The African sketch-book . s in the water under-neath. The iron spear-head, which is small, with analmost imperceptible barb, is tied by a string to the staffor butt. When the spear is thrown, and the turtle isstruck, the spear-head remains in the flesh, and the staff,separated from it but retained by the string, floats onthe surface of the water, prevents the turtle from divingbeyond the length of the string, and marks its course. As soon as he had caught the staff, which, drawn bythe turtle, was hissing along the surface of the sea,Abauhi drew the creature towards the canoe, playing Book I] T
The African sketch-book . s in the water under-neath. The iron spear-head, which is small, with analmost imperceptible barb, is tied by a string to the staffor butt. When the spear is thrown, and the turtle isstruck, the spear-head remains in the flesh, and the staff,separated from it but retained by the string, floats onthe surface of the water, prevents the turtle from divingbeyond the length of the string, and marks its course. As soon as he had caught the staff, which, drawn bythe turtle, was hissing along the surface of the sea,Abauhi drew the creature towards the canoe, playing Book I] TURTLE 59 it like a salmon. He then gave it the second spear :again it sprang from the sea, looking black against themoon ; and we had another burst, but this time muchshorter than the last. The turtle was now distressed/and with a yo hce yo ! (borrowed from English merchantsailors) was hauled into the canoe, when Abauhi wel-comed it by patting its head, and spitting down itsmouth. This he told me was play, and showed me a. scar on his arm which a turtle had inflicted in sportiveretribution. We hunted an hour longer without a find, and thenreturned to Corisco. The turtle lying in the bottom ofthe canoe uttered the most extraordinary sounds, allof which caricatured humanity. Sometimes it was aharsh, dry, consumptive cough ; sometimes the hawkingsound emitted by Yankees previous to expectoration ;sometimes a deep-drawn, gasping, eructative, apoplectic, 60 TURTLE [Book I after-dinner sigh. I carefully noted down these vocalpeculiarities, with the view of writing a memoir upon thisinteresting Batrachian ; and the next day, having causedthe animal to be dissected, I made three scientific ex-periments, all of which were attended with completesuccess. The first resulted in an excellent soup ; thesecond in a dish of cutlets ; and the third in liver these I ate in the evening to repletion, and dreamtthat I was alderman soup in the infernal regions, beinglapped up by plethoric gr
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