Galapagos Islands  Notes  Source  Whalesite

Friedrich Ritter

Adam and Eve in the Galapagos

Friedrich Ritter

      On July 4, 1929, Dore Ritter and I, Friedrich Ritter, sailed from Amsterdam on board the freighter Boskop bound for the Galapagos Islands. To those who could not know or understand our motives, the journey upon which we had embarked must have seemed the strangest ever undertaken. Leaving behind me a lucrative practice of medicine in Berlin, I and my comrade were in fact turning our backs forever upon civilization and the society of our fellow men. Of our own free will and choice we were going into exile to seek in the solitude of an almost desert island in the far Pacific the independence, the peace of mind, the opportunity to cultivate our reflective powers to the fullest, which are denied to man by the complexities of modern life.

      My decision to go into solitude was not a rash inspiration; for twenty years the idea had been maturing in my mind. But I had early perceived that one must learn to wait, even though patience, as Nietzche says, is the most difficult of virtues. Now, at the age of forty-three, my time had come, and I did not hesitate to take the bold step which I had so long forseen as an inevitable one for me. Every human life follows natural laws in its development, and if I am to make my "unnatural" decision to forsake society seem natural to others, as it unquestionably was to me, I shall have to sketch a few facts of my childhood and youth which will be enough to explain me as the Homo solitarius. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to read between the lines of my brief history and see why I am I.

I

      My father was a farmer's son, a land owner of Wollback in the Black Forest. Ambitious, economical, industrious, he became in the course of time a storekeeper and bought the goods for the whole community. He was also a carpenter and contracted for the construction of houses. My mother was from the southwestern part of the forest. She was a good wife, a patient mother, and in every way comple-

mented the good qualities of my father. I was always a small and sickly child, frequently tormented by colds, headaches, earaches, and other minor ailments. For this reason my parents wanted to defer my enrollment at school, but upon my urgent insistence I was allowed to enter. Our school-master was exceedingly strict. He was a firm believer in the virtues of a hazel switch, which he never let out of his hand. He would keep us attentive and awake by brandishing it threateningly over our heads. When I was eight or nine years old we had for a teacher an even greater tyrant. His method of instilling wisdom into us was to thrash our bottoms. The harshness of this discipline by which the world of my childhood was ruled made a lasting impression upon me.

      I learned, however, that I could find release from his rigid system by escaping into the bosom of nature. The forest lay all about us, and at every opportunity I would go off alone to ramble through the woods. I loved the beauty of the age-old trees, the majestic silence of those shaded paths where I could be myself and think my own thoughts more freely than anywhere else. It fascinated me to observe the birds and animals and to learn their habits. In the depths of the forest there was a deep, clear pool full of trout which I visited frequently, spending hours on end just watching them. One large fellow was there year after year and I always knew where to find him. In these expeditions I discovered that my greatest pleasure lay in following my own whims wherever they might lead, without having to accommodate my wishes to the will of others. Though I had a sister, she was twelve years older than I and rarely interfered with my solitary games, as other children are wont to do, for she was away at school most of the time. I might as well have been an only child.

      My father used to take me hunting with him and instructed me in the careful use of firearms. He tried to awaken in me an interest in this sport, but without success. I could never find any enjoyment in the wanton killing of harmless animals. It always made me sad even to see wild things held captive in cages. One day my father caught in a box trap a red-tailed bird that had been eating our bees. He gave me the box and told me to carry the bird home. On the way I peeped in and saw the poor thing huddled in the far corner, frightened and cowering. Without debating the consequences of my disobedience, I opened the door wide and let it fly away. I was ashamed that I had betrayed my father's trust, but I was also glad that the bird had escaped.

      Since my father was a carpenter as well as a storekeeper, I received a thorough training in the use of hammer and saw. All of my playthings were handmade; either I made them myself or my father helped me. I also developed an early interest in machinery. The pride of my mother's life was a sewing machine which my father had bought for her. As soon as it entered our house I felt an irrestible desire to take it apart. One day when the coast was clear I did take it apart. Fortunately for me, when I put it back together again it ran better than before. After that it was always entrusted to my fixing when something went wrong. I was not so lucky, however, with a telephone, for I almost burned down the house by tampering with it.

      As my schooling progressed I began to read intensively. Among the books which made the strongest impression on my imagination were Robinson Crusoe and Cooper's Leatherstocking tales. Growing older, I began to devote all my energies to serious studies. I attended a Realschule as well as a

Gymnasium, and then went on to the University of Freiburg, where I studied chemistry, physics, philosophy, and later, medicine. At twenty I married. Soon after the outbreak of the war I became a soldier and went through the "steel bath" in the artillery corps. At the conclusion of the hostilities I returned once more to my studies, passed my medical examination, and began to practice my profession in Berlin.

      During all this time the one fixed idea with which I seemed to have been born was maturing in my brain, and my contacts with the world had only served to strengthen it. Organized society appeared to me a huge, impersonal monster forging ever-new chains with which to shackle the free development of its members. Moreover, I saw that the world was chasing madly after the ephemeral and valueless things of life. Civilized man works for money and his labor is rarely requited according to its importance or usefulness; on the contrary, the most superfluous and luxurious positions are usually the most lucrative. Instinctively I rebelled against the necessity of fitting my own life to this mould which other men had cast. The mysticism of the Chinese revealed to me one alternative, the philosophy of Tolstoy another. Out of all my studies there gradually emerged a philosophy of my own, and with this to guide me I saw that my only course lay in following the road leading to a purely subjective existence. I would flee the beaten paths of man, put aside all the irrelevant trappings of civilization, and seek a solitude where I could at last live wholly and completely in contemplation and communion with nature.

      Fortunately, I had in Dore a companion who fully shared my point of view, and who was not appalled by the prospect of the physical hardships which a woman would have to endure in the wilderness. When the time came to broach a definite plan, she was ready to embrace it – not in submission to my wishes, but with enthusiasm equal to mine. So, to the consternation of all our friends and relatives, we settled our affairs, got together a store of such provisions as we thought we should need, and set forth upon our great adventure. That July morning two years ago when we stepped aboard the Boskop at Amsterdam, we realized without regret that we had severed the last tie which bound us to the common lot.

II

      I shall not bother to give an account of our voyage, which must have been very much like any other. It will be more to the point to explain why we selected the Galapagos–of all places in the world–for our unique experiment.

      These islands, some fifty in number, form an archipelago off the western coast of South America and belong to the Republic of Ecuador. They lie directly on the equator. The larger islands are inhabited; some of the smaller ones remain without human intruders. Charles Darwin, when he sailed as naturalist on the Beagle, touched at the islands, and in his journal of the voyage gave the first full account of their many striking peculiarities. He noted that they were volcanic in origin and only partly given over to vegetation. Very little rain falls, but the clouds generally hang low, so that on the higher slopes of the extinct volcanoes there is enough moisture to promote a lush growth of tropical plants, while the lower parts of the islands are extremely arid. The climate is astonishingly mild for the torrid zone, for a cool trade wind blows over the islands the year round and the Humboldt current, flowing northward

from the Antarctic, gives the surrounding waters of the Pacific a singularly low temperature.

      "The natural history of this archipelago," wrote Darwin, "is very remarkable. It seems to be a little world within itself; the greater number of its inhabitants, both vegetable and animal, being found nowhere else." He had a great deal to say about the giant tortoises for which the islands have since become famous, and concluded with this remark about one member of the group: "I should think it would be difficult to find in any other part of the world an island situated within the tropics, so sterile and incapable of supporting life."

      The description is forbidding enough, yet, strange to say, this was the exact spot on which we had set our hopes. And not without reason. We were fleeing from the world; it would never do for our settlement to become so attractive that the world would flock to us. From all I could learn, the conditions of soil and climate were such that we could raise enough food for two people–and little more. That was just what we wanted; only enough for two meant no neighbors. Moreover, I had decided that we must go to the tropics, because in my German home the winter extends through three quarters of the year and it rains during half of the summer. Such a climate is in no wise suited to solitude. I needed uniformity of day and season, a climate as unchangeable as possible; no confusion, but eternal regularity. The Galapagos Islands satisfied this condition perfectly. Then, too, they promised us the advantages of the tropics without their disadvantages. As Darwin had pointed out, they lie on the equator, but are much cooler than their position would seem to warrant.

      We had selected for our experiment the island of Floreana, one of the smallest of the group, and upon its desolate beach we were at length put ashore, together with our baggage and supplies, comprising in all some eight hundred-weight of freight. Before we left Germany we had taken great pains to draw up a list of the many things we should need upon such a venture. We eliminatedjj every luxury, but took careful precautions not to omit any necessity. Once we found ourselves in that distant part of the world, the chance of supplementing our stores would be very remote. Unlike Robinson Crusoe, we should not have a wrecked ship to plunder at our leisure.

      We had brought along, then, a sufficient assortment of clothes, cooking utensils, and such building materials as nails, wire, and rope. We had laid in a supply of woolen goods, cotton stuffs, and canvas. I had purchased every conceivable tool that I thought would be needed, not only for construction work, but for agriculture, and had collected the seeds of all vegetables and fruits which might be made to grow in that climate. Among our other stores were guns and ammunition, books (most of them philosophical), writing materials, and a small collection of livestock consisting of a crate of chickens and two cats. Last but not least, my teeth were in a deplorable condition, so before leaving Germany I had a set of false teeth made of rust-proof steel.

      With these provisions we were now to subdue the wilderness and make a home for ourselves.

III

      The first thing we had to do was to find a shelter until we could build a house of our own, and we were overjoyed to discover that nature had generously anticipated our wants. Behind the long, sloping beach the land rose

gradually in a series of irregular hills overgrown with thorn bushes; beyond towered the volcanic mountains, the backbone of the island–monuments to the violent passions of Mother Earth in an age long past. A short search among the foothills revealed to us a number of rough caves in the black lava rock, formed, no doubt, by the hardening of the lava into successive ridges which were later bridged over by new flows that left air pockets in the hills. In these caves we could take refuge from both rain and sun until, by our own labor, we should be able to erect a more commodious and comfortable dwelling place. We selected for our temporary home the largest cave we could find and made storehouses of some of the smaller ones, to which we dragged up from the beach such of our provisions as would be likely to suffer damage from the weather.

      The task of transporting our supplies even so short a distance was extremely difficult work. The lava surface was rough beyond description, broken as it was by endless contortions and sharp edges which made mere walking a laborious process. To pick our way over such treacherous ground when we were laden with heavy boxes and crates are precarious indeed–any misstep might mean a sprained ankle or a broken leg. Moreover, the thicket of thorn bushes, the only plants which could find nourishment in this barren soil, was almost impenetrable, and I had first to hew out a path with my axe.

      The direct rays of the tropical sun soon converted our rocky pass into an inferno of dancing heat waves. For relief we were forced to discard all our clothing except high hip boots, which we thought it advisable to put on to protect our feet and legs against the jagged rocks. Henceforth this was to be our conventional garb. On those first few days we must have presented a curious spectacle, had there been any other human eyes to spy upon us: our bodies beet-red from the sun, we were a toiling Adam and Eve–in boots.

      After we had spent several days in the caves and had given out too-civilized muscles an opportunity to relax, we set out to explore our island and look for a permanent home site. The shape of the island, we learned, was roughly that of a peanut in which one kernal has failed to mature to normal size. To the north lay the atrophied kernel, to the south the full kernel, the two joined by a narrow isthmus. Across this isthmus ran the range of old volcanoes which extended the full length of the island, the higher peaks hidden in banks of fleecy clouds. The point at which we had been put ashore was a bay on the western coast where the two kernels of the nut come together. The open harbor is deep enough to afford a sheltered anchorage for occasional ships that put in there for fresh water and fruits. These ships, which come only at rare intervals, give us our only contact with civilization and are obliging enough to take whatever letters we wish to send to the outside world. For this reason we have since named the spot Post Office Bay.

      Upon one of our early journeys of exploration we turned eastward to cross the isthmus and see what lay upon the other side. The ubiquitous thorn bushes and the rough lava slopes made our progress both slow and tortuous, but at length we topped the divide. From this vantage point we could look back upon Post Office Bay and the desolate expanse of black and brown hills up which we had toiled. On the other side the Pacific again met our gaze, stretching away in a waveless blue expanse to the far horizon. As we descended we emerged upon an

overhanging shelf of rock that commanded a view of the whole eastern side of the island, and suddenly there opened beneath us a scene of ravishing beauty. On the crest of one of the lower peaks there lay, like a huge horseshoe carved in basalt, the crater of an extinct volcano, its rim a solid wall on three sides but worn down to form an opening at one end. Up to this moment we had encountered only a dead and thorny waste, but here our tired eyes feasted upon a leafy sea of verdant greenness. This natural amphitheatre was a veritable paradise of tropical vegetation.

      We made our way down into the crater with all possible haste, plunging at once into a jungle of trees, vines, tall weeds and grasses. All about grew tropical fruits in abundance, including bananas, oranges, pineapples, lemons, guavas, papayas, and many others which I could not identify. In the centre of the fertile basin welled up a clear spring, the source of a tiny brook which wound its way toward the open end of the crater wall and thence tumbled down to the sea. The secret of this sudden burst of verdure in the midst of the surrounding waste land lies in the mountains themselves. As I have already pointed out, very little rain falls in the Galapagos, but the volcanic peaks are high enough to bathe themselves in the low-lying clouds, from which the thirsty earth draws moisture to support a lush growth of vegetable life. It is one of the many paradoxes of this strange land.

IV

      Our preliminary survey satisfied us that we had found the ideal spot for our future home. The little valley which forms this natural garden lies almost five hundred feet up on the side of a mountain, and through the open end of the horseshoe rim it affords an unobstructed view of the ocean two miles away. It would be a superb site for a house. The soil was a rich black, once we had cleared it of weeds, rocks, and superfluous trees, we could make it yield us a plentiful supply of food.

      I suggested to Dore that we abandon our caves at once and take possession here, and playfully added that to make it legal we ought to serve notice of our occupancy with fitting ceremony. "Splendid!" laughed Dore. "We'll christen the valley and I'll honor the occasion with a ceremonial dance. That ought to make it legal enough." Immediately she fitted action to word. Just as she used to dance to music at home, so now she danced to the music of nature's silent melodies. Infected by her joyousness, I stooped to the spring and, sprinkling a few drops of the earth, pronounced the land ours: "In the name of the Ritters I take possession of thee, O lovely valley, against all comers, and with thine own pure waters I christen thee Friedo, our Garden of Peace."

      Hardly had the words issued from my mouth when, casting an appreciative glance about our new domain, my eye was suddenly arrested by the dark forms of several large animals outlined against the sky upon the crater rim. They appeared to resemble nothing so much as cattle, and they seemed to be quietly grazing, unaware of our presence so near them. Were they some unknown species of Galapagos buffalo? We could not imagine what they migbt be, and our misgivings were natural enough under the circumstances. So far as we knew, the island sheltered no dangerous animals, yet the huge beasts there above us might prove that all the books were wrong. It was far from pleasant at that moment to realize that we were two weak human beings utterly alone in a land of strange sur-

prises, naked and defenseless except for my low-calibre rifle which I had been wise enough to bring along.

      Determined to put an end to the uncertainty of our situation, I bid Dore take refuge in a clump of small trees while I crept cautiously up to the higher ground to investigate. Imagine my immense relief and almost equal amazement when I came close enough to the beasts to see that they were indeed cattle–a bull and three cows–and as much at home in this wild country as if they were grazing in some farmer's pasture. With this reassuring discovery I stood up in plain view of them; whereupon they gave evidence of as much surprise at seeing me as I had first felt at seeing them. They wheeled about, bellowing frantically, and bounded over the rocks with remarkable nimbleness for such heavy creatures; then disappeared beyond the rim of the crater.

      This comic performance put to flight all our fears, but left us with a mystery on our hands. What were cows doing here? It was another Galapagos paradox. Then I recalled a bit of the history of the island which I had forgotten in my moment of panic. Some years ago a group of hardy pioneers had attempted to make a settlement on Floreana, but after a futile struggle they gave up the project and departed. They must have brought live stock with them, and it now occurred to me that they must also have abandoned some of their animals to shift for themselves when they left.

      Our subsequent experiences have confirmed this conjecture as the true explanation. We were not long in learning that there were not only cows upon the island, but also most of the other beasts which man has learned to tame. These, the descendants of the domesticated animals brought in by the pioneers, had, in the long absence of human beings, reverted to their original state in nature. Had we but known it, there was good reason after all for our first misgivings. We had fled from the society of overcivilized man, but now we had for neighbors a vagrant colony of wild cattle, wild hogs, wild asses, wild dogs, and wild tabby cats. They ranged over the whole island and seemed to resent our intrusion upon their preserve. As my narrative progresses I shall have a great deal more to say about these perverted creatures and their almost devilish attempts to thwart our plans.

V

We wanted eventually to build a solid house that would harmonize with the Galapagos landscape and endure permanently the ravages of the tropical climate. With such materials as we had at hand this would require months, and perhaps years, of labor. Meanwhile we could not continue to live in the caves and exhaust our strength climbing back and forth over the mountain. So I set about clearing the ground for a more or less temporary shelter.

      Inexperienced as I then was, the work of breaking out this first open space in the jungle was the hardest I had ever undertaken. It gave me a foretaste of what was in store for me when the time came to lay out our garden. But although my hands were blistered and my muscles ached, I could not think of it as drudgery. With each tree that fell as I advanced with my axe I experienced the joy of achievement. The dream of my life was at last becoming a reality. And in the process Dore and I were learning what it means to grow in harmonious accord with nature. Each object in Friedo was gradually becoming a part of us: each stone, each tree, each foot of soil took on a personality as the embodiment

of a bit of toil, a conscious thought, a benediction, or a curse.

      At first my heartiest curses were reserved for this Galapagos wood, which is as ill-suited for building purposes as one could well imagine. There were only two kinds of trees from which to choose my lumber for construction work–one a heartwood which is so hard that I have never been able to drive a nail straight into it, the other a species of acacia which grows only in curves. The heartwood was impossible, so I had to adapt my plans to the nature of the sinuous acacia–I built a circular house. When the walls were finished, I covered the structure with some roofing felt which I had brought from Germany, and the result was pleasing enough. At any rate it stood the test of the first rainfall.

      Later, however, the sun aided the obstinate acacia in its wrath against us for putting it to such arbitrary uses. As the house dried out, the wood began to curl anew, great cracks appearing between the boards until our shelter looked like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster. We were afraid it would keep on curling until the whole thing fell apart, but at this juncture a Norwegian ship put into Post Office Bay and we secured from it thirty-six corrugated iron plates, which I laid on the roof to help hold the boards in place by their added weight. But by this time the acacia sprang another trick on us even more surprising. The rainy season was over and the moisture brought the dead wood to life again. It began to send forth shoots; green leaves appeared on the jambs and rafters; in fact, fine sprouting took place everywhere out of the sweet bast wood. We found ourselves dwelling in a "living" house.

      Fortunately, it did n't matter how many cracks and fissures developed in the sides of our dwelling so long as the roof stayed on, for the climate is uniformly mild in all seasons. It is warm enough to permit complete nakedness even in the early morning. A roof on poles, with mosquito netting for protection against the insects, would be shelter enough. The wind is hardly ever squally, never strong, and even if it blew a gale it would n't bother us, enclosed as we are by the rim of the crater. Nevertheless, our gentle wind makes its influence felt in Friedo in a striking feature of the landscape: since it always blows from one point of the compass, all the trees and plants grow obliquely.

      At the equator it is meaningless to divide the year into spring, summer, fall, and winter, but Europeans find it difficult to break this verbal habit. In the Galapagos we have only rainy and dry seasons–two of each. The year begins with a rainy season. For days on end the higher mountain tops disappear in heavy clouds and we have regular morning showers, usually light and of short duration. Then it is that Friedo begins to don its robe of most luxurious green. Afterward we have a period of great drought, accompanied by a remarkable cessation of vegetable growth. The sun shines brilliantly for weeks together, and some of the tropical trees lose all their leaves just as if it were winter. The sea lies blue and calm with hardly a ripple upon its surface. Then comes a second rainy season with the September equinox. Many fruits now begin to ripen, but there are numerous exceptions to the rule. Oranges and lemons, for example, stay ripe through half the year. Finally, in November, another dry period begins.

VI

      In the olden days, before the advent of man upon these shores, the giant tortoises used to come out of the ocean

and clamber up into these hills and mountains to drink the fresh water. They came in such numbers that they beat out hard paths through the woods and thorn thickets, forming an intricate system of natural highways that wind and interlace over the whole island. Recently the wild dogs abandoned here by the first settles have killed off great numbers of the tortoises, as their shells and skeletons in every part of the island prove only too well. The others have evidently been frightened away by this wholesale butchery of their friends and relatives and now they rarely come ashore here, although they may still be seen swimming about in the surrounding waters.

      Nevertheless, their ancient paths remain and are now used by all the other animals in their ceaseless wanderings. Our valley had evidently been a favorite rendezvous for them, at night they descended upon us from all directions, the wild asses announcing their approach by the thunder of their hoofs upon the stones, the others by their cries. If we were to have a garden, it soon became apparent to us that we should first have to build a fence about our domain to keep off these marauding herds. After weeks of toil the fence became a reality, but it was not a complete success. The smaller animals scaled it or came through the cracks; the larger one crashed through it in the darkness, and almost every morning it was necessary to make repairs.

      Our daylight hours are never dull; there is always work to do and on no two successive days are our labors quite the same. The nights, however, are all alike–an endless round of wild and savage noises. When the sun sets blood-red into the sea, darkness comes on rapidly. Blossoms close for the night and for a brief space all nature is hushed. The only sound is the hum of myriad insects' wings. Then, as at a given signal, pandemonium breaks loose. The full moon of the tropics brings all the wild things forth from their hiding places, and those that are tortured by the pangs of hunger or love carry on their raucous struggle for existence just beyond our door. In our light shelter we might as well be sleeping in the open, so little does it cut us off from the bedlam outside. All night the air is rent by the cries of these animals.

      The asses bray to each other, and their braying is a curious blend of melancholy and defiance which seems to express their pent-up sense of the injustice their race has suffered through centuries of abuse. Many times during those first nights I rushed from my pallet, waving my arms and shouting to frighten them away, but it was a useless waste of energy. They always returned to take up their concert where they had left off. After we built our fence they thought up a new game: they seemed to consider it the greatest sport in the world to gallop round and round the enclosure, hurling their shrill challenges to us to come forth and chase them off. The cows lowed and bellowed, the pigs grunted and squealed, the hounds bayed at the moon and yelped in pursuit of the cats, while the cats made savage love and fought each other as is their immemorial habit.

      All this was orchestrated as a devils' chorus. We had to learn to accustom ourselves to it before we could lie down to rest with any assurance that we should sleep.

VII

      Everybody who has ever dreamed of an experiment such as ours–and many more there are who have toyed with the idea than will ever dare to think seriously of putting it into execu-

tion–paints in his fancy a particular picture of an idyllic life for two. There is always implicit in this picture something of Adam, Eve, and Paradise, but it is always a special Adam, a special Eve, and a special Paradise. Hence it is destined to remain only a picture, more beautiful, more celestial than can ever be realized. All human desires and longings take into account only the positive and agreeable aspect of things. Indeed, it would hardly seem worth the effort to strive for any goal if the disagreeable obstacles to its attainment were focused too clearly in our thoughts. Thus it is that the imaginative optimism of the human mind gives us the power, unconscious but dynamic, to move mountains.

      "This is the best of all possible worlds," affirms Nietzsche with his characteristic optimism, "for if it were still better it would no longer be earth, but heaven." To this the pessimism of Schopenhauer replies, "This is the worst of all possible worlds, for if it were any worse it could no longer exist as earth–it would be hell." Who shall say which one of these judgments is the right one? To me it seems that both are right; each is necessary to explain the other. Heaven and hell are states of mind. How could we even imagine a heaven if we had not already experienced a hell to give it meaning?

      So with us at Friedo. The heaven on earth for which we are working is not some silly theologian's dream of a golden city where all the creature comforts denied us in the practical life shall be offered us for the taking. Our heaven is a pure state of mind, a sense of mental peace to be achieved through self-knowledge, and to this end our work contributes in the fullest degree. It may seem to others that we who have come so far in search of this heaven have only succeeded in discovering a very special kind of hell. True, we toil and moil against greater odds and bear daily a far heavier burden of labor than is required of most men and women in civilized society. Still, we regard our lot as the preferable one for us. We two are the absolute masters of our destiny as you who remain in Europe and America can never hope to be. Here in the desolate solitude of the Galapagos our lives are entirely submissive to a purely personal and inward sense of duty. We were able, therefore, to proceed with the immensely difficult job of clearing the ground for our garden without being discouraged or overwhelmed by the peculiar hardships involved.

      That, however, is a story in itself. Next month I shall send you another article describing how, like the real Adam and Eve, we actually turned this wilderness into a flourishing garden by the sweat of our brows, and how nature itself tried to thwart our plans at every point. I shall tell you about our most fiendish neighbors, the devil pigs. Later I shall hope to have you as my guest in Friedo for one day (I doubt if either of us would appreciate a longer visit), so that you may see for yourself just how we live and spend our time.

      Until then – Auf Wiedersehen!

      Use of the centered roman numerals in all three articles follows the Atlantic Monthly style applied to its feature articles as noted in John Woram's now defunct website – galapagos.to, which was the source used for this transcription.

      Dr. Friedrich Karl Ritter of Berlin was a dentist who longed for a retreat where he could indulge his raw food theories and complete his magnum opus, a philosophical theosophist treatise. He was accompanied by his devoted disciple and girlfriend, Dore Koerwein, who was known to island visitors as Dore Ritter, although their respective spouses had been left in Germany with instructions to take care of each other.[ Smithsonian Institution Archives.]

Friedrich Ritter.
      "Adam and Eve in the Galapagos."
Atlantic Monthly.
Vol. 148 (October 1931)
p409-418.

Galapagos Islands  Notes  Source  Whalesite