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The island off which we lay was high, rocky, and barren, with some low land next the sea, but now water was to be found, like those we had seen formerly. On the 12th the Duchess, which lay at anchor a good distance from us, had got about 150 land and sea-tortoises, but not generally so large as ours; while we had 120 turtles, but no land-tortoises as yet. The Marquis had the worst luck.
He was in excellent health, for he had means to start a fire, and he found abundance of Brazil-nuts and big land-tortoises. Senhor Caripe said that the rubbermen now did not go above the ninth degree, or thereabouts, on the upper Aripuanan proper, having found the rubber poor on the reaches above. A year previously five rubbermen, Mundurucu Indians, were working on the Corumba at about that level.
The land-tortoises laid eggs on our deck; and our men brought many of them from the land, pure white, and as large as a goose's egg, with a strong thick shell, exactly round. These are the ugliest creatures that can well be imagined, the back-shell being not unlike the top of an old hackney-coach, as black as jet, and covered with a rough shrivelled skin.
On a former occasion, Captain Davies came to anchor on the west side of these islands, where he and his men subsisted on land-tortoises for three months, and saved from them sixty jars of oil. He also found several good channels on that side, with anchorage between the isles, and several rivulets of fresh water, with plenty of trees for fuel.
The sea also round these islands is well stored with good fish of a large size, and abounds in sharks. These islands are better stored with guanoes and land-tortoises than any other part of the world. The guanoes are very tame, of extraordinary size, and very fat. The land-tortoises are likewise very fat, and so numerous that several hundred men might subsist upon them for a considerable time.
Our travellers gave them a good supply of ammunition, the only thing that they wished-for, and the Griquas, yoking their oxen to the crazy old waggon, set off in a westerly direction. The route of the caravan was now directed more to the south-west, and they passed over an uninterrupted plain strewed with small land-tortoises, and covered with a profusion of the gayest flowers.
On the 13th, I sent our pinnace to the place where the Duchess got land-tortoises, which returned at night with thirty-seven, and some salt they had found in a pond; and our yawl brought us twenty sea-turtles, so that we were now well provided. Some of the largest land-tortoises weighed 100 pounds; and the largest sea-turtles were upwards of 400 pounds weight.
Next morning there was a strong breeze, and we were able to weigh anchor and run up against the current. When passing an island some way up, a couple of canoes came off with provisions to sell, when we readily became purchasers. Among other articles we bought a number of land-tortoises, which, when cooked, we found delicious.
I saw no kind of beasts, but there are guanas in abundance, and land-tortoises almost on every island, besides vast numbers of turtles or sea-tortoises. It is very strange how the land-tortoises have got here, as there are none on the main, and they could not have come of themselves.
There are several kinds of land-tortoises in the West Indies, one of which, called Hackatee by the Spaniards, keeps mostly in fresh-water ponds, having long necks, small legs, and flat feet, and is usually between ten and fifteen pounds weight.
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