THE HARVEST OF TURTLE’S EGGS.
You would wonder how there could be any turtles remaining in South America, if you were to see the thousands and thousands that are destroyed by the Indians every year, at the Harvest of Eggs, as they call it. I attended one of these hunts or harvests, one day, with Don Calao the merchant, and saw the whole process.
We all went in a boat, early one morning, to an Island in the river, where the sand was smooth, and which the tide had left bare. A person then took a long pole, and walked about, thrusting it into the sand, in every direction, and wherever it penetrated easily, he knew there was a nest of turtle’s eggs. So then they dug down, and when they found any, they put them in a basket which they brought for the purpose.
Numbers of Indians were there, from all the neighboring shores, and immense numbers of eggs were collected. They make a kind of oil of the yolk, which is used in cooking, as well as for burning in their houses.
It is supposed that not fewer than a million of turtles lay their eggs at the mouth of the great river Orinoco. More than three millions of eggs were taken the year I was there. Each turtle lays, on an average, seventy eggs. You may be surprised that out of seventy millions of eggs laid, only three millions were taken. But so many are broken, so many hunted out and devoured by the jaguars and other animals that feed upon them, that the wonder is, rather, that we find the vast number that we do. Many escape and are hatched however, for I saw in one instance, the whole shore of the Orinoco, swarming with little turtles, just hatched, and scrambling towards the water to escape from the Indian children who were catching them.
The turtles lay their eggs during the night, in large holes, which they scratch in the sand. They then cover them up, and leave them to be warmed into life by the sun. The eggs are larger than pigeons’ eggs, and when well preserved, by slightly boiling or by drying in the sun, are very pleasant food.
We saw some large shells of turtles which the jaguars had emptied as neatly as if the flesh had been cut away with a sharp knife. Those animals hunt the poor creatures, catch them, turn them on their backs—you know they cannot turn back again—and then devour them at their leisure.
