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Updated: May 26, 2025
It loved to play upon the bank with the servants of the cacique, and especially with the young son who was in the habit of feeding it. It was more amusing than a monkey. This manati was for long a joy to the whole island, and many natives and Christians daily visited this animal.
It was no other than a "fish-cow;" and, as they continued to examine it more attentively, they were astonished to observe that, with its short paddle-like limbs, it hugged two miniature models of itself close to its two breasts. These were the "calves" in the act of suckling, for such is the mode in which the manati nourishes her young.
He was there no longer, and it would have been imprudent to have pursued him into the forest, where we must have dispersed, or advanced in single file, amidst the intertwining lianas. In the evening we passed the mouth of the Cano del Manati, thus named on account of the immense quantity of manatees caught there every year.
A certain cacique of the region, Caramatexius by name, was very fond of fishing. Upon one occasion a young fish of the gigantic species called by the natives manati was caught in his nets. I think this species of monster in unknown in our seas. It is shaped like a turtle and has four feet, but is covered with scales instead of shell.
All the art of the hunter is required to effect its destruction. The harpoon is the weapon usually employed, though sometimes they are caught in strong nets stretched across the mouths of rivers or the narrow arms of lakes. The flesh of the manati is much esteemed, and tastes somewhat between beef and pork, altogether different from "fish."
Hence it has been concluded, that the word tannin may comprehend the class of lizards from the eft to the crocodile, provided they be amphibious; also the seal, the manati, the morse, and even the whale, if he came ashore; but as whales remain constantly in the deep, they seem to be more correctly ascribed to the class of fishes.
The historian of Columbus does not appear to have been at all conversant in zoology. What the Saavina was cannot be conjectured from his slight notices, unless a basking shark. The other, no way allied to fish except by living in the water, is a real mammiferous quadruped, the Trichechus Manati of naturalists, or the sea cow. The author or his original translator, falls into a great error here.
The cacique fed this young fish for several days with yucca bread, millet, and the roots the natives eat. While it was still young, he put it in a lake near to his house, as in a fish-pond. This lake, which had been called Guaurabo. was henceforth called Manati. For twenty-five years this fish lived at liberty in the waters of the lake, and grew to an extraordinary size.
It rises in the Sierra Grande, and parallel with the preceding river, it flows through Siales and Manati, to the north of which latter town it empties into the Atlantic. The Arecibo river is bounded on the east by the Siales mountain ridge, on the south by the western extremity of the Sierra Grande, and on the west by the Lares ridge.
The Indians call her manati; who carries her young under her arm, and gives it suck like a woman; and being wounded, she lamenteth aloud with a human voice, and is said at certain seasons to sing very melodiously; which melody, perhaps, having been heard in those seas, is that which Mr. Frank reported to be the choirs of the Sirens and Tritons.
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