Travels and adventures in South and Central America. First series / Life in the Llanos of Venezuela

by Ramón Páez

The flesh of the armadillo is most delicious, tasting very much like young pig; and being always roasted in the shell—a thick cuirass formed of successive horny plates—all its juices are effectually preserved. It is, however, very rich eating, from the excess of fatness, and therefore liable to produce indigestion, if not followed by a good dose of aguardiente and a strong sauce of Chili peppers. It is also said to exert very injurious effects on persons predisposed to syphilitic disorders of the system, developing incipient ulcers and various other cutaneous diseases.

The armadillo is a harmless, curiously-formed little quadruped, about the size of a common hedgehog; it burrows in the ground, spending the greater part of the day in cool retirement, issuing at dusk or very early in the morning in search of food; this consists principally of worms, the larvæ of insects or perchance a young snake from the broods that take shelter among the cells of its subterranean abode—whether by permission or as intruders, remains to be ascertained. The fact is, however, that many of these burrows are so full of snakes, that it is necessary on account of them to exercise considerable caution when passing near the abodes of armadillos. Two little owls called aguaita-caminos, road-watchers, usually stand like sentinels at the entrance of these burrows, and by their constant flutterings around the sportsman, and their uncouth motions, almost invariably succeed in warning the armadillo. Nevertheless, if the hunter approach in front, he can always secure it with his hands as its vision in that direction is entirely obscured by the position of the plates with which the head is covered. When attacked from the rear or sides, it makes quickly for its burrow; but if the hunter, however, be sufficiently expert, he may succeed in getting hold of the long, horny tail of the animal before it disappears entirely from view. Even then, as this creature possesses the power of swelling its body when thus attacked, it is rather difficult to drag it out, unless by some means the size of the burrow can be enlarged. There is then danger of severe wounds from its sharp claws, as well as of being bitten by some of the poisonous snakes which share its home.

What affinity there is existing between this quadruped and the finny inhabitants of the water, prompting their classification among amphibia, I was unable to ascertain; but although the capyvara and several others placed by the church under that category, possess, it is true, great powers of resistance while in water, the reverse is assuredly the case with regard to the armadillo, which always seeks the higher grounds so as to escape submersion during the great floods; and I have often found it in the midst of extensive plains where no moisture excepting the dews of night is to be seen for miles around.

When all the different parties, participants in the hunting excursion, were once more seated round the camp fires, it was quite amusing to hear their accounts of the various incidents connected with it; one had got hold of a rattlesnake’s tail, mistaking it for that of an armadillo; another had stumbled over a crocodile while diving for turtles in a shallow creek; a third had his toe bitten off by caribes; while not a few experienced more or less severe shocks from electric eels. In front of many of the fires, soon blazing under the trees, were arrayed on long wooden spits entire carcasses of the armadillos split along the belly and kept open by means of cross bars of green boughs. Directly the coals were sufficiently hot in the centre of the fires, the galapagos were all beheaded and thrown, still alive, into the midst of the burning embers. These chelonia, like all other amphibia, are exceedingly tenacious of life; their sufferings, therefore, must doubtless be great under this lingering death, as was manifested by their long-continued struggles in the fire.

The Llaneros say that these turtles, according to their most exquisite gastronomers, should be eaten where there is no light, asserting that they will then be found more rich and juicy; but the actual reason for this, as I afterward ascertained to my great disgust, was that some of the choicest morsels are precisely those which to be eaten must not be seen, as otherwise they would unhesitatingly be rejected.

There are several varieties of fresh water tortoises in the Apure, an abundant and wholesome food for the inhabitants. The most common are the galapagos, a large species of terrapin, the terecay and the arrau or great turtle of the Orinoco, concerning which the celebrated Father Gumilla wrote in his “Orinoco Illustrated,” that it would be as difficult to count the grains of sand on the shores of the Orinoco, as to count the immense number of tortoises which inhabit its margin and water. Although confined principally to the broad channel of the Orinoco, the arraus are met with also in great abundance in the Apure, the Arauca, and most of the other large tributaries of that river; as also in the Amazon, according to Bates’ statements, who has devoted a chapter to this magnificent turtle, and to the exciting scenes which take place during the gathering of their eggs by the Amazonian Indians and Portuguese traders. As I intend to allude again to this subject, I will return to their congeners of the flooded lands west of the Orinoco. To convey a distinct idea of the prodigious abundance of this species, it may suffice to say that by merely driving a herd of wild cattle or horses at full speed into any pond of these savannas, the first wave produced by the sudden splash will heave up thousands of turtles upon the beach. Another method resorted to in the Llanos for obtaining them, is by raking in the soft mud in which these chelonia habitually bury themselves the moment they are alarmed. After this mud becomes thoroughly dried by the summer’s heat, they remain under its indurated crust in a dormant state until the commencement of the rainy season. Yet even here the poor creatures are insecure, as they are not unfrequently roused from their siesta by the hunter setting fire to the dry water plants, the ornaments of these natural ponds; at such times breaking through the earth crust which environs them, they in vain endeavor to escape their tormentors, who can then pick them up at their leisure.

In addition to the foregoing, there are two other varieties of tortoises found amidst the marshes and jungles of the Llanos; they are the morrocoy or land tortoise, having a hard and rounded shell, and the jicotea, an animal which appears to form the connecting link between turtles proper and tortoises; both are of excellent flavor, more especially the former, whose liver, dressed and fried in its own gall, is undoubtedly superior to that most prized of all epicurean morsels, foie gras. It is very large as compared with the size of the animal, decreasing however very materially if its owner has had a long fast, which, as this reptile, like all others of the class, can and does frequently live a long time without food, has doubtless occasioned the popular error that it feeds on its own liver when long deprived of other nourishment.

During the season of great droughts, the morrocoy seeks the hollow trunks of trees for shelter, where it lives entirely without nourishment for several months, until, feeling the dampness produced by the first showers of spring penetrating his subterranean abode, he moves slowly out to browse upon the tender shoots of water plants and prairie lilies. The shell of this tortoise is so hard that nothing short of heavy blows from an axe can separate the thick plates of which it is formed, and a locomotive engine might pass over it without producing the least effect upon its unimpressible tenant. Long after the carcass has been cut up for cooking, and is in water boiling over the fire, the pieces are incessantly in motion, and it is not until the boiling has been continued many successive hours, that the meat is fit for eating.