e
Jacare-tinga is a smaller kind (only five feet long when full grown),
and has the long, slender muzzle of the extinct teleosaurus. The South
American alligators are smaller than the crocodiles of the Nile or
Ganges, and they are also inferior in rank. The head of the Jacare-uassu
(the ordinary species) is broad, while the gavial of India has a long,
narrow muzzle, and that of the Egyptian lizard is oblong. The dentition
differs: while in the Old World saurian the teeth interlock, so that the
two jaws are brought close together, the teeth in the upper jaw of the
Amazonian cayman pass by the lower series outside of them. The latter
has therefore much less power. It has a ventral cuirass as well as
dorsal, and it is web-footed, while the crocodile has the toes
free--another mark of inferiority. Sluggish on land, the alligator is
very agile in its element. It never attacks man when on his guard, but
it is cunning enough to know when it may do this with safety. It lays
its eggs (about twenty) some distance from the river bank, covering them
with leaves and sticks. They are larger than those of Guayaquil, or
about four inches long, of an elliptical shape, with a rough, calcareous
shell. Negro venders sell them cooked in the streets of Para.

Turtles are, perhaps, the most important product of the Amazon, not
excepting the pirarucu. The largest and most abundant species is the
Tortaruga grande. It measures, when full grown, nearly three feet in
length and two in breadth, and has an oval, smooth, dark-colored shell.
Every house has a little pond (called _currul_) in the back yard to hold
a stock of turtles through the wet season. It furnishes the best meat on
the Upper Amazon. We found it very tender, palatable, and wholesome; but
Bates, who was obliged to live on it for years, says it is very cloying.
Every part of the creature is turned to account. The entrails are made
into soup; sausages are made of the stomach; steaks are cut from the
breast; and the rest is roasted in the shell.[171] The turtle lays its
eggs (generally between midnight and dawn) on the central and highest
part of the plaias, or about a hundred feet from the shore. The Indians
say it will lay only where itself was hatched out. With its hind
flippers it digs a hole two or three feet deep, and deposits from eighty
to one hundred and sixty eggs (Gibbon says from one hundred and fifty to
two hundred). These are covered with sand, and the next comer makes
ano