FPwOM RIO DE JANEIRO TO THE RAPIDS OP THE MADEIRA. 
51 
disgusting to a civilised Christian’s palate, at letist. Even in the basin 
of the Amazon the turtle-butter is used only for lamp-oil, and seldom for 
cooking purposes. 
As the exuberant Flora of those countries offers more than one 
rich oily fniit, yielding excellent material for combustion (the rioimi-s or 
Castor-oil nut, for instance), such a war of extermination against the 
tm-tles, on whose meat the population largely depends for food, is doubly 
imreasonable. 
It is clear that, with the present procedure, they must rapidly 
decrease, and that, at no distant date, they Avill be counted amongst the 
things of the past, as Avill be seen by the following figures. On the 
are easily skimmed into large earthen jars. The fat thus gained is not 
remarkable for delicacy of taste, and is by no means a substitute for 
butter and olive oil, as one might suppose from the fi-esh eggs being 
very agreeable to the palate. The decomposition of manifold impurities, 
and the circumstance that often some of the eggs have been already 
half-hatched by the sun, give it an abominable flaA'our, recalling to 
mind Eussia-leather and tanneries, which renders it thoi'oughly 
TBHTLE-HTINTINO ON THE MADEIHA. 
