PECULIAR ISLANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 September 1942, Page 4

PECULIAR ISLANDS

THE GALAPAGOS GROUP HOME OF GIANT TORTOISES. OCCUPATION AS AMERICAN BASE. The Galapagos Islands, where United States troops are reported to have occupied bases, are 500 miles due west of Ecuador, to which they belong, and are strategically important to the Panama Canal and Pacific Ocean trade routes. They could possibly be used by the enemy as submarine bases. There are 12 large and several hundred small islands in the group, the total area of land being 2870 square miles. They were discovered by the Spaniards in the 16th century, the name being taken from the Spanish for tortoise, and since then have been visited and sporadically used for the most part by cruising warships, American whalers, pirates, buccaneers and numerous scientific expeditions. From time to time the islands have also been the scene of hunts for buried pirate treasure. The 12 large islands are generally known as Albemarle, Indefatigable, James, Narborough, Charles, Chatham, Hood, Barrington, Duncan, Tower, Bindelow and Abington, although they also have Spanish names. In addition to their romantic flavour, gained from a full chronicle of shipwrecks and deaths, of crime and thirst, visits by pirates, buccaneers and roystering whalers, the islands are of intense scientific interest. Darwin visited them in 1835 and formed basic theories of evolution from his obser-, vations, a remarkable feature of the group being that 37 species of the shore fish, forty per cent of the plants, and 96 per cent of the reptiles are peculiar to these islands. _ Their geological structure is of almost equal interest, all being volcanic in character and some being still active. For human habitation the chief drawback of the Galapagos is the lack of fresh water. Chatham is the only island with a dependable amount of water and as a result supports the only real village in the group; Places where anything green can be found growing are scarce.

It is this condition which is apparently responsible for the peculiar development of the great tortoises—many weighing up to 4001 b, and living 300 to 400 years—which are to be found in thousands on the islands. Except in their extreme youth, they can go without food and water for months at a time. Excellent eating, they were carried off in great numbers by visiting ships, all that had to be done with them being to dump them in the hold and forget them until wanted. While the land is barren, the ocean about the islands is amazingly prolific. Many kinds of fish and other sea creatures, including sea-lions, are there in unending Quantity. But it is said that where life on land is blighted by the lack of fresh water, the sea -is cursed by numerous sharks. They cruise in every bay and swarm, in the outlying waters. Sea-lions, devil-fish, tuna, sharks and penguins are among the creatures which throng the waters and the beaches, while ashore are the huge tortoises, dragonlike iguanas, wild cats, dogs, goats, pigs and donkeys, snakes, flamingoes, flightless cormorants, ducks, and vast colonies of black finches. The animals have bred from beasts left from time to time by whalers or survived from shipwrecks. Only a few families, some from the United States, and some from Europe, have lived in the group in recent years. They all seem to have gone there to find isolation and escape from civilisation. The occupation of bases by the Americans will give the group its first regular contact with the outside world.