[46] Giant tortoises of the present day live on islands—where they have escaped competition with large carnivora and other foes—such as the Aldabra group, N.W. of Madagascar, in the Mascarenes, which comprise Mauritius and Rodriguez; and the Galapagos, or “Tortoise Islands,” off the coast of South America. When Mr. Darwin visited the latter islands he saw the relics, as it were, of a family of huge tortoises, which lived there in abundance a few years before, and was able to verify many interesting facts which had been recorded by Porter in 1813, who stated that some of those captured by him weighed from 300 to 400 lbs., and that on one island they were 51/2 feet long. Those of one island differed from those of another. Some had long necks. After Mr. Darwin’s visit the process of extermination went on. At the present time it is most probable that the gigantic tortoises are very rare where formerly they were so abundant. One of these great tortoises is that of Abingdon Island, in the Galapagos Archipelago, of which there is a fine stuffed specimen in the Natural History Museum (Reptile Gallery). It has a very long neck, and a small flat-topped head with a short snout. It weighed originally 201 lbs. The Indian tortoises of the present day are not of large size. See the fine specimens in the Natural History Museum—Reptile Gallery (left wing of the building).
[47] Dr. Falconer’s estimate was much too great, so that this model is too large. Mr. Lydekker prefers to drop the generic term Colossochelys, and call it Testudo Atlas. In length it was only one-third greater than Testudo elephantina of the Galapagos Islands.
The first fossil remains of this colossal tortoise were discovered by Dr. Falconer and Captain Cautley in 1835, in the Tertiary strata of the Sivalik Hills. At the period when it was living—probably the Pliocene—there was great abundance and variety of life on the scene, for its remains were found to be associated with those of many great quadrupeds, such as the elephant, mastodon, rhinoceros, horse, camel, giraffe, sivatherium, and many other mammals. The Sivalik fauna also included a great number of reptiles, such as crocodiles, lizards, and snakes.
Fig. 48.—Restored figure of gigantic tortoise, Colossochelys atlas, from the Sivalik Hills, Northern India.
The greater part of the remains of the Colossochelys atlas were collected during a period of eight or nine years, along a range of about a hundred miles of hilly country. Consequently, they belong to a large number of individuals, varying in size and age. They were met with in crushed fragments, contained in upheaved strata, which have undergone considerable disturbance, so that it is improbable that an entire uncrushed specimen will ever be found. When the first fragments, in huge shapeless masses, were found by the discoverers, they were utterly at a loss what to make of them, and for many months could do nothing more than look upon them in bewildered and nearly hopeless admiration. But no sooner was the clue found to a single specimen than every fragment moved into its place so as to form a consistent whole.
It is not possible at present to say, with any degree of certainty, whether this colossal tortoise survived into the human period; but at least there is no evidence against the idea, and Dr. Falconer shows it is quite possible that the frequent allusions to a gigantic tortoise in Hindoo and other mythologies are to be explained on the supposition that the creature was seen by the men of a prehistoric age. Other species of tortoises and turtles that were coeval with the Colossochelys have lived on to the present day. So have other reptiles, for some of the crocodiles now living in India appear to be identical with the forms dug out of the Sivalik Hills. In the absence of direct geological evidence, we must fall back on traditions.
Now, there are traditions connected with the speculations of nearly all Eastern nations with regard to the world (cosmogonies) that refer to a tortoise of such gigantic size as to be associated with the elephant in their fables. The question therefore arises—Was this tortoise a creature of the imagination, or was the idea of it drawn from a living reality? Besides a tradition current among the Iroquois Indians of North America, referring to the important share which the tortoise had in the formation of the earth, there are several cases in ancient history bearing on the same point. Thus, we find in the Pythagorean doctrine the infant world represented as having been placed on the back of an elephant, which was sustained on a huge tortoise. Greek and Hindoo mythologies were undoubtedly related to each other, and accordingly we find in the Hindoo accounts of the second Avatar of Vishnoo, that the ocean is said to have been churned by means of the mountain placed on the back of the king of the tortoises, and the serpent Asokee used as the churning-rope. Again, Vishnoo was said to have assumed the form of the tortoise, and to have sustained the created world on his back to make it stable. This fable has taken such a firm hold of the Hindoos, that to this day they believe the world rests on the back of a tortoise (see [Fig. 49]). In the narratives of the feasts of the bird-demigod, Garūda, the tortoise again figures largely, and Garūda is said on one occasion to have appeased his hunger at a certain lake where an elephant and a tortoise were fighting.