For the turtle being large, they generally weighing about 200 lb. weight each, those we took with us lasted near a month: so that before our store was spent, we met with a fresh recruit on the coast of Mexico, where in the heat of the day we often saw great numbers of them fast asleep, floating on the surface of the water. Upon discovering them, we usually sent out our boat with a man in the bow who was a dextrous diver; and as the boat came within a few yards of the turtle, the diver plunged into the water, taking care to rise close upon it, when seizing the shell near the tail, and pressing down the hinder parts, the turtle was thereby awakened, and began to strike with its claws, which motion supported both it and the diver till the boat came up and took them in. By this management we never wanted turtle for the succeeding four months in which we continued {205} at sea; and though, when at the island of Quibo, we had already been three months on board, without otherwise putting our feet on shore than in the few days we stayed there (except those employed in the attack at Paita), yet in the whole seven months from our leaving Juan Fernandes to our anchoring in the harbour of Chequetan, we buried no more in the whole squadron than two men; a most incontestable proof that the turtle, on which we fed for the last four months of this term, was at least innocent, if not something more. Considering the scarcity of other provisions on some part of the coast of the South Seas, it appears wonderful that a species of food so very palatable and salubrious as turtle, and there so much abounding, should be proscribed by the Spaniards as unwholesome, and little less than poisonous. Perhaps the strange appearance of this animal may have been the foundation of this ridiculous and superstitious aversion, which is strongly rooted in the inhabitants of those countries, and of which we had many instances during the course of this navigation. I have already observed that we put our Spanish prisoners on shore at Paita, and that the _Gloucester_ sent theirs to Manta; but as we had taken in our prizes some Indian and negro slaves, we did not dismiss them with their masters, but continued them on board, as our crews were thin, to assist in navigating our ships. These poor people being possessed with the prejudices of the country they came from, were astonished at our feeding on turtle, and seemed fully persuaded that it would soon destroy us; but finding that none of us died, nor even suffered in our health by a continuation of this diet, they at last got so far the better of their aversion as to be persuaded to taste it, to which the absence of all other kinds of fresh provisions might not a little contribute. However, it was with great reluctance, and very sparingly, that they first began to eat of it: but the relish improving upon them by degrees, they at last grew extremely fond of it, and preferred it to