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 hillocks which indicated the places
where, that very night, each packet of eggs had been deposited in the
trench in groups of from one hundred and sixty to one hundred and
ninety.
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