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Updated: May 13, 2025
The girls had a glimpse of something like a seal, with a queer head, not unlike that of a small hippopotamus. "Look!" cried Mollie. "That was no alligator! What in the world is it?" "That's a manatee a sea-cow, some folks call 'em!" answered the ragged youth, as he poled his boat toward them, towing the Gem. "They're harmless, but I had to shoot this one to make him let go. I didn't hurt him much.
The inside of the boat was hollowed out by fire, with the help of the Indians, who were very expert at the management of the flame. For oars they had paddles made of ash or cedar plank, spliced to the tough and straight-growing lance wood, or to the less tough, but equally straight, white mangrove. Thwarts they made of cedar plank. Tholes or grummets for the oars they twisted out of manatee hide.
They subsist entirely on fish, turtle, and manatee. Several species of trogons are peculiar to this submerged region. The curious black umbrella-bird is entirely confined to it, as is also the little bristle-tailed manakin. Several monkeys visit it during the wet season, for the sake of its peculiar fruits; and here the scarlet-faced urikari has its home.
On most days, however, they brought two or three fine fish, and once they harpooned a manatee, or Vacca marina. On this last-mentioned occasion we made quite a holiday; the canoe was stopped for six or seven hours, and all turned out into the forest to help skin and cook the animal. The meat was cut into cubical slabs, and each person skewered a dozen or so of these on a long stick.
The manatee ranges from the mouth of the Amazon to the upper waters. It feeds on the grass growing on the borders of the lakes and rivers. It swims at a rapid rate, moved by the tail and paddles. The creature is hunted and killed by the natives with harpoons, the flesh being much sought after. The taste is somewhat between that of pork and beef.
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.
The lips are thick and big, the upper one split in the middle. The eyes are small. It has but two flippers, and these are set in at the shoulders. Instead of hind flippers, such as the Seals and Sea Lions have, the Manatee has a broad, flattened and rounded tail which is used as a propeller, just as fish use their tails. The neck is short and large. In the water the Manatee looks black.
The sky was unfavourable for astronomical observations; we had obtained some new ones in the two Great Cataracts; but thence, as far as the mouth of the Apure, we were obliged to renounce the attempt. M. Bonpland had the satisfaction at Carichana of dissecting a manatee more than nine feet long. It was a female, and the flesh appeared to us not unsavoury.
Well, I'll bring it here full of fresh water. Then if you don't get well pretty quick I'll leave you plenty to eat and drink and find my way to the coast. I can do it in a day, and have your old friend, who don't believe we know a manatee from a tarpon, up here with his boat the next day sure." "Don't do it, Neddy.
I'll swim down stream and hunt it up, if you will stay here and take care of the manatee, unless you think we had better turn it loose and both go for the canoe. We will be in a bad fix if we lose it. If you can take care of the manatee I can find the canoe." And Ned swam away down the river.
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