Today Christianson is a taxi driver in New York City, but in November,
1906, he was a sailor on the ship Alexander, bound from South Wales to
Panama with a cargo of coal. Fred Jeff was his pal, and they had made
other voyages together.
The story of the wrecked taxi cab driver is told in a chapter in Uncle
Will’s book Galápagos, World’s End. I read it long before I ever
thought there would be a chance of my really seeing the Islands myself.
It is about the most interesting adventure story you could imagine.
On May 8th, the captain said they were seven hundred miles off South
America, and the weather was still bad because they had no wind, and
the Alexander was a sailing ship. For three weeks they had just
drifted. He thought they had better put to sea in the small boats
because water was scarce, and their supplies had given out. Galápagos
Islands were the nearest land, so they started for them.
They had sixteen-foot oars and rowed for twelve days, four men on and
four off, taking turns. One day the old cook cried out “Land.” Nobody
believed him at first but soon they could make out a dim cloud-like
object on the far horizon. They realized it was really land and pulled
hard on the oars till they came to a small beach to land on. They
fairly ran up the beach to try to find water for they were all
suffering from thirst. After a short time they were attracted by the
old cook crying out and waving his hands.
But they ran about licking up the brackish water from puddles in the
rocks. The rain had left some, but the surf had thrown spray up into
the pools. However, they drank up the surface, for the salt was at the
bottom.
When they looked back for the cook, they saw him alone on the beach. It
was too late to help him; their boat had smashed to pieces on the
rocks. They were on a small island ten miles from another big one.
The captain said, “Now we are all just men together, not captain and
crew. And we will try to reach the other side of the island.” They
started out to cross over, but the way was terribly rough, they were
exhausted and weakened by long suffering, and after a short distance
they had to come back.
They walked around the island later and in one cove they discovered
some sea lions, and two of the men who were good swimmers went out and
chased them to shore. Once ashore, the rest of the men stoned them to
death, skinned them for shoe leather, ate the meat, and drank the
blood. All were sick as a result, but later they found turtles and
after killing them, sucked the blood and ate the meat.
After two months of living like this, with very hard going, they found
a small beach with fresh water. Here they buried a lot of gold in a
crack in the rocks. And one day after living on that one beach for
three or more months, they were rescued by a chance ship sailing by.
When Christianson heard that Uncle Will was coming on this trip again,
he wanted to come back here, mostly to find the gold. But he could not
afford to leave his job, and he would not tell just where it was
buried.