This animal is found in most of the countries near the Mediterranean Sea, in Corsica, Sardinia, and some of the islands of the Archipelago, as well as in many parts of the north of Africa.
THE GREEN TURTLE. (Chelonia midas.)
Most of the Turtles are considered very delicate food, especially the green species. Some of them are so large as to weigh from four to eight hundred pounds. Dampier mentions an immensely large one that was caught at Port Royal, in the Bay of Campeachy. It was nearly six feet long, and four feet broad. A son of Captain Roch, a boy about ten years old, went in the shell, from the shore to his father’s ship, which was about a quarter of a mile distant.
Turtle generally ascend from the sea, and crawl on the beach, for the purpose of laying their eggs (which are as large sometimes as those of a common hen), sometimes to the number of fifty or sixty at a time. The young ones, as soon as they are hatched, crawl down to the water. Turtles are caught, when sleeping on land, by turning them on their backs; for as they cannot turn themselves over again, all means of escape is denied them. The lean of the Green Turtle tastes and looks like veal, without any fishy flavour. The fat is as green as grass, and very sweet. The introduction of Turtle as an article of food into England, appears to have taken place within the last eighty or ninety years. They are common in Jamaica, and in most of the islands of the East and West Indies. Green Turtles are sometimes caught on the shores of Europe, driven thither by stress of weather. In the year 1752, one, six feet long and four feet broad, weighing between eight and nine hundred pounds, was caught in the harbour of Dieppe, after a storm. In 1754, a still larger one, upwards of eight feet long, was caught near Antioche, and was carried to the Abbey of Longveau, near Vannes, in Brittany; and in the year 1810, a small one was caught amongst the submarine rocks near Christchurch, in Hampshire.
The reader will remember how delighted Robinson Crusoe was to find a large Turtle which, he says, contained three score eggs. Behold him dragging it home.