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Updated: May 20, 2025
As I at first observed, these islands are not so remarkable for the number of the species of reptiles, as for that of the individuals, when we remember the well-beaten paths made by the thousands of huge tortoises the many turtles the great warrens of the terrestrial Amblyrhynchus and the groups of the marine species basking on the coast-rocks of every island we must admit that there is no other quarter of the world where this Order replaces the herbivorous mammalia in so extraordinary a manner.
'But you can't take it home like that, Cyril said, 'we shall have a crowd after us, and indeed two errand boys and a policeman had already collected. 'I can't give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the tortoises in, said the man grudgingly.
It was evidently a hard, impenetrable body, and not the soft substance that forms the bodies of the great marine mammalia. But this hard body might be a bony covering, like that of the antediluvian animals; and I should be free to class this monster among amphibious reptiles, such as tortoises or alligators. Well, no! the blackish back that supported me was smooth, polished, without scales.
A man overtook us who was going the same way, and we followed him. We crossed the Schiltpads Kill, where there was a fall of water over the rocks, affording a site for a grist-mill which was erected there. This Schilpads Kil is nothing but a branch or arm of Christine Kill into which it discharges itself, and is so named on account of the quantities of tortoises which are found there.
Within that palace Maya placed a peerless tank, and in that tank were lotuses with leaves of dark-coloured gems and stalks of bright jewels, and other flowers also of golden leaves. And aquatic fowls of various species sported on its bosom. Itself variegated with full-blown lotuses and stocked with fishes and tortoises of golden hue, its bottom was without mud and its water transparent.
It ate meat, and terribly frightened the little tortoises and frogs which, not aware of their danger, placed themselves on its back. The frogs did not receive the stroke till the moment when they touched the body of the gymnotus. When they recovered, they leaped out of the tub; and when replaced near the fish, they were frightened at the mere sight of it.
These mystic creatures, suddenly translated by night from unutterable solitudes to our peopled deck, affected me in a manner not easy to unfold. They seemed newly crawled forth from beneath the foundations of the world. Yea, they seemed the identical tortoises whereon the Hindoo plants this total sphere. With a lantern I inspected them more closely. Such worshipful venerableness of aspect!
The tanks and ponds within that forest, heated by the fire around, began to boil; the fishes and the tortoises in them were all seen to perish. During that great slaughter of living creatures in that forest, the burning bodies of various animals looked as if fire itself had assumed many forms.
Mery, an obscure French naturalist of the days of the Empire, pretended that he had kept in his house, for a month, some tortoises, whose breathing he had completely stopped. Some tortoises feed on vegetable substances, and some upon fish or small soft-bodied animals. Like birds, they mash their food with difficulty, by means of a real bill.
After dinner I went with the Captain to visit an island near, upon which he kept his live stock, such as pigs, sheep, and tortoises; the two latter had been procured from the west side of the island of Madagascar; the sheep were strange looking animals, more like goats than sheep, of all colours, and with fat tails, like the Cape sheep.
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