Tortoise
Heath. Sc.
London Publish’d Dec.r 1.st 1789 by G. Robinson & Co.
The whole body of this fish is covered with silver scales much resembling silver spangles, they lie close together. There is no variety of colour upon the whole fish excepting a shade of red upon the end of the nose, which is fat and fleshy. His eye is large and black, with a broad iris of white stained with yellow. It has a number of small teeth very sharp and closely set, nature has probably given him this quantity of fins to save him from the crocodile, whom by his size he seems destined to feed.
CARETTA, or SEA-TORTOISE.
Among the natural productions of the Red Sea, which either have been or are at present articles of commerce, I shall just speak a little of that species of the Testudo or Tortoise, called the Caretta or Hawk’s-bill. It is greatly inferior in size to the West Indian or American sea-tortoise. The extreme length of the shell of this was 3 feet 7 inches, and which was esteemed a large one. Simple as it is, I do not know one good figure of it. This which I have submitted to the reader may be depended upon for its exactness, otherwise the animal is well known, and has often been described.
Its back is covered like the rest of other turtles, with a bony substance, and this again is covered by lamina, or scales of a thin transparent texture, variegated with dark brown streaks, disposed in each scale as radii proceeding from a centre. The outer rows of the great scales are irregular pentagons. The row that runs down the middle between these are regular hexagons, and round the whole circumference the large scales are inclosed by a kind of quadrangular frame firmly united; the broadest and largest of these scales being nearest the tail. The lowest of all, as it were in the centre of the lowest part of the figure, is notched, the centre of this division answering to a line drawn through the middle of the oval, and the head or occiput.
This fish lays a multitude of eggs. Some have said that these are laid among stones, contrary to the practice of the large sea-turtle, which lays them upon sand. All I can say to this is, that I have seen them but seldom, and always upon sand, but never among stones. The fish itself is a very dry and coarse food, very different from that delicate species which comes from the West Indies, if the difference does not lie a great deal in the cookery. At the time that I ate of this animal, I was going to view the junction of the Indian Ocean without the Straits of Babelmandeb, and the wind setting in contrary, we were in great fear of not being able to return, as the reader will have seen in our voyage. Particularly, I did not observe any of the green fat, so well known to our epicures, nor indeed any fat at all. When roasted, it tasted to me much like old veal new killed. It is only an inhabitant of the mouth of the Gulf. They seldom come up the length of Mocha; when they do, they are few in number, are probably sick, and not able to bear the agitation of the waves from the south-westers.