Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1912-10-10
Ate Turtle Eggs.

Ate Turtle Eggs.
One day the men called Mr.. Will
| liams' attention to row of white
mounds of sand, and asked him if ne
cared for turtle or alligator eggs. In
the market in Bucaramanga, both
kinds are found for sale, side by side
with hen and turkey egg IS. Mr.. Will
liams consented to try some turtle
eggs, but telling the men it would be
pity to rob the river of any pros
pective aligators, asked them not 10
disturb the alligator nests! They dug
"a turtle eggs out of sand bill, and
| Mr.. Williams boiled them on the in
stalIment plan, over our Tiny alcohol
lamp. These eggs are about two
thirds the size of hens egg, and have
only tough, flexible covering not a
hard shell. Newell and Mr.. Williams
pronounced them good. l did not try
them.
One night when our four polemen
were replaced by fresh men, the eight
together captured an enormous turtle,
prepared great oven on the bank and
roasted the creature. All night they
Toasted and revelled, and only at sum
rise did we continue our journey.
These men eat only once in "a hours.
The second day that we were on the
Lebrija, in the middle of the afternoon
one of the men placed several pieces OF
old sheet-iron in the bottom of ;the
front end of the boat and suspended
an enormous Kettle across pole ar
ranged on the sides of the canoe. The
pofemen pulled up To the shore and
piled dry leaves and dead branches
from the forest under the kettle. Then
they filled the kettle with yucca, pla-
tino, plantains and apio, putting in
some eight or ten pounds of half
spoiled, half-dried, black looking beef,
which they dug out from under the
mail sack. Pouring river water over
the mess, they set fire to the brush.
The smoke, coming from the front OF
the boat and but few feet away, fair
ly suffocated us and the smell of that
meat was beyond even the 1magina-
ton of civilized folk. Naturally, we
had had enough of supper That night
by the time that concoction had boiled
for three or four hours, SO we made no
attempt to eat anything ourselves.
But those four men, who had been
keeping up at least a lazy pretense of
moving their poles most of the day,
pulled up Oh the bank at shutdown
and ate for several hours. We had
auricular proof of this fact.
Work All Day Without Food.
This is much the way all poems live
on the haciendas and in the country
parts of Colombia. Rising early, with
out breakfast, they go out in families,
men, women and children, and labor
through the day, resting and sleeping
from II till 3, or through the most
torrid part of the day. They eat moth
ing throughout the day. At shutdown
they return to the village. slaughter
some animal, usually cow, prepare
an enormous fire and roast the crea-
ture with any amount Of their native
vegetables. They do not make bread.
The article is entirely unknown in
many sections. When the feast is
properly prepared they squat on the
ground and eat, using their fingers for
knives and forks, and small totuma,
a species of gourd, for spoons. The
quantity of food that each can con-
sumo is really incredible. And they
wash it all well down with many
cans of chicha. Then they roll over
and sleep until daylight when they
commence a new day of starvation,