Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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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.
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