Turtle as Food 123 



to be much, if any, exaggeration attached to the 

 statements of Pliny and Strabo, who, describing the 

 Chelonophagi of the Red Sea, say that they utihsed 

 the shells of the Turtles they had eaten as roofs to their 

 huts, and boats for their feeble voyages. 



Strange to say, the handsomest Turtle, the Hawk's- 

 bill variety {Chelone imbricata), furnishes the worst 

 flesh, being so strongly flavoured with musk as to be 

 almost uneatable. This peculiarity would seem to 

 point to a diet of squid, since these moUusca are ex- 

 ceedingly musky. But it may not be out of place to 

 remark here that Turtle flesh, even of the best sorts 

 is not nice. As Sam Weller's pieman hoarsely whis- 

 pered, * it's the seasonin' as does it.' A diet of Turtle 

 steaks, or of hashed Turtle, or of Turtle soup, au naturel, 

 would soon sicken any one but a savage. For sixpence, 

 or its equivalent, in most of the West India Island towns 

 one can get a heaped plate of Turtle steak, with bread 

 or yams or sweet potatoes ad lib. But I never knew 

 even a hungry sailor that wanted more than one meal 

 a week of it, for all its cheapness. 



The fact is that, in the cult of Turtle soup, we are 

 following (a long way off, it is true) the example set by 

 the Chinese, who love gelatinous soups, and pay fabu- 

 lous prices for the nests of the sea swallow, the Holo- 

 ihuria, or sea-slug, and sharks' fins, simply because of 

 their gelatinous qualities. Yet, strange to say, they 

 do not put the same value on the Turtle as we do. 

 Turtle are many in number on the Chinese coast, and 

 the guileful Chinese fisherman has developed a splendid 

 plan for securing them with little trouble to himself. 

 He captures some Remorae, those little sharks that are 

 so lazy that they have developed a sucking arrangement 

 on the top of their heads, whereby they may, and do, 

 attach themselves to anything that is likely to float 



