127 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN \f 
GIANT TORTOISE 
Captured by the Williams Galapagos Expedition. 
reached the lowest point. Meanwhile the 
captors had roped the tortoise to the two poles 
and were carrying her slung between them, 
much as men carried palanquins in older days. 
Two of us climbed down the wall to assist 
in raising the animal from the bottom to the 
top. After much exertion and slipping and 
balancing and most difficult climbing the tor¬ 
toise and four men, all more or less tired, 
arrived at the top, just in time to see the sun 
go down over the valleys of Albemarle Island, 
some fifteen miles away. 
From the crater rim to the anchorage the 
distance was about a mile and a half; that is, 
it would be a mile and a half by actual mea¬ 
surement. But to those who carried the 
tortoise, inches had become feet, a yard was 
an interminable distance, while a mile had 
become an unacquaintable period of space and 
time, comparable only to astronomers’ terms 
when they speak of light years and the orbits 
of comets. All our ideas of distance and size 
had received a Brobdingnagian impetus. Thorns 
that were an inch long when we passed them 
by in daylight now assumed scimitar-like pro¬ 
portions. And in the mellow moonlight the 
stones that we walked upon became like the 
great pillars of the Giants’ Causeway, built 
and fashioned for men much larger than we. 
For half the distance the tortoise was car¬ 
ried lashed between the two poles, clanking 
against the wood and occasionally hissing. And 
all the time the poles bored ridges into the 
shoulders and hips and raised blisters upon the 
hands of the carriers. Each step taken would 
mean a jar upon some portion of human 
anatomy, as the impossibility of two individuals 
walking synchronously over such a roadbed was 
momentarily demonstrated. 
Just as darkness came down completely the 
lashings supporting the tortoise slipped and 
the entire cavalcade stopped to repair the 
damage. Fifteen minutes of trying to relash 
the beast in darkness were thrown away when 
the tortoise stretched its legs, and, like Hou- 
dini, cast off its shackles. A few more 
attempts at tying the animal securely failed 
to produce a binding firm enough to hold. 
Then, in a fit of desperation, one of us volun¬ 
teered to carry the tortoise to the boat. So the 
tortoise was turned upside down, and, taking 
a grip on the hinder part of the carapace, the 
carrier started away. 
