FISHING-NETS AND BASKETS. 631 



watch for the creatures as soon as they are hatched, and collect 

 great numbers. 



Humboldt calculates that nearly a million turtles annually 

 deposit their eggs on the banks of the Lower Orinoco. In the 

 Amazon, already the turtles have greatly decreased in num- 

 bers ; and Bates states that, where formerly he could buy one 

 for ninepence, he could with difficulty procure them latterly 

 for eight or nine shillings each. Every house on the banks 

 has a little pond, called a corral, or pen, in the back-yard, to 

 hold a stock of large turtle during the wet months, till a fresh 

 supply can be procured in the dry season. 



The tracaja, or smaller kind, which lays its eggs a month 

 earlier than the larger species, seldom lives, in captivity, be- 

 yond a few days. 



The natives cook the turtles in various ways. The entrails 

 make a delicious soup, called sarapatel; while the flesh of the 

 breast is mixed with farina, and roasted in the breast shell 

 over the fire. Steaks, cooked with fat, make another dish ; 

 and large sausages, composed of the thick -coated stomach, 

 filled with mince-meat, and boiled, are considered great deli- 

 cacies. Bates, however, found, that though the flesh is very 

 tender, palatable, and wholesome, it becomes cloying after a 

 person has lived on it for some time ; and he at length could 

 not bear the smell, even though suffering from hunger. 



FISHING-NETS AND BASKETS. 



The tribes on the River "[Jape's use several kinds of bows, 

 some from five to six feet long, the arrows being still longer. 

 The shaft is made of the flower-stalk of the arrow-grass. 

 The head is composed of hard wood pointed, and some- 

 times armed with a serrated spine of the ray-fish, covered 



