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The answer is, that the cry of the hippopotamus was fancied to resemble the neighing of a horse; and in some respects this is really the case. Hence the misnomer. The Dutch of the Cape Colony call the creature a Cow, or Sea-cow, which is also an ill-adapted name.

A light but favorable breeze carried them away from land, and they were once again on the open sea. As regards provisions, they had little to fear; they could rely upon falling in with a boobie or sea-cow occasionally, and fresh fish were to be had at any time.

Clothing of sea-otter skins of priceless value, which afterwards proved a fortune to those who survived, and food of the flesh of the great sea-cow, saved a remnant of the wretched crew.

"That's true, Bob," said Tom Brown, who, although he had prepared to fire in case of need, intended to have allowed his friend to take the first shot; "'twould be a pity to lose our chance of a sea-cow, which is good for food, for the sake of a monster which at the best could only give us a fine specimen-head for a museum, for his entire body is too big to haul about through the country after us."

The passage from the seal to the whale through the walrus and the sea-cow is an easy and natural one, the two latter being obviously the connecting links; and in spite of certain diversities of food, they form in reality one family-party, as do the marsupials. But it is too late in the day to talk of this, my dear child, and you and I cannot pretend to alter what is taught in the schools.

It's a very rare mammal, a manatee, or sea-cow. It's perfectly harmless. I wonder if we could catch it. Let's try it. I'll fix a lasso and throw it over the manatee's head when it comes up to breathe." "S'pose you get your rope over its head, what will happen next to the canoe and to us?" "That's what I want to find out. Please paddle a little nearer very quietly.

On the 10th of August, with such cheers as the island never heard before or since, the single-master was launched from the skids and named the St. Peter. Cannon balls and cartridges were thrown in bottom as ballast. Luckily, eight hundred pounds of meal had been reserved for the return voyage, and Steller had salted down steaks of whale meat and sea-cow.

There were all sorts of them, springbucks in myriads, blesbok and quagga and wildebeeste in thousands, sable antelope, sassaby and hartebeeste in herds, eland, giraffe and koodoo in troops; while the forests were full of elephant and the streams of sea-cow.

I don't think I should have held on so long if I had only had the sea-cow flesh, but the bears made a nice change, and I only wished that one or two more had managed to crawl in." "I wonder you were able to kill them with a boat-hook." "I didn't, sir.

The cultivated patch behind each tenement is fenced in by bamboos, broken spars, and driftwood. With its few green cabbages and turnip-tops, each garden looks something like an aquarium with the water turned off. In fact you would not be surprised to meet a merman digging among the potatoes, or a mermaid milking a sea-cow hard by.