Page:Here and there in Yucatan - miscellanies (IA herethereinyucat00lepl 0).djvu/33

 they can break a man's limb as we can a match. As for conchs—most abundant in those waters—though the shell is hard to break with a hammer, the cahuamo easily cracks it, to eat the delicious contents.

The cahuamo, or hawk-bill, is the largest kind of turtle, weighing from 200 to 500 pounds. Its flesh tastes like good beef, but is generally left on the beach to rot and be consumed by buzzards, the people not being numerous enough to eat it all, though large quantities are dried and salted to be sold as jerked beef. Speculators once went to considerable expense to try and preserve this meat, but we are told it turned bad in the cans.

The catchers gather the eggs, the fat, and shell, though the last is worth so little that they do not always take the trouble to lift it from the beach; many are scattered over the sand. The eggs are considered a great delicacy, and taste very rich, but have a strange sandiness that is unpleasant to the palate.

The carey (Chelonia imbricata) is smaller and of more value. The least the islanders will take for the shell is two and a half to three dollars a pound; rather than accept less they will keep it in their house from one year to another. The carey, as well