The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-03-19

ing some boats on the beach and bare ly escaped. The result of this was that the skipper of the vessel against which he had designs put a letter in box nailed to a tree telling the story. This was away back in 1909 and was the be- ginning of the famous ship poseonice Pat finally did manage to secure boat and sailed away in her. leaving in his hut letter afterward found. As pre- served In the chronicle of Pat this let ter read
 q have often demanded of ship cap tains to sell me a small boat in which might escape from this place, but they have always refused. Today ,. when tn opportunity presented itself for me to get a boat I took advantage of it. For a long time l have strug- gled through hard labor and pain to accumulate small fortune which might permit me to live in comfort able circumstances, but I have several times been robbed and maltreated, the last time by an English captain, who not only inflicted upon me frightful punishment. but had the hardihood to rob me of about $500. Today, May 9. 1909, I am leaving for the Marquesas Islands
 Do not kill the old hen. She's brood ing now, and her chicks should soon hatch"
 King Patrick turned up later at Guaya- quil in Ecuador. His four slaves either perished or were killed by him on the voyage. He went to Payta, Peru. accord ing to & French biographer. and sought to make @ Peruvian girl his queen He actually got her consent to accompany him back to his island kingdom, but Pat was caught one day hiding upon a vesse, and seized by the authorities. He died ..-. T 1. kl.. the Galapagos came to an untimely end.
 Commodore David Porter, father of Ad- miral Porter visited the islands in his ship, the Essex, during the war of 1872, and brought back story of the reign of King Patrick. Porter made the islands his headquarters while he made raids on British whaling ships during the war. The ships were accustomed to put in there for water and fresh vegetables and fell an easy prey to the Americans.
 The Sea Postoffice
 David Glasgow Tarragut was a mid shipman on the Essex, and he described the sea postoffice as 1t then existed in journal he kept sof the cruise. In telling of one of the expeditions he wrote in 1913.
 We then separated, our ship going to Charles Island to examine the postoffice-- a letter box nailed to a tree, in which whalers and others visitors deposited rec ords of their movements. Found nothing new but some fresh tracks of men''
 A man who visited the island in 1884 described this sea postoffice as con sisting then of candle box nailed to tree, and said that 1t looked old enough to be the same box found by Farragut
 In the early sos the British warship Amphion visited the Galapagos and erected a new postoffice to commence rate her visit. The crew of tho war ship put new box on top of a post on the beach above high water and cut the name of their ship on it. Since then 1t has been the custom, of callers at the postoffice to inscribe their names on the post as a sort of post mark.
 There is no telling how often the postoffice is visited, and people de- posting letters have to take chances. Some of the letters put there have taken queer travels before reaching their destination. Two letters deposited there in 1905 reached the addresses in May, 1907, and then only after some hard work done by the experts in the dead letter office at Washington,
 These letters were found by resi- dent at GuayaquA and forwarded by him to Washington, The addresses were all but undecipherabIe One was addressed to a mother in Missouri by her sailor son, and another to a woman In California, whose son was mem- Der of scientific expedition which had touched at the islands.
 Jeffs a CrusOe
 Uncle Sam once before the present time had his attention called to the Galapagos That was when an expedition was sent there to rescue Frederick Jeffs, an Amer ican seaman who was reported as ma ruoned there as the result of a shipwreok, It was in February, 1908, that the navy department was asked to send ship to look for Jeffs after word had been re- ceived here from the coast of Ecuador