Chap. IV. 
TUKTLE EGGS. 
271 
commandante. It was an animating sight to behold 
the wide circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of 
sand in their energetic labours, and working gradually 
towards the centre of the ring. A little rest was taken 
during the great heat of mid-day, and in the evening 
the eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the 
end of the second day, the taboleiro was exhausted : 
large mounds of eggs, some of them four to five feet 
in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the 
produce of the labours of the family. 
In the hurry of digging some of the deeper nests are 
passed over ; to find these out the people go about pro- 
vided with a long steel or wooden probe, the presence 
of the eggs being discoverable by the ease with which 
the spit enters the sand. When no more eggs are to be 
found, the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be 
here mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell ; it is 
quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. 
The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and 
mashed with wooden prongs ; but sometimes naked In- 
dians and children jump into the mass and tread it down, 
besmearing themselves with yolk and making about as 
filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being 
finished, water is poured into the canoe, and the 
fatty mess then left for a few hours to be heated by 
the sun, on which the oil separates and rises to the 
surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off 
with long spoons, made by tying large mussel-shells 
to the end of rods, and purified over the fire in copper 
kettles. 
The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these 
