SEARCHING THE SAND FOR TURTLES’ EGGS.
It is at this laying season that the South American Indians capture great numbers of turtles. The turtles come out of the water at night, in crowds, for the purpose of depositing their eggs. They dig trenches in the sand; and, having placed their eggs in these, and covered them, they all make a grand rush back to the water. Then the Indians, who are on the watch, run after them, seize as many as they can get hold of by the tails, and throw them over on their backs. In this position a turtle is helpless, and the Indians can easily kill them.
The flesh is excellent food; but what the Indians chiefly desire to possess is the fine yellow fat with which the turtles are well supplied. From this fat the Indians manufacture a superior kind of oil, for which they find a ready sale.
If these turtles were as large as some of the West Indian turtles that have been brought to this country, the Indians would not have an easy task in turning them over.
A FEW VOLCANOES.
A mountain with its great cone smoking like a chimney, or sending up into the clouds a grand sheaf of flame, must be a splendid sight, and one never to be forgotten. But when it begins to pour forth rivers of hot lava it is time to get entirely out of sight of it, if you can. For these streams of lava are sometimes very long.
RIVER OF RED-HOT LAVA FROM MOUNT ETNA.
A hundred years ago Etna poured forth such an immense river of fiery stones, and liquid lava, and threw it out with such violence that it rushed in cascades and whirling torrents for fifteen miles, burning up everything in its course, until it finally plunged into the sea.
