TURTLES ON THE AMAZON. 



641 



meat. Their capture costs nothing but the trouble, for man has not yet drawn the 

 boundary marks of property over the tenantless land. The elephantine tortoise 

 inhabits as well the low and sterile country, where it feeds on the fleshy leaves of the 

 cactus, as the mountainous regions where the moist trade-wind calls forth a richer 

 vegetation of ferns, grasses, and various trees. On this meagre food, which seems 

 hardly sufficient for a goat, it thrives so well that three men are often scarcely able to 

 lift it, and it not seldom furnishes more than 200 pounds of excellent meat. 



The tortoises, when moving towards any definite point, travel by night and day, 

 and arrive at their journey's end much sooner than would be expected. The inhabit- 

 ants, from observations on marked individuals, consider that they can move a distance 

 of about eight miles in two or three days. One large tortoise, which I watched, 

 I found walked at the rate of sixty yards, in ten minutes, that is, three hundred and 

 sixty in the hour, or four miles a day, allowing also a little time for it to eat on the 

 road. The flesh of this animal is largely employed, both fresh and salted, and a beau- 

 tifully clear oil is prepared from the fat. When a tortoise is caught, the man makes a 

 slit in the skin near its tail, so as to see inside its body, whether the fat under the dor- 

 sal plate is thick. If it is not, the animal is liberated, and it is said to recover soon 

 from this strange operation. 



The marsh tortoises, or Emydcey have their chief seat in tropical America and the 

 Indian Archipelago, where an abundance of swamps, lagoons, lakes, pools, and gently- 

 flowing rivers favors the increase of their numbers. They play an important part in 

 the domestic economy of the Indians along the great streams of the New World, the 

 deep rolling Orinoco or the thousand-armed Amazon. During the dry season, all 

 the neighboring tribes are busy collecting the countless eggs which the cold-blooded 

 creatures confide to the life-awakening powers of the heated sands : partly for their 

 own consumption, and partly for the manufacture of oil. According to Herndon* from 

 five to six thousand jars of mantega, or tortoise-oil are annually gathered on the banks 

 of the Maraiion. Each animal furnishes on an average eighty eggs, and forty tortoises 

 are reckoned for each jar, which contains forty-five pounds, and is worth about six shil- 

 lings on the spot. The manufacturing process, which is carried on in a most primitive 

 manner, exhales an insupportable stench. The eggs, namely, are thrown into a boat, 

 and trodden to pieces with the feet. The shells having been removed, the rest is left 

 for several days to putrefy in the sun. The oil which collects on the surface of the de- 

 composing mass is then skimmed oflf, and boiled in large kettles. The neighboring 

 strand swarms with carrion vultures, and the smell of the offal attracts a number of 

 alligators, all hoping to come in for their share of the feast. 



" Turtles," says Orton,t " are perhaps the most important product of the Amazon. 

 The largest and most abundant species is the Tortaruga grande. It measures, when 

 full grown, nearly three feet in length and two in breadth. Every house has a little 

 pond in the back yard to hold a stock of turtles in the wet season. It furnishes the 

 best meat on the Upper Amazon. We found it very tender, palatable, and wholesome : 

 those who are obliged to live on it for years, however, say that it is very cloying. Every 

 part of the creature is turned to account. The entrails are made into soup ; sausages 

 are made of the stomach ; steaks are cut from the breast, and the rest is roasted in the 

 shell. The turtle lays its eggs, generally between midnight and dawn, on the central 



* Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon. t The Andes and the Amazon, 2j7. 



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