254 
Tjee Matamata Turtle. 
small tin box, about 2ft. long, lift, broad, and lift, high which they had 
probably bartered in Georgetown on some former occasion: after its 
cover had been thickly plastered with wax it was carried into the forest 
where they built a little 1 benab, laid the box on a staging below, and 
lighted a lire beneath. Hi a year’s time they would be returning to fetch 
the skeleton and bury it in their village, when they certainly must have 
searched in vain for the skull which my brother had previously taken 
away with him. 
717. As we had now bartered cassava bread more than sufficient to 
risk any scarcity of it during the next fortnight, fresh arrangements 
were made for the prosecution of our journey, although we had not as 
yet succeeded in replacing the paddlers who had gone for the things left 
at Ampa, because already prior to our arrival the best of the men had 
left for Georgetown to serve as boathands with the military expedition. 
My brother was therefore forced to send several coloured men in a boat 
over to Smyth’s settlement where they were to tiy and replace those 
who were missing, but the attempt, as might have been expected, was in 
vain, the chieftain strictly forbidding his dependents to accompany us. 
On their return they brought a huge matamata turtle ( Chelys ftmbriata ) 
that they had caught on the bank. It was the only specimen Ave had seen 
on the Essequibo: I found it all the more plentiful on tlie Takutu, 
not only on the river itself but also in its back waters. There cannot 
possibly lie a more hideous creature than such a turtle, its abominable 
appearance, already sufficiently deterrent in itself, being rendered 
still further repulsive on account of its horribly disgusting stench. 
Höllenbreughel, so wanton in his fantastic description of horrors, has 
never created such a monstrosity of loathsomeness as the reality presented 
here. The Caribs fell with real fury upon the flesh of the animal: T 
claimed the carapace which was unfortunately spoilt subsequently. The 
snout-like head and neck, with a number of hacked-out lappets, and broad 
feet with similar but somewhat smaller ones, both of which it is unable 
to withdraw under its flat carapace, aroused my deepest disgust every 
time I came across a specimen. The iaws are just as flabhv and puffv 
as those of the Pipa. Amongst the birds found here the beautiful Troqon 
melanurus Gould., as well as Burro rinrrrus 6m., and B. tencbrosnsi 6m. 
were particularly conspicuous. Cilia is the name given by the Indians 
to the Trogon. 
748. On the day before leaving, the first thing we did was to haul 
our boats over the small Waraputa Falls, a labour that robbed us of most 
of the day owing to the whole of the baggage having to be unpacked, 
and yet these were far from being the most dangerous of the series, those 
of the Twasinki still being ahead. 
749. Tn company with Sororeng, his wife, her mother, and a second 
Indian with his wife and family that formed the crew of the boat loaned 
hv Mr. Youd, we once more started up the river. When on the farther 
side of the islands that one can overlook from Waraputa, rapid followed 
upon rapid so quickly that we were hardly able to breathe freely in the 
real sense of the term. In the course of the wearisome day two huge granite 
boulders on the eastern bank, of which the one had a circumference of 
