EGG-HARVEST. 293 
Casiquiare and the Rio Negro consists of primitive 
rocks. I saw there a small deposite of sandstone or 
conglomerate, but no secondary limestone, and no 
trace of petrifactions.” 
At eleven in the morning the travellers landed 
on an island celebrated for the turtle fishery, or the 
« harvest of eggs,” which takes place annually. Here 
they found encamped more than 300 Indians of dif- 
ferent races, each tribe, distinguished by its peculiar 
mode of painting, keeping separate from the rest, to- 
gether with a few white men who had come to pur- 
chase egg-oil from them. The missionary of Uruana, 
whose presence was necessary to procure a supply 
for the lamp of the church and keep the natives in or- 
der, received the strangers with kindness, and made 
the tour of the island with them ; showing them, by 
means of a pole which he thrust into the sand, the 
extent of the stratum of eggs, that had been depo- 
sited wherever there were no eminences. The In- 
dians asserted, that in coming up the Orinoco, from 
its mouth to the junction of the Apure, there is no 
place where eggs can be collected in abundance ; and 
the only three spots where the turtles assemble annu- 
ally in great numbers are situated between the mouth 
of the Apure and the great cataracts. These animals 
do not seem to pass beyond the falls, the species found 
above Atures and Maypures being different. 
The arrau or tortuga, which deposites the eggs 
that are so much valued on the Lower Orinoco, 
is a large fresh-water tortoise, with webbed feet, 
a very flat head, a deep groove between the eyes, 
and an upper shell composed of five central, eight 
lateral, and twenty-four marginal scutella or plates. 
The colour is dark-gray above and orange beneath. 
