394 ■ CHELONIA CHAP. 



after having laid their eggs. The sight was well worth the 

 trouble of ascending the shaky ladder. They were about a mile 

 off, but the surface of the sands was blackened with the multi- 

 tudes which were waddling towards the river ; the margin of 

 the praia was rather steep, and they all seemed to tumble 

 head first down the declivity into the water. . . . Placards were 

 l^osted up on the church doors at Ega, announcing that the 

 excavation on Shimuni would commence on the 17th of October, 

 and on ("atua, sixty miles below Shimuni, on the 25th. By the 

 morning of the l7th some 400 persons w^ere assembled on 

 the borders of the sand -bank, each family having erected a 

 rude temporary shed of poles and palm-leaves to protect them- 

 selves from the sun and rain. Large copper kettles to prepare 

 the oil, and hundreds of red earthenware jars, were scattered 

 about on the sand. 



" The excavation of the taboleiro, collecting the eggs, and 

 purifying the oil, occupied four days. All was done on a 

 system established Ijy the old Portuguese governors, probably 

 more than a century ago. The commandant first took down 

 the names of all the masters of households, with the number of 

 persons each intended to employ in digging ; he then exacted a 

 payment of 140 reis (about 4d.) a head towards defraying the 

 expense of sentinels. The whole were then allowed to go to 

 the taboleiro. They ranged themselves round the circle, each 

 person armed with a paddle, to be used as a spade, and then all 

 began simultaneously to dig on a signal being given — the roll of 

 drums — by order of the commandant. It was an animating 

 sight to behold the wide circle of rival diggers throwing up 

 clouds of sand in their energetic labours, and working gradually 

 towards the centre of the ring. A little rest was taken during 

 the great heat of mid-day, and in the evening the ' eggs were 

 carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day 

 the taboleiro was exhausted ; large mounds of eggs, some of 

 them four to five feet in height, were then seen by the side of 

 each lint, the produce of the labour of the family. 



'■ In the hurry of digging, some of the deeper nests are passed 

 over ; to find these out, the people go about provided with a 

 long steel or wooden probe, the presence of the eggs being 

 discoverable by the ease with which the spit enters the sand. 

 When no more eggs are to be found, the mashing process begins. 



