecuador. A
relief expedition was sent out and all
hands taken except Jeffs. Just why
Jeffs was left behind is not made
clear by the dispatches; the reports
state that he had separated from his
companions and was on the other
side of the island, but as the other
side of the island could be only 25
miles away, the explanation seems
unsatisfactory. Our vice-consul r.
B. Jones, learned of the lone casta-
way and notified Washington, as well
as a Mrs. Claridge, of Norwalk, sai0
to be a sister of the seaman. In due
course Rear Admiral Evans was or
dered to send a supply boat to hunt
up JeffS, and it is presumably now
on the way from CaIlao, Peru, to
Magdalena Bay, that the rescue will
be made,
The earliest visits to the islands
were by TIE buccaneers n the seven
teenth century. These brethren OF
the cJast," as they called themselves
Drs .nched out on the Pacific in 1851
y hen the Caribbean had become TOT
limited a field. They were in thu
height of their power then and crufs
ed up and down the South America
coast, harrying the merchantmen
and incidentally using the Galspago
Islands as convenient ambush
where they could lie concealed t
pounce upon the unsuspecting ship
that sailed past
Than after the fall of the buccar
GERS the whalers came to the fore
and the equatorial islands became
harbor of refuge, a headquarters an
a post office for the South Sea sal
ormen. The postoffice was a matte
of common knowledge at sea as Ion
ago as 1913, when Midshipman Da'
Id Glasgow Farragaut visited it G
the cruise of the Essex in the W.
of 1912 and described it in his dial
as "a letter box nailed to a tree,
which whalers and other vessels d
posted records of their movements
It is on Charles Island, the sout
ernmost of the group. Since then Il
box has been succeeded by barre
and only last May two letters a
dressed to persons in the Unite
States were delivered after havil
mildewed in the barrel for two Sc
sons. One went to the mother of
sailor living in Odessa, Mo-, and a
other to a scientist in Alameda, C'
OF the castaways on the islands o
was found by the Albatross expet
ton in the last century. He b;
been on one of the smaller islam
so long that he had lost all mott
of time, and his hair and beard b
grown to a great length. For a mo