Show A ROYAL TURTLE f v ff i Giant Tortoise Acts As a Watch Dog For a Family In Honolulu Honolulu Aug 18Stray turtles measuring four or five feet in length do not often wander unmolested through the streets of a thickly populated popu-lated city But not long since a well known family in Honolulu Hawaiian Islands > received a visitor of this kind Nobody knows where the great beast came from he simply appeared1 one I day at the garden gate and forcing an entrance proceeded to make himself at home on the premises He was prompt ly expelled by the astonished family to wander once more on the city streets for they did not know what else to do with him The turtle had different ideas however he had found a cam fortable home and meant to stay in it lIe had very likely led a life of hardship hard-ship and intended to end his days in peace and security so he returned but was again turned out upon the cruel world The turtle had a will of his own I and was determined to live in that par ticular spot so he crawled in again the next time the gate was open The fam ily gave up in despair and allowed the uninvited guest to remain a few days before they turned him out again But he returned once more This performance perform-ance wag repeated a number of times if they shut the gate on him he would rear up on hiS hind legs and put his two fore feet on the top like a great dog It was necessary to accept the inevitable in-evitable The people to whom he wished to attach himself began to feel a certain cer-tain superstition and allowed him to take possession of the garden which he had so Jongo coveted as his abode There he crawls about in the daytime and sleeps at night and is given his three good meals a day of bran and water and scraps from the table He is a perfectly harmless old fellow and the children have great sport with him two or three at a time riding ore his back It is only dangerous to place a hand on the side of his neck for as he contracts his neck quickly within his shell it is likely to be drawn In and injured But his funniest characteristic charac-teristic developed after he had been fairly accepted into the family circle I in return for the kindness layished upon him he took upon himself the functions func-tions of a watchdog The poor beast is not able to bark but when a stranger stran-ger enters the gate he gives forth such loud and formidable hisses as to frighten fright-en the mosfco trageou3 until they discover dis-cover that his hiss is worse than his bite It is estimated that this great turtle tur-tle is very old While not of a rare species he has grown to an unusual size His neck is beginning to shrivdl I and take upon itself the drawn look i of extreme age It is thought by some I that he is the famous turtle that belonged be-longed to Kainehameha I He was the greatest conqueror and king of the Hawaiian Ha-waiian islands and lived over 100 years ago Tho animal remained for generations genera-tions in the custody of the royal family fam-ily and last belonged to the queen dowager Kapiolani who died on June 24 Some time before the queens death the turtle disappeared But whether this queer old beast with its almost human intelligence has such a romantic roman-tic history or no it is today one of the most interesting sights of Honolulu I though few visitors know of its existence I exist-ence ANNA NORTHEAD BENJAMIN |