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Updated: June 21, 2025
The fruit, in size and shape like the date, has a pleasant flavoured juicy pulp, and falls to the ground when ripe. To maintain the claim of its ocean character, the Amazon possesses that huge, whale-like creature the manatee, or cow-fish, called by the Brazilians peixe boi, or vacca marina.
These are so numerous that sometimes, when sailing up stream with a fair wind, they were seen leaping all round the canoe in shoals, so that it was only necessary to strike the water with the paddles in order to kill a few. The peixe boi, or cow-fish, is one of the most curious of the inhabitants of the Amazon.
Duppo steered very carefully; and I, having the bow paddle, kept a very bright look-out ahead for any danger which might appear under water. I could not help thinking of the big cow-fish we had seen, and dreading lest one of them coming up the igarape might give the canoe an unintentional shove with his snout, which would most inevitably have upset her. Thus we went on.
There is no neck to be perceived; and the head, which is not very large, terminates in a large mouth and fleshy lips, which are not unlike those of a cow: hence its name of "cow-fish." There are stiff bristles on the upper lip, and a few thinly scattered hairs over the rest of the body.
The bones in them correspond to those in the human arm, having five fingers with the joints distinct, yet so enclosed in an inflexible sheath that not a joint can be moved. The cow-fish feeds on grass, coming in to the borders of the lakes and rivers to procure it. It can swim very rapidly by means of its flat tail and strong fins, and is not so easily captured as might be supposed.
It has two fins just behind the head; and below these, in the females, there are two breasts, from which good white milk flows when pressure is applied. The cow-fish feeds on grass at the borders of rivers and lakes; and when suckling its young it carries it in its fins or flippers, and clasps the little one to its breast, just as a mother clasps her baby!
Still the jaguar stood at bay, apparently scarcely feeling the wound. Meantime the huge cow-fish was slipping off the bank. Naro, on seeing this, ordered his men to paddle forward, while, harpoon in hand, he stood ready to dart it at the manatee. Every moment I expected to see the jaguar spring at us.
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