298 The Ajsides ai^d the Amazon. 



The mammoth tortoise of the Galapagos lays an egg ver}' 

 similar in size and shape to that of the Tortaruga, but a 

 month later, or in October. The hunting of turtle eggs is 

 a great business on the Amazon. They are used chiefly in 

 manufacturing oil (manteca) for illumination. Thrown 

 into a canoe, they are broken and beaten up by human 

 feet ; water is then poured in, and the floating oil is skim- 

 med off, purified over the fire in copper kettles, and finally 

 put up in three-gallon earthen jars for the market. The 

 turtles are caught for the table as they return to the river 

 after laying their eggs. To secure them, it sufiices to turn 

 them over on their backs. The turtles certainly have a 

 hard time of it. The alligators and large fishes swallow 

 the young ones by hundreds; jaguars pounce upon the full- 

 grown specimens as they crawl over the plaias, and vul- 

 tures and ibises attend the feast. But man is their most 

 formidable foe. The destruction of turtle life is incredi- 

 ble. It is calculated that fifty millions of eggs are an- 

 nually destroyed. Thousands of those that escape capture 

 in the egg period are collected as soon as hatched and de- 

 voured, " the remains of yolk in their entrails being con- 

 sidered a great delicacy." An unknown number of full- 

 grown turtles are eaten by the nati^'es on the banks of the 

 Maranon and Solimoens and their tributaries, while every 

 steamer, schooner, and little craft that descends the Ama- 

 zon is laden with turtles for the tables of Manaos, Santa- 

 rem, and Para. When we consider, also, that all the ma- 

 ture turtles taken are females, we wonder that the race is 

 not well-nigh extinct. They are, in fact, rapidly decreas- 

 ing in numbers. A large turtle which twenty years ago 

 could be bought for fifty cents, now commands three dol- 

 lars. One would suppose that the males, being unmolest- 

 ed, would far outnumber the other sex, but Bates says 

 "they are immensely less numerous than the females." 



