Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, Vol.2 — Chapter 2.19, Part 2

A fresh north-east breeze carried us full-sail towards the Boca de la Tortuga.

We landed, at eleven in the morning, on an island which the Indians of the Missions of Uruana considered as their property, and which lies in the middle of the river.

This island is celebrated for the turtle fishery, or, as they say here, the cosecha, the harvest [of eggs,] that takes place annually.

We here found an assemblage of Indians, encamped under huts made of palm-leaves.

This encampment contained more than three hundred persons.

Accustomed, since we had left San Fernando de Apure, to see only desert shores, we were singularly struck by the bustle that prevailed here.

We found, besides the Guamos and the Ottomacs of Uruana, who are both considered as savage races, Caribs and other Indians of the Lower Orinoco.

Every tribe was separately encamped, and was distinguished by the pigments with which their skins were painted.

Some white men were seen amidst this tumultuous assemblage, chiefly pulperos, or little traders of Angostura, who had come up the river to purchase turtle oil from the natives.

The missionary of Uruana, a native of Alcala, came to meet us, and he was extremely astonished at seeing us.

After having admired our instruments, he gave us an exaggerated picture of the sufferings to which we should be necessarily exposed in ascending the Orinoco beyond the cataracts.

The object of our journey appeared to him very mysterious.

"How is it possible to believe," said he, "that you have left your country, to come and be devoured by mosquitos on this river, and to measure lands that are not your own?"

We were happily furnished with recommendations from the Superior of the Franciscan Missions, and the brother-in-law of the governor of Varinas, who accompanied us, soon dissipated the doubts to which our dress, our accent, and our arrival in this sandy island, had given rise among the Whites.

The missionary invited us to partake a frugal repast of fish and plantains.

He told us that he had come to encamp with the Indians during the time of the harvest of eggs, "to celebrate mass every morning in the open air, to procure the oil necessary for the church-lamps, and especially to govern this mixed republic (republica de Indios y Castellanos) in which every one wished to profit singly by what God had granted to all."

We made the tour of the island, accompanied by the missionary and by a pulpero, who boasted of having, for ten successive years, visited the camp of the Indians, and attended the turtle-fishery.

We were on a plain of sand perfectly smooth; and were told that, as far as we could see along the beach, turtles' eggs were concealed under a layer of earth.

The missionary carried a long pole in his hand.

He showed us, that by means of this pole, the extent of the stratum of eggs could be determined as accurately as the miner determines the limits of a bed of marl, of bog iron-ore, or of coal.

On thrusting the rod perpendicularly into the ground, the sudden want of resistance shows that the cavity or layer of loose earth containing the eggs, has been reached.

We saw that the stratum is generally spread with so much uniformity, that the pole finds it everywhere in a radius of ten toises around any given spot.

Here they talk continually of square perches of eggs; it is like a mining-country, divided into lots, and worked with the greatest regularity.

The stratum of eggs, however, is far from covering the whole island: they are not found wherever the ground rises abruptly, because the turtle cannot mount heights.

I

related to my guides the emphatic description of Father Gumilla, who asserts, that the shores of the Orinoco contain fewer grains of sand than the river contains turtles; and that these animals would prevent vessels from advancing, if men and tigers did not annually destroy so great a number.

* (* "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 margins and waters.

Were it not for the vast consumption of tortoises and their eggs, the river Orinoco, despite its great magnitude, would be unnavigable, for vessels would be impeded by the enormous multitude of the tortoises."

Gumilla, Orinoco Illustrata volume 1 pages 331 to 336. ) "Son cuentos de frailes," "they are monkish legends," said the pulpero of Angostura, in a low voice; for the only travellers in this country being the missionaries, they here call monks' stories, what we call travellers' tales, in Europe.

The Indians assured us that, in going up the Orinoco from its mouth to its junction with the Apure, not one island or one beach is to be found, where eggs can be collected in abundance.

The great turtle (arrau* (* This word belongs to the Maypure language, and must not be confounded with arua, which means a crocodile, among the Tamanacs, neighbours of the Maypures.

The Ottomacs call the turtle of Uruana, achea; the Tamanacs, peje.

)) dreads places inhabited by men, or much frequented by boats.

It is a timid and mistrustful animal, raising only its head above the water, and hiding itself at the least noise.

The shores where almost all the turtles of the Orinoco appear to assemble annually, are situated between the junction of the Orinoco with the Apure, and the great cataracts; that is to say, between Cabruta and the Mission of Atures.

There are found the three famous fisheries; those of Encaramada, or Boca del Cabullare; of Cucuruparu, or Boca de la Tortuga; and of Pararuma, a little below Carichana.

It seems that the arrau does not pass beyond the cataracts; and we were assured, that only the turtles called terekay, (in Spanish terecayas,) are found above Atures and Maypures.

The arrau, called by the Spaniards of the Missions simply tortuga, is an animal whose existence is of great importance to the nations on the Lower Orinoco.

It is a large freshwater tortoise, with palmate and membraneous feet; the head very flat, with two fleshy and acutely-pointed appendages under the chin; five claws to the fore feet, and four to the hind feet, which are furrowed underneath.

The upper shell has five central, eight lateral, and twenty-four marginal plates.

The colour is darkish grey above, and orange beneath.

The feet are yellow, and very long.

There is a deep furrow between the eyes.

The claws are very strong and crooked.

The anus is placed at the distance of one-fifth from the extremity of the tail.

The full-grown animal weighs from forty to fifty pounds.

Its eggs are much larger than those of pigeons, and less elongated than the eggs of the terekay.

They are covered with a calcareous crust, and, it is said, they have sufficient firmness for the children of the Ottomac Indians, who are great players at ball, to throw them into the air from one to another.

If the arrau inhabited the bed of the river above the cataracts, the Indians of the Upper Orinoco would not travel so far to procure the flesh and the eggs of this tortoise.

Yet, formerly, whole tribes from the Atabapo and the Cassiquiare have been known to pass the cataracts, in order to take part in the fishery at Uruana.

The terekay is less than the arrau.

It is in general only fourteen inches in diameter.

The number of plates in the upper shell is the same, but they are somewhat differently arranged.

I counted three in the centre of the disk, and five hexagonal on each side.

The margins contain twenty-four, all quadrangular, and much curved.

The upper shell is of a black colour inclining to green; the feet and claws are like those of the arrau.

The whole animal is of an olive-green, but it has two spots of red mixed with yellow on the top of the head.

The throat is also yellow, and furnished with a prickly appendage.

The terekays do not assemble in numerous societies like the arraus, to lay their eggs in common, and deposit them upon the same shore.

The eggs of the terekay have an agreeable taste, and are much sought after by the inhabitants of Spanish Guiana.

They are found in the Upper Orinoco, as well as below the cataracts, and even in the Apure, the Uritucu, the Guarico, and the small rivers that traverse the Llanos of Caracas.

The form of the feet and head, the appendages of the chin and throat, and the position of the anus, seem to indicate that the arrau, and probably the terekay also, belong to a new subdivision of the tortoises, that may be separated from the emydes.

The period at which the large arrau tortoise lays its eggs coincides with the period of the lowest waters.

The Orinoco beginning to increase from the vernal equinox, the lowest flats are found uncovered from the end of January till the 20th or 25th of March.

The arrau tortoises collect in troops in the month of January, then issue from the water, and warm themselves in the sun, reposing on the sands.

The Indians believe that great heat is indispensable to the health of the animal, and that its exposure to the sun favours the laying of the eggs.

The arraus are found on the beach a great part of the day during the whole month of February.

At the beginning of March the straggling troops assemble, and swim towards the small number of islands on which they habitually deposit their eggs.

It is probable that the same tortoise returns every year to the same locality.

At this period, a few days before they lay their eggs, thousands of these animals may be seen ranged in long files, on the borders of the islands of Cucuruparu, Uruana, and Pararuma, stretching out their necks and holding their heads above water, to see whether they have anything to dread.

The Indians, who are anxious that the bands when assembled should not separate, that the tortoises should not disperse, and that the laying of the eggs should be performed tranquilly, place sentinels at certain distances along the shore.

The people who pass in boats are told to keep in the middle of the river, and not frighten the tortoises by cries.

The laying of the eggs takes place always during the night, and it begins soon after sunset.

With its hind feet, which are very long, and furnished with crooked claws, the animal digs a hole of three feet in diameter and two in depth.

These tortoises feel so pressing a desire to lay their eggs, that some of them descend into holes that have been dug by others, but which are not yet covered with earth.

There they deposit a new layer of eggs on that which has been recently laid.

In this tumultuous movement an immense number of eggs are broken.

The missionary showed us, by removing the sand in several places, that this loss probably amounts to a fifth of the whole quantity.

The yolk of the broken eggs contributes, in drying, to cement the sand; and we found very large concretions of grains of quartz and broken shells.

The number of animals working on the beach during the night is so considerable, that day surprises many of them before the laying of their eggs is terminated.

They are then urged on by the double necessity of depositing their eggs, and closing the holes they have dug, that they may not be perceived by the jaguars.

The tortoises that thus remain too late are insensible to their own danger.

They work in the presence of the Indians, who visit the beach at a very early hour, and who call them mad tortoises.

Notwithstanding the rapidity of their movements, they are then easily caught with the hand.

The three encampments formed by the Indians, in the places indicated above, begin about the end of March or commencement of April.

The gathering of the eggs is conducted in a uniform manner, and with that regularity which characterises all monastic institutions.

Before the arrival of the missionaries on the banks of the river, the Indians profited much less from a production which nature has supplied in such abundance.

Every tribe searched the beach in its own way; and an immense number of eggs were uselessly broken, because they were not dug up with precaution, and more eggs were uncovered than could be carried away.

It was like a mine worked by unskilful hands.

The Jesuits have the merit of having reduced this operation to regularity;

and though the Franciscan monks, who succeeded the Jesuits in the Missions of the Orinoco, boast of having followed the example of their predecessors, they unhappily do not effect all that prudence requires.

The Jesuits did not suffer the whole beach to be searched; they left a part untouched, from the fear of seeing the breed of tortoises, if not destroyed, at least considerably diminished.

The whole beach is now dug up without reserve; and accordingly it seems to be perceived that the gathering is less productive from year to year.

When the camp is formed, the missionary of Uruana names his lieutenant, or commissary, who divides the ground where the eggs are found into different portions, according to the number of the Indian tribes who take part in the gathering.

They are all Indians of Missions, as naked and rude as the Indians of the woods; though they are called reducidos and neofitos, because they go to church at the sound of the bell, and have learned to kneel down during the consecration of the host.

The lieutenant (commissionado del Padre) begins his operations by sounding.

He examines by means of a long wooden pole or a cane of bamboo, how far the stratum of eggs extends.

This stratum, according to our measurements, extended to the distance of one hundred and twenty feet from the shore.

Its average depth is three feet.

The commissionado places marks to indicate the point where each tribe should stop in its labours.

We were surprised to hear this harvest of eggs estimated like the produce of a well-cultivated field.

An area accurately measured of one hundred and twenty feet long, and thirty feet wide, has been known to yield one hundred jars of oil, valued at about forty pounds sterling.

The Indians remove the earth with their hands; they place the eggs they have collected in small baskets, carry them to their encampment, and throw them into long troughs of wood filled with water.

In these troughs the eggs, broken and stirred with shovels, remain exposed to the sun till the oily part, which swims on the surface, has time to inspissate.

As fast as this collects on the surface of the water, it is taken off and boiled over a quick fire.

This animal oil, called tortoise butter (manteca de tortugas* (* The Tamanac Indians give it the name of carapa; the Maypures call it timi.

)) keeps the better, it is said, in proportion as it has undergone a strong ebullition.

When well prepared, it is limpid, inodorous, and scarcely yellow.

The missionaries compare it to the best olive oil, and it is used not merely for burning in lamps, but for cooking.

It is not easy, however, to procure oil of turtles' eggs quite pure.

It has generally a putrid smell, owing to the mixture of eggs in which the young are already formed.

I acquired some general statistical notions on the spot, by consulting the missionary of Uruana, his lieutenant, and the traders of Angostura.

The shore of Uruana furnishes one thousand botijas, or jars of oil, annually.

The price of each jar at Angostura varies from two piastres to two and a half.

We may admit that the total produce of the three shores, where the cosecha, or gathering of eggs, is annually made, is five thousand botijas.

Now as two hundred eggs yield oil enough to fill a bottle (limeta), it requires five thousand eggs for a jar or botija of oil.

Estimating at one hundred, or one hundred and sixteen, the number of eggs that one tortoise produces, and reckoning that one third of these is broken at the time of laying, particularly by the mad tortoises, we may presume that, to obtain annually five thousand jars of oil, three hundred and thirty thousand arrau tortoises, the weight of which amounts to one hundred and sixty-five thousand quintals, must lay thirty-three millions of eggs on the three shores where this harvest is gathered.

The results of these calculations are much below the truth.

Many tortoises lay only sixty or seventy eggs; and a great number of these animals are devoured by jaguars at the moment they emerge from the water.

The Indians bring away a great number of eggs to eat them dried in the sun; and they break a considerable number through carelessness during the gathering.

The number of eggs that are hatched before the people can dig them up is so prodigious, that near the encampment of Uruana I saw the whole shore of the Orinoco swarming with little tortoises an inch in diameter, escaping with difficulty from the pursuit of the Indian children.

If to these considerations be added, that all the arraus do not assemble on the three shores of the encampments; and that there are many which lay their eggs in solitude, and some weeks later,* between the mouth of the Orinoco and the confluence of the Apure; we must admit that the number of turtles which annually deposit their eggs on the banks of the Lower Orinoco, is near a million.

(* The arraus, which lay their eggs before the beginning of March, (for in the same species the more or less frequent basking in the sun, the food, and the peculiar organization of each individual, occasion differences,) come out of the water with the terekays, which lay in January and February.

Father Gumilla believes them to be arraus that were not able to lay their eggs the preceding year.

It is difficult to find the eggs of the terekays, because these animals, far from collecting in thousands on the same beach, deposit their eggs as they are scattered about.

) This number is very great for so large an animal.

In general large animals multiply less considerably than the smaller ones.

The labour of collecting the eggs, and preparing the oil, occupies three weeks.

It is at this period only that the missionaries have any communication with the coast and the civilized neighbouring countries.

The Franciscan monks who live south of the cataracts, come to the harvest of eggs less to procure oil, than to see, as they say, white faces; and to learn whether the king inhabits the Escurial or San Ildefonso, whether convents are still suppressed in France, and above all, whether the Turks continue to keep quiet.

On these subjects, (the only ones interesting to a monk of the Orinoco), the small traders of Angostura, who visit the encampments, can give, unfortunately, no very exact information.

But in these distant countries no doubt is ever entertained of the news brought by a white man from the capital.

The profit of the traders in oil amounts to seventy or eighty per cent;

for the Indians sell it them at the price of a piastre a jar or botija, and the expense of carriage is not more than two-fifths of a piastre per jar.

The Indians bring away also a considerable quantity of eggs dried in the sun, or slightly boiled.

Our rowers had baskets or little bags of cotton-cloth filled with these eggs.

Their taste is not disagreeable, when well preserved.

We were shown large shells of turtles, which had been destroyed by the jaguars.

These animals follow the arraus towards those places on the beach where the eggs are laid.

They surprise the arraus on the sand; and, in order to devour them at their ease, turn them in such a manner that the under shell is uppermost.

In this situation the turtles cannot rise; and as the jaguar turns many more than he can eat in one night, the Indians often avail themselves of his cunning and avidity.

When we reflect on the difficulty experienced by the naturalist in getting out the body of the turtle without separating the upper and under shells, we cannot sufficiently wonder at the suppleness of the tiger's paw, which is able to remove the double armour of the arrau, as if the adhering parts of the muscles had been cut by a surgical instrument.

The jaguar pursues the turtle into the water when it is not very deep.

It even digs up the eggs; and together with the crocodile, the heron, and the galinazo vulture, is the most cruel enemy of the little turtles recently hatched.

The island of Pararuma had been so much infested with crocodiles the preceding year, during the egg-harvest, that the Indians in one night caught eighteen, of twelve or fifteen feet long, by means of curved pieces of iron, baited with the flesh of the manatee.

Besides the beasts of the forests we have just named, the wild Indians also very much diminish the quantity of the oil.

Warned by the first slight rains, which they call turtle-rains (peje canepori* (* In the Tamanac language, from peje, a tortoise, and canepo, rain.

)), they hasten to the banks of the Orinoco, and kill the turtles with poisoned arrows, whilst, with upraised heads and paws extended, the animals are warming themselves in the sun.

Though the little turtles (tortuguillos) may have burst the shells of their eggs during the day, they are never seen to come out of the ground but at night.

The Indians assert that the young animal fears the heat of the sun.

They tried also to show us, that when the tortuguillo is carried in a bag to a distance from the shore, and placed in such a manner that its tail is turned to the river, it takes without hesitation the shortest way to the water.

I confess, that this experiment, of which Father Gumilla speaks, does not always succeed equally well: yet in general it does appear that at great distances from the shore, and even in an island, these little animals feel with extreme delicacy in what direction the most humid air prevails.

Reflecting on the almost uninterrupted layer of eggs that extends along the beach, and on the thousands of little turtles that seek the water as soon as they are hatched, it is difficult to admit that the many turtles which have made their nests in the same spot, can distinguish their own young, and lead them, like the crocodiles, to the lakes in the vicinity of the Orinoco.

It is certain, however, that the animal passes the first years of its life in pools where the water is shallow, and does not return to the bed of the great river till it is full-grown.

How then do the tortuguillos find these pools?

Are they led thither by female turtles, which adopt the young as by chance?

The crocodiles, less numerous, deposit their eggs in separate holes; and, in this family of saurians, the female returns about the time when the incubation is terminated, calls her young, which answer to her voice, and often assists them to get out of the ground.

The arrau tortoise, no doubt, like the crocodile, knows the spot where she has made her nest; but, not daring to return to the beach on which the Indians have formed their encampment, how can she distinguish her own young from those which do not belong to her?

On the other hand, the Ottomac Indians declare that, at the period of inundation, they have met with female turtles followed by a great number of young ones.

These were perhaps arraus whose eggs had been deposited on a desert beach to which they could return.

Males are extremely rare among these animals.

Scarcely is one male found among several hundred females.

The cause of this disparity cannot be the same as with the crocodiles, which fight in the coupling season.