646 



TORTOISE TORTURE. 



covered with a soft, cartilaginous skin. The nose 

 is prolonged into a snout. The feet are palmated, 

 and provided with only three nails. The tail is 

 short. They live in fresh waters ; and the flexible 

 border of the shell assists them in swimming. T. 

 feroi, notwithstanding its name, is not more in- 

 clined to bite than usual. Of all the tortoises, it 

 furnishes the most wholesome and delicious food. 

 It attains large dimensions, and is usually speared 

 or shot. T. muticus of Lesueur strongly resembles 

 the preceding, and, indeed, has not been very 

 clearly distinguished. The only marked difference 

 seems to consist in the perfectly smooth shell. The 

 great soft -shelled tortoise of Florida is known only 

 from the figure of Bartram. The head and neck 

 are described as being provided with long retractile 

 tubercles, and the figure has five claws on each foot 

 if correct, a remarkable anomaly in this genus. 

 There is, however, sufficient evidence of the exis- 

 tence of this animal. 



The sea tortoises, or, as they are generally called, 

 turtles, (chelonia) far surpass the others in size, and 

 are found chiefly within the tropics. The head and 

 limbs are but slightly retractile, and the toes are en- 

 tirely united and enveloped in the common integu- 

 ments, forming a sort of flipper or paddle, as in the 

 seals. They feed on sea-weed at the bottom, but, 

 at a certain season, visit the shore, for the purpose 

 of depositing their eggs in the sand. The green 

 turtle (C. mydas) is well known for its delicious 

 and wholesome flesh. It is imported pretty exten- 

 sively from the West Indies. The C. imbricata 

 furnishes the finest tortoise-shell of commerce, but 

 the flesh is disagreeable. The coriaceous turtle 

 (C. coriacea) differs in having the shell covered 

 with a leathery skin, and three prominent ridges 

 upon the back. It attains enormous dimensions, 

 but is not applied to any useful purpose. 



The instinct which leads the female turtle to the 

 shore to lay her eggs, exposes her to the prey of 

 man, as well as of various quadrupeds. The count 

 de Lacipede, in his History of Oviporous Quadru- 

 peds, has described the various modes of turtle- 

 catching. 



" In spite of the darkness (he says) which is 

 chosen by the female tortoises for concealment 

 when employed in laying their eggs, they cannot 

 effectually escape from the pursuit of their ene- 

 mies : the fishers wait for them on the shore, at the 

 beginning of the night, especially when it is moon- 

 light, and, either as they come from the sea, or as 

 they return after laying their eggs, they either dis- 

 patch them with blows of a club, or turn them 

 quickly over on their backs, not giving them time 

 either to defend themselves, or to blind their as- 

 sailants, by throwing up the sand with their fins. 

 When very large, it requires the efforts of several 

 men to turn them over, and they must often em- 

 ploy the assistance of handspikes or levers for that 

 purpose. The buckler of this species is so flat as 

 to render it impossible for the animal to recover 

 the recumbent posture, when it is once turned on 

 its back. A small number of fishers may turn over 

 forty or fifty tortoises, full of eggs, in less than 

 three hours. During the day, they are employed 

 in securing those which they had caught in the pre- 

 ceding night. They cut them up, and salt the flesh 

 and the eggs. Sometimes they may extract above 

 thirty pints of a yellow or greenish oil from one 

 large individual; this is employed for. burning, or, 

 when fresh, is used with different kinds of food. 

 Sometimes they drag the tortoises they have caught, 



on their backs, to enclosures, in which they are re- 

 served for occasional use. The tortoise fisher-, 

 from the West Indies and the Bahamas, who rat Hi 

 these animals on the coasts of Cuba and its adjoin- 

 ing islands, particularly the Caynianas, usually com- 

 plete their cargoes in six weeks or two months; 

 they afterwards return to their own islands, with 

 the salted turtle, which is used for food both by 

 the whites and the negroes. This salt turtle is in 

 as great request in the American colonies, as the 

 salted cod of Newfoundland is in many parts of 

 Europe ; and the fishing is followed by all < 

 colonists, particularly by the British, in small ves- 

 sels, on various parts of the coast of Spanish Ameri- 

 ca, and the neighbouring desert islands. The green 

 tortoise is likewise often caught at sea in calm wea- 

 ther, and in moonlight nights. For this purpose 

 two men go together in a small boat, which is rowed 

 by one of them, while the other is providW with a 

 harpoon, similar to that used for killing whales. 

 Whenever they discover a large tortoise, by the 

 froth which it occasions on the water in rising to 

 the surface, they hasten to the spot as quickly us 

 possible, to prevent it from escaping. The liar- 

 pooner immediately throws his harpoon with suffi- 

 cient force to penetrate through the buckler to the 

 flesh; the tortoise instantly dives, and the fisher 

 gives out a line, which is fixed to the harpoon, and, 

 when the tortoise is spent with loss of blood, it is 

 hauled into the boat or on shore." 



TORTOL A ; one of the Virgin islands, near the 

 island of Porto Rico, belonging to the British ; 

 eleven and a half miles long, and three and a half 

 broad ; Ion. 64 20' W. ; lat. 18 20' N. It was 

 first settled by a party of Dutch bucaniers, who, in 

 1666, were driven out by others, who took posses- 

 sion in the name of the king of Britain, by whom 

 they were protected ; and Tortola was soon after 

 annexed to the government of the Leeward islands. 

 It has an unhealthy climate, and suffers much from 

 want of water. The chief productions are sugar 

 and cotton. The population, by the latest census, 

 amounts to 7172, of which 477 are whites, 1290 

 free people of colour, and 5399 slaves. 



TORTURE (Latin, quastio; French, question). 

 The extortion of confessions from a suspected pei- 

 son, or of discoveries from a condemned criminal, 

 has been common in all the nations of modern Eu- 

 rope. It was also practised by the ancient Romans, 

 although only upon the bodies of slaves, until the 

 servile period of the later empire (from the third 

 and fourth centuries). In the provinces, however, 

 where it had previously prevailed, as in the Orien- 

 tal countries, in Macedonia, Rhodes, Athens, &c., 

 it was retained by the provincial magistrates, even 

 to the disregard of the persons of Roman citizens. 

 Even the Roman civilians point out the absurdity 

 of the practice, which could not extort truth from 

 the stubborn, and might easily force the weak to 

 obtain relief by falsehood. Beccaria, with exqui- 

 site irony, puts the problem, The force of the mus- 

 cles, and the sensibility of the nerves, of an inno- 

 cent person, being given, to find the degree of pain 

 necessary to make him confess himself guilty. 

 Some writers have distinguished between the ap- 

 plication of torture, for purposes of discovery, and 

 for purposes of evidence, maintaining the propriety 

 of the former, while they acknowledge the folly and 

 cruelty of the latter. The term torture, although 

 improperly, is sometimes also employed to signify 

 the torments to which condemned criminals are 

 sentenced, as a part of their punishment, and not for 



