Turtle forms an important article of food, and four different kinds are distinguished at Cape York and the Prince of Wales Islands. Three of these can be identified as the Green, the Hawksbill, and the Loggerhead species, and the fourth is a small one which I never saw. This last, I was informed by Giaom, is fished for in the following extraordinary manner.
MODE OF CATCHING TURTLE.
A live sucking-fish (Echeneis remora) having previously been secured by a line passed round the tail, is thrown into the water in certain places known to be suitable for the purpose; the fish while swimming about makes fast by its sucker to any turtle of this small kind which it may chance to encounter, and both are hauled in together!
The green turtle is of such consequence to the natives that they have distinguished by a special name taken from the animal itself (sulangi from sulur) the season of the year when it is most plentiful; this, at Cape York, usually extends from about the middle of October until the end of November, but the limits are not constant. During the season they are to be seen floating about on the surface of the water, often in pairs, male and female together. A few are caught at night on the sandy beaches, but the greater number are captured in the water. The canoes engaged in turtling, besides going about in the day, are often sent out on calm moonlight nights. When a turtle is perceived, it is approached from behind as noiselessly as possible--when within reach, a man in the bow carrying the end of a small rope jumps out, and, getting upon the animal's back, with a hand on each shoulder, generally contrives to turn it before it has got far and secure it with the rope. This operation requires considerable strength and courage, in addition to the remarkable dexterity in diving and swimming possessed by all the blacks of the north-east coast and Torres Strait.
LOOKOUT STATIONS FOR TURTLE.
There are some favourite lookout stations for turtle where the tide runs strongly off a high rocky point. At many such places, distinguished by large cairns* of stones, bones of turtle, dugongs, etc., watch is kept during the season, and, when a turtle is perceived drifting past with the tide, the canoe is manned and sent in chase.
(*Footnote. One of these on Albany Rock is a pile of stones, five feet high and seven wide, mixed up with turtle and human bones, and, when I last saw it, it was covered with long trailing shoots of Flagellaria indica placed there by a turtling party to ensure success, as I was told, but how, was not explained. The human bones were the remains of a man killed there many years ago by a party of Kowraregas who took his head away with them. The mounds described and figured in Jukes' Voyage of the Fly (Volume 1 pages 137 and 138) and considered by us at the time to be graves, are merely the usual cairns at a lookout place for turtle.)
With their usual improvidence, the Australians, when they take a turtle, feast upon it until all has been consumed and the cravings of hunger induce them to look out for another; but the Torres Strait Islanders are accustomed to dry the flesh to supply them with food during their voyages. The meat is cut into thin slices, boiled in a melon shell, stuck upon skewers, and dried in the sun. Prepared in this manner it will keep for several weeks, but requires a second cooking before being used, on account of its hardness and toughness. The fat which rises to the surface during the boiling is skimmed off and kept in joints of bamboo and turtle bladders, being much prized as food; I have even seen the natives drink it off in its hot fluid state with as much gusto as ever alderman enjoyed his elaborately prepared turtle soup.
HAWKSBILL TURTLE.
The hawksbill turtle (Caretta imbricata) that chiefly producing the tortoise-shell of commerce, resorts to the shores in the neighbourhood of Cape York later in the season than the green species, and is comparatively scarce. It is only taken at night when depositing its eggs in the sand, as the sharpness of the margin of its shell renders it dangerous to attempt to turn it in the water--indeed even the green turtle, with a comparatively rounded margin to the carapace, occasionally, in struggling to escape, inflicts deep cuts on the inner side of the leg of its captor, of which I myself have seen an instance. Of the tortoise-shell collected at Cape York and the Prince of Wales Islands a small portion is converted into fishhooks, the rest is bartered either to Europeans or to the Island blacks, who fashion it into various ornaments.