128 UP THE OKINOCO. 



sun. The oleaginous portion, rising to the surface, is 

 removed and clarified by boiling, forming the article so 

 well known in the country as manteca de tortuga, or turtle- 

 butter. Angostura is the principal market for this animal 

 product, and traders are upon the ground at the season of 

 the harvest, to pui'chase from the Indians the results of 

 their labors. 



It is not easy to conceive how great is the destruction 

 of these useful creatures by their various enemies. Even 

 thousands of those that hatch are destroyed before reach- 

 ing tlieir natural element, falling a prey to vultures and 

 other carnivorous birds, jaguars, and the Indians, who es- 

 teem them a delicious morsel, eating them shell and all. 

 N"or are they free from capture when they have entered 

 the water ; for caimans and ravenous fishes there await 

 them ; still, they perpetuate their race in such untold 

 thousands, that, as Father Gumilla has observed, " it would 

 be as difticult to count the sands of the extensive banks 

 of the Orinoco as to compute the immense number of 

 turtles which it harbors on its borders, and in the depths 

 of its current. . . . Notwithstanding the size of the Ori- 

 noco River, it is the opinion of the experts of that coun- 

 try that, were it not for this extraordinary consumption 

 of turtles and their eggs, the increase of these animals in 

 the river would be such as to render it unnavigable ; for 

 boats would find it impossible to make way through the 

 immense number of turtles which would ajspear, were all 

 these eggs to be hatched." What is also an astonishing 

 fact in connection with these reptiles is, the number of 

 years' eggs each contains. There are the eggs fully formed 

 for deposit, then those still smaller for the next year, and 

 so on, diminishing in size for each succeeding issue ; and, 

 says the pious Father Gumilla, " God only knows for how 

 many years these creatures are endowed with similar re- 

 ceptacles of life in embryo." 



