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Updated: May 26, 2025
Blood rose to the surface immediately, and there was a considerable plashing as the strong manati made its attempt to escape; but the head of the harpoon was deeply buried in its flesh, and, with the attached cord, Guapo soon hauled the animal ashore.
The Isla del Apurito is twenty-two leagues in length, and two or three leagues in breadth. It is divided by the Cano de la Tigrera and the Cano del Manati into three parts, the two extremes of which bear the names of Isla de Blanco and Isla de los Garzitas.
Afterwards we sought the ford to pass over towards the mountain called Iconuri, where Putijma foretold us of the mine. In this lake we saw one of the great fishes, as big as a wine pipe, which they call manati, being most excellent and wholesome meat.
The colour of the skin is a dusky lead, with some flesh-coloured marks on the belly, and the skin itself is an inch thick at its thickest part, on the back. Beneath the skin is a layer of fat, of great thickness, which makes excellent oil when boiled. As we have said, the manati has no appearance of hind-limbs. Its fore-limbs, however, are highly developed for a water animal.
At length it sunk, and being drawn to the ships side was hoisted on deck by the tackle. The other fish is called Manati by the Indians, and there is nothing of the kind seen in Europe. It is about as large as an ordinary calf, nothing differing from it in the colour and taste of the flesh, except that it is perhaps better and fatter.
The rest were mere objects of vulgar wonder and curiosity; some reeds of an extraordinary size, some birds of a very beautiful plumage, and some stuffed skins of the huge alligator and manati; all of which were preceded by six or seven of the wretched natives, whose singular colour and appearance added greatly to the novelty of the show.
Blood rose to the surface immediately, and there was a considerable splashing as the strong manati made its attempt to escape; but the head of the harpoon was deeply buried in its flesh, and, with the attached cord, Guapo soon hauled the animal ashore.
Pliny's dolphin is famous, and what is related of the American Manati: but the most stupendous instance, that of the xiphia or sword-fish, which the Mamertines can take up by no other strategem than a song of certain barbarous words, as the thing is related by Thom. Fazzello.
The hide of the manati, which is more than an inch and a half thick, is cut into slips, and serves, like thongs of ox-leather, to supply the place of cordage in the Llanos. When immersed in water, it has the defect of undergoing a slight degree of putrefaction. Whips are made of it in the Spanish colonies. Hence the words latigo and manati are synonymous.
Its breadth between Cape Cruze and port Manati is forty-five leagues, whence it narrows to about twelve leagues between Matamano and the Havanna. Most of the island is flat, and full of woods and forests; but from the eastern point of Mayci, there are exceedingly high mountains for thirty leagues.
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