192 ENEMIES OF THE TOETOISB. 



to a monk of the Orinoco), the small traders rf Angostura, 

 who visit the encampments, can give, unfortunately, no very 

 exact information. But in these distant countries no doubt 

 is. ever entertained of the news brought by a white man 

 from the capital. The profit of the traders in oil amounts 

 to seventy or eighty per cent. ; for the Indians sell it them 

 at the price of a piastre a jar or botija, and the expense of 

 carriage is not more than two-fifths of a piastre per jar. 

 The Indians bring away also a considerable quantity of eggs 

 dried in the sun, or slightly boiled. Our rowers had baskets 

 or little bags of cotton-cloth filled with these eggs. Their 

 taste is not disagreeable, when well preserved. We were 

 shown large shells of turtles, which had been destroyed by 

 the jaguars. These animals follow the arraus towards those 

 places on the beach where the eggs are laid. They surprise 

 the arraus on the sand; and, in order to devour them at 

 their ease, turn them in such a manner that the under shell 

 is uppermost. In this situation the turtles cannot rise ; 

 and as the jaguar turns many more than he can eat in one 

 night, the Indians often avail themselves of his cunning and 

 avidity. 



When we reflect on the difficulty experienced by the 

 naturalist in getting out the body of the turtle without 

 separating the upper and under shells, we cannot sufficiently 

 wonder at the suppleness of the tiger's paw, which is able to 

 remove the double armour of the arrau, as if the adhering 

 parts of the muscles had been cut by a surgical instrument. 

 The jaguar pursues the turtle into the water when it is not 

 very deep. It even digs up the eggs; and together with 

 the crocodile, the heron, and the galinazo vulture, is the 

 most cruel enemy of the little turtles recently hatched. The 

 island of Pararuma had been so much infested with croco- 

 diles the preceding year, during the egg-harvest, that the 

 Indians in one night caught eighteen, of twelve or fifteen 

 feet long, by means of curved pieces of iron, baited with the 

 flesh of the manati. Besides the beasts of the forests we 

 have just named, the wild Indians also very much diminisl 

 the quantity of the oil. Warned by the first slight rains, 

 which they call 'turtle-rains' (peje canepori),* they hastei 

 to the banks of the Orinoco, and kill the turtles with poi 



* In the Tamanac language, from peje, a tortoise, and canepo, rain. 



