GREEN TURTLE. Chelonia viridu 



when the sailors have been forced to eat salt provisions until the system becomes 

 deteriorated, and the fearful scourge of scurvy is impending over crew and officers, the 

 Turtle becomes an absolute necessity, and is the means of saving many a noble vessel 

 from destruction, by giving the crew a healthful change of diet, and purifying the blood 

 from the baneful effects of a course of salted provisions. 



Landsmen have little notion of the real texture and flavour of " salt junk," their ideas 

 being generally confined to the delicately corned and pinky beef or pork that is served up 

 to table, with the accompaniments of sundry fresh and well-dressed vegetables. Whereas, 

 salt junk is something like rough mahogany in look and hardness, and salted to such a 

 degree as almost to blister the tongue of a landsman. It may easily be imagined how 

 any one who has been condemned to a course of this diet for a lengthened time would 

 welcome fresh meat of any kind whatever, and we need not wonder at the extraordinary 

 relish with which sailors will eat sharks, sea-birds, and various other strangely flavoured 

 creatures. 



Even in such favoured countries as England, the flesh and fat of the Turtle are 

 valuable in a medicinal point of view, and will supply in a more agreeable, though more 

 costly manner, the various remedies for consumptive tendencies, decline, and similar 

 diseases, of which cod-liver oil is the most familiar and one of the most nauseous 

 examples. 



Formerly, before steam power was applied to vessels, the Turtle was extremely scarce 

 and very expensive, but it can now be obtained on much more reasonable terms. Many 

 vessels are now in the habit of bringing over Turtles as part of their cargo, and it is 

 found that these valuable reptiles are easily managed when on board, requiring hardly 

 any attention. The following short account of some captive Turtles has been, kindly 

 presented to me by a partaker of their voyage and their flesh. 



" The Island of Ascension is a great resort of Turtle, which are there captured and 

 retained prisoners in some large ponds from which they are occasionally transferred to 

 H.M. ships for ' rations ' for the crew. These Turtle may be seen in the ponds, lazily 

 moving along, one above another, sometimes three or four deep They occasionally comf 



