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Updated: May 26, 2025
The rivers of the north coast are stocked with delicious fish, some of them large enough to weigh two quintals. From the river of Arecibo to that of Manati, a distance of 5 leagues, a fresh-water lagoon, perfectly navigable for small vessels through the whole of its extent, runs parallel to the sea at about a mile from the shore.
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."
The Indian took pride in showing him the rivers Manatuabón, Manatí, Sibucó, and others, and in having their sands washed in the presence of his white friends, little dreaming that by so doing he was sealing the doom of himself and people.
Leaning against the masts and gunwale, or leisurely moving the oars, the soldiers could observe the dolphins leaping in the river, the sudden darts of the alligators as they hunted the fish through the water, or the clumsy movements of the manati, one of the Sirenia, as it cropped grass at the edge of the bank, to the danger of the eel-like lung fish, which sometimes goes up on to dry land.
It is said that the flesh of manatis is of good flavour, and they are found in great numbers in the waters of the island. The manati Matu finally disappeared. It was carried out to sea by the Attibunico, one of the four rivers which divide the island into equal parts, during an inundation accompanied by horrible typhoons which the islanders call hurricanes.
It rises in the sierra of Cayey, and, with the name of Pinones river, it flows northwest, passing through Aibonito, Toa Alta, Toa Baja, and Dorado, where it discharges into the Atlantic to the west of the preceding river. The Manati river is bounded on the cast and south by the Sierra Grande and on the west by the Siales ridge.
Some term it the "sea-cow," but this is an improper name for it, since it also inhabits fresh-water rivers throughout all tropical America. It is known as the Manati, and the Portuguese call it "peixe hoi," which is only "fish-cow" done into Portuguese. It is a curious creature the fish-cow, and I shall offer you a short description of it.
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.
It was probably a party of manati gamboling about in the water which induced Columbus gravely to enter in his logbook that he had sighted mermaids near Monte Cristi. Of birds there are over one hundred and fifty species, about ninety-five of which are residents and among these several peculiar to this island.
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