into three parts--one to the
watchers, another to the Indians, a third to the state, represented by
the captains of the shore, who, in their capacity of police, have to
superintend the collection of the dues. To certain beaches which the
decrease of the waters has left uncovered, and which have the privilege
of attracting the greater number of turtles, there has been given the
name of "royal beaches." When the harvest is gathered it is a holiday
for the Indians, who give themselves up to games, dancing, and drinking;
and it is also a holiday for the alligators of the river, who hold high
revelry on the remains of the amphibians.

Turtles, or turtle eggs, are an object of very considerable trade
throughout the Amazonian basin. It is these chelonians whom they
"turn"--that is to say, put on their backs--when they come from laying
their eggs, and whom they preserve alive, keeping them in palisaded
pools like fish-pools, or attaching them to a stake by a cord just long
enough to allow them to go and come on the land or under the water. In
this way they always have the meat of these animals fresh.

They proceed differently with the little turtles which are just hatched.
There is no need to pack them or tie them up. Their shell is still soft,
their flesh extremely tender, and after they have cooked them they eat
them just like oysters. In this form large quantities are consumed.

However, this is not the most general use to which the chelonian eggs
are put in the provinces of Amazones and Para. The manufacture of
_"manteigna de tartaruga,"_ or turtle butter, which will bear comparison
with the best products of Normandy or Brittany, does not take less every
year that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred millions of eggs.
But the turtles are innumerable all along the river, and they deposit
their eggs on the sands of the beach in incalculable quantities.
However, on account of the destruction caused not only by the natives,
but by the water-fowl from the side, the urubus in the air, and the
alligators in the river, their number has been so diminished that for
every little turtle a Brazilian pataque, or about a franc, has to be
paid.

On the morrow, at daybreak, Benito, Fragoso, and a few Indians took a
pirogue and landed on the beach of one of the large islands which they
had passed during the night. It was not necessary for the jangada to
halt. They knew they could catch her up.

On the shore they saw the little hi