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Updated: July 2, 2025
Using a barbless point attached to a long and strong line, and fitted into a socket in the heavy end of the harpoon shaft, the black waits and watches. With the utmost caution and in absolute silence he follows in his canoe the dugong as it feeds, and strikes as it rises to breathe. A mad splash, a wild rush! The canoe bounces over the water as the line tightens.
Half hippopotamus, half seal, yet in no way related to either, something between a pachyderm and cetacean, the dugong is a herbivorous marine mammal, commonly known as "the sea cow," because of its resemblance in some particulars to that useful domesticated animal.
"Is the dugong dangerous to attack?" I asked, despite the Canadian's shrug of the shoulders. "Yes, sometimes," the captain replied. "These animals have been known to turn on their assailants and capsize their longboats. But with Mr. Land that danger isn't to be feared. His eye is sharp, his arm is sure.
He had a number of strange adventures to narrate, of which he was the hero. Although his accounts were not implicitly believed, it was agreed that, at all events, they were possible, which was somewhat in his favour. Two weeks after this, her Majesty's ships Dugong and Blenny were gliding under all sail across the Bay of Biscay.
Late in the evening a revenue cutter came off the coast, and put on shore a very stout lieutenant, who came puffing up to the Tower, and announced himself as Lieutenant Dugong, of the Coast Guard. The captain received him cordially, but Becky surveyed him in despair.
I heard its teeth grind on the iron plate, and the dugong disappeared, carrying the harpoon with him. But the barrel soon returned to the surface, and shortly after the body of the animal, turned on its back. The boat came up with it, took it in tow, and made straight for the Nautilus. It required tackle of enormous strength to hoist the dugong on to the platform. It weighed 10,000 lb.
At the beach, on which lay the body of the dugong, the water was tolerably shallow, but from this point the bottom of the lake sloped gradually, and it was probable that the depth was considerable in the center. The lake might be considered as a large center basin, which was filled by the water from the Red Creek.
Both the frigate and the brig were destined, it was supposed, for the China seas; but this was not known to a certainty. The Dugong had been commissioned by Captain Grant, Alick Murray's old commander in the Archer, who had some short time before received his post rank.
As an instance: Owen, in speaking of the dugong, says, "The generative organs being those which are most remotely related to the habits and food of an animal, I have always regarded as affording very clear indications of its true affinities. We are least likely in the modifications of these organs to mistake a merely adaptive for an essential character."
The species of which a member was discovered by our castaways, is the Halicore Indicus, or dugong of the Indian Archipelago; and, as we have said, is never found very far from land.
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