Their Nests Are Sometimes Seen Floating
Near The Shore, And Generally Become The Prize Of The Boys, Who
Are Very Alert In Catching Them.
You know all sea-birds are allowed by the church of Rome to be
eaten on meagre days, as a kind of fish; and the monks especially
do not fail to make use of this permission.
Sea turtle, or
tortoises, are often found at sea by the mariners, in these
latitudes: but they are not the green sort, so much in request
among the aldermen of London. All the Mediterranean turtle are of
the kind called loggerhead, which in the West-Indies are eaten by
none but hungry seamen, negroes, and the lowest class of people.
One of these, weighing about two hundred pounds, was lately
brought on shore by the fishermen of Nice, who found it floating
asleep on the surface of the sea. The whole town was alarmed at
sight of such a monster, the nature of which they could not
comprehend. However, the monks, called minims, of St. Francesco
di Paolo, guided by a sure instinct, marked it as their prey, and
surrounded it accordingly. The friars of other convents, not
quite so hungry, crowding down to the beach, declared it should
not be eaten; dropped some hints about the possibility of its
being something praeternatural and diabolical, and even proposed
exorcisms and aspersions with holy water. The populace were
divided according to their attachment to this, or that convent: a
mighty clamour arose; and the police, in order to remove the
cause of their contention, ordered the tortoise to be recommitted
to the waves; a sentence which the Franciscans saw executed, not
without sighs and lamentation.
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