Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/227

 ing: every one ends, sooner or later, by becoming thoroughly surfeited. I became so sick of turtle in the course of two years that I could not bear the smell of it, although at the same time nothing else was to be had, and I was suffering actual hunger. The native women cook it in various ways. The entrails are chopped up and made into a delicious soup called sarapatel, which is generally boiled in the concave upper shell of the animal used as a kettle. The tender flesh of the breast is partially minced with farinha, and the breast shell then roasted over the fire, making a very pleasant dish. Steaks cut from the breast and cooked with the fat form another palatable dish. Large sausages are made of the thick-coated stomach, which is filled with minced meat and boiled. The quarters cooked in a kettle of Tucupí sauce form another variety of food. When surfeited with turtle in all other shapes, pieces of the lean part roasted on a spit and moistened only with vinegar make an agreeable change. The smaller kind of turtle, the tracajá, which makes its appearance in the main river, and lays its eggs a month earlier than the large species, is of less utility to the inhabitants although its flesh is superior, on account of the difficulty of keeping it alive; it survives captivity but a very few days, although placed in the same ponds in which the large turtle keeps well for two or three years.

Those who cannot hunt and fish for themselves, and whose stomachs refuse turtle, are in a poor way at Ega. Fish, including many kinds of large and delicious salmonidæ, is abundant in the fine season; but each