Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/363

 THE AMAZON DISTRICT. 323

{Jacare nigra) reaches a length of fifteen, or rarely of twenty feet.

The most interesting and useful reptiles of the Amazon are, however, the various species of fresh-water turtles, which supply an abundance of wholesome food, and from whose eggs an excellent oil is made. The largest and most abundant of these is the Tataruga, or great turtle of the Amazon, the Jurara of the Indians. It grows to the length of three feet, and has an oval flattish shell of a dark colour and quite smooth ; it abounds in all parts of the Amazon, and in most places is the common food of the inhabitants.

In the month of September, as soon as the sandbanks begin to be uncovered, the females deposit their eggs, scraping hollows of a considerable depth, covering them over carefully, smoothing and beating down the sand, and then walking across and across the place in. various directions for the purpose of concealment. There are such numbers of them, that some beaches are almost one mass of eggs beneath the surface, and here the Indians come to make oil. A canoe is filled with the eggs, which are all broken and mashed up together. The oil rises to the top, and is skimmed off and boiled, when it will keep, and is used both for light and for cooking. Millions of eggs are thus annually destroyed, and the turtles have already become scarce in consequence. There are some extensive beaches which yield two thousand pots of oil annually ; each pot contains five gallons, and requires about two thousand five hundred eggs, which would give five millions of eggs destroyed in one locality.

But of those that remain, a very small portion are able to reach maturity. When the young turtles issue from the egg, and run to the water, many enemies are awaiting them. Great

from the house, could not be found, although strict search was made for it all over the Fazenda. Shortly after this, one of his vaqueiros, in going through a wood by the side of a small river, saw an enormous Boa suspended in the fork of a tree which hung over the water; it was dead, but had evidently been floated down alive by a recent flood, and being in an inert state it had not been able to extricate itself from the fork before the waters fell. It was dragged out to the open country by two horses, and was found to measure thirty-seven feet in length ; on opening it the bones of a horse in a somewhat broken condition, and the flesh in a half- digested state, were found within it, the bones of the head being uninjured ; from these circumstances we concluded that the Boa had devoured the horse entire."