422 EXCURSIONS AROUND EGA 



the fourteen days of our stay on Catua, and I, being 

 associated with them in all their pleasures, made generally 

 one of the party. These were, besides, the sole occasions 

 on which I could add to my collections, whilst on these 

 barren sands. Only two of these trips afforded incidents 

 worth relating. 



The first which was made to the interior of the wooded 

 island of Catua, was not a very successful one. We were 

 twelve in number, all armed with guns and long hunting- 

 knives. Long before sunrise, my friends woke me up 

 from my hammock, where I lay, as usual, in the clothes 

 worn during the day ; and after taking each a cupful 

 of casha9a and ginger (a very general practice in early 

 morning on the sand-banks), we commenced our walk. 

 The waning moon still lingered in the clear sky, and a 

 profound stillness pervaded sleeping camp, forest, and 

 stream. Along the line of ranchos glimmered the fires 

 made by each party to dry turtle-eggs for food, the eggs 

 being spread on little wooden stages over the smoke. 

 The distance to the forest from our place of starting was 

 about two miles, being nearly the whole length of the 

 sand-bank, which v/as also a very broad one ; the highest 

 part, where it was covered with a thicket of dwarf willows, 

 mimosas, and arrow-grass, lying near the ranchos. We 

 loitered much on the way, and the day dawned whilst 

 we were yet on the road : the sand at this early hour 

 feeling quite cold to the naked feet. As soon as we were 

 able to distinguish things, the surface of the praia was 

 seen to be dotted with small black objects. These were 

 newly-hatched Aiyussa turtles, which were making their 

 way in an undeviating line to the water, at least a mile 

 distant. The young animal of this species is distinguish- 

 able from that of the large turtle and the Tracaja, by the 

 edges of the breast-plate being raised on each side, so 

 that in crawling it scores two parallel lines on the sand. 

 The mouths of these little creatures were full of sand, a 

 circumstance arising from their having to bite their way 

 through many inches of superincumbent sand to reach 

 the surface on emerging from the buried eggs. It was 

 amusing to observe how constantly they turned again 

 in the direction of the distant river, after being handled 

 and set down on the sand with their heads facing the 

 opposite quarter. We saw also several skeletons of the 

 large cayman (some with the horny and bony hide of 



