138 UP THE ORINOCO. 



ebullition. When well prepared, it was limpid, inodorous, 

 and scarcely yellow. The missionaries compared it to 

 the best olive oil, and it was used not merely for burning 

 in lamps, but for cooking. It was not easy, however, to 

 procure oil of turtles' eggs quite pure. It had generally 

 a putrid smell, owing to the mixture of eggs in which 

 the young were already formed. The Indians brought 

 away a great number of eggs to eat them dried in the 

 sun ; and they broke a considerable number through 

 carelessness during the gathering. The number of eggs 

 that were hatched before the people could dig them up 

 was so prodigious, that near the encampment of Uruana 

 Humboldt saw the whole shore of the Orinoco swarming 

 with little turtles an inch in diameter, escaping with diffi- 

 culty from the pursuit of the Indian children. 



At the Playa de huevos where their pilot had an- 

 chored to purchase provisions, their store having begun 

 to run short, the travellers found fresh meat, Angostura 

 rice, and even biscuit made of w4ieat-flour. Their In- 

 dians filled the boat with little live turtles, and eggs dried 

 in the sun, for their own use. Having taken leave of 

 the missionary of Uruana, who had treated them with 

 great kindness, they set sail about four in the afternoon. 

 The wind was fresh, and blew in squalls. Since they 

 had entered the mountainous part of the country, they 

 had discovered that their canoe carried sail very badly ; 

 but the master was desirous of showing the Indians who 

 were assembled on the beach, that, by going close to the 

 wind, he could reach, at one single tack, the middle of 

 the river. At the very moment when he was boasting 

 of his dexterity, and the boldness of his manoeuvre, the 

 force of the wind upon the sail became so great that they 



