CHAPTER XXI. 



TURTLE-SPEARING. 



" Man's life is warm, glad, sad, 'twixt loves and graves, 



Boundless in hope, honoured with pangs austere, 



Heaven gazing ; and his angel wings he craves ; 



The fish is swift, small needing, vague yet clear, 



A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapt in round waves, 



Quickened with touches of transporting fear." 



Leigh Hunt. 



Some fishermen coming in reported many turtles in sight off 

 the coast, and we arranged a turtle hunt for the following day. At 

 early dawn two dug-out canoes with negro boatmen pulled down 

 the bay to the outer islands. The boats were shapely, the oarsmen 

 good, the water smooth, and with song and story we sped out to 

 the islands, and leaving our luncheon and heavy impedimenta on 

 shore under the shade of a cabbage-palm, we emerged into the 

 open gulf. 



There are several varieties of tortoise in the gulf, the chief 

 being the loggerhead-turtle, which is the largest in size, the 

 hawkbill-turtle and the green-turtle. The hawkbill produces 

 the shell that is so valuable in commerce. The females of each 

 variety come to the sandy beaches in the night-time, more fre- 

 quently in moonlight nights, and crawling up above high water- 

 mark, dig a hole with their hinder flappers a foot deep in the sand, 

 in which they deposit their eggs twenty to thirty in number, and 

 covering them with sand, and smoothing down the surface, they 

 crawl back again to the sea. The same tortoise lays eggs several 

 times the same season. 



Often one sees the easily recognised trail of the turtle with its 

 equidistant stub foot-tracks in each side, and the mark of the tail 

 between. By following the trail one soon sees where the shore- 



