Page:The naturalist on the River Amazons 1863 v2.djvu/287

 commandante. It was an animating sight to behold the wide circle of rival diggers throwing up clouds of sand in their energetic labours, and working gradually towards the centre of the ring. A little rest was taken during the great heat of mid-day, and in the evening the eggs were carried to the huts in baskets. By the end of the second day, the taboleiro was exhausted: large mounds of eggs, some of them four to five feet in height, were then seen by the side of each hut, the produce of the labours of the family.

In the hurry of digging some of the deeper nests are passed over; to find these out the people go about provided with a long steel or wooden probe, the presence of the eggs being discoverable by the ease with which the spit enters the sand. When no more eggs are to be found, the mashing process begins. The egg, it may be here mentioned, has a flexible or leathery shell; it is quite round, and somewhat larger than a hen's egg. The whole heap is thrown into an empty canoe and mashed with wooden prongs; but sometimes naked Indians and children jump into the mass and tread it down, besmearing themselves with yolk and making about as filthy a scene as can well be imagined. This being finished, water is poured into the canoe, and the fatty mess then left for a few hours to be heated by the sun, on which the oil separates and rises to the surface. The floating oil is afterwards skimmed off with long spoons, made by tying large mussel-shells to the end of rods, and purified over the fire in copper kettles.

The destruction of turtle eggs every year by these