MANATIS AND BOAS, 209 



palms which they have pLanted along their shores, and by 

 thousands of pounds, the profit which accrues from them. 



After breakfast call it luncheon rather we started for 

 the lagoon. We had set our hearts on seeing Manatis "sea- 

 cows " which are still not uncommon on the east coast of 

 this island, though they have been exterminated through 

 the rest of the AVest Indies since the days of Pere Labat. 

 That good Missionary speaks of them in his delightful journal 

 as already rare in the year 1695 ; and now, as far as I am 

 aware, none are to be found north of Trinidad and the 

 Spanish Main, save a few round Cuba and Jamaica. We 

 were anxious, too, to see, if not to get, a boa-constrictor of 

 one kind or other. For there are two kinds in the island, 

 which may be seen alive at the Zoological Gardens in the 

 same cage. The true Boa,^ which is here called Mahajuel, is 

 striped as well as spotted with two patterns, one over the 

 other. The Huillia, Anaconda, or Water-boa '"^ bears only a 

 few large round spots. Both are fond of the w^ater, the 

 Huillia living almost entirely in it ; both grow to a very 

 large size ; and both are dangerous, at least to children and 

 small animals. That there v/ere Huillias about the place, 

 possibly within fifty yards of the house, there was no doubt. 

 One of our party had seen with his own eyes one of seven- 

 and-twenty feet long killed, with a whole kid inside it, only a 



^ Boa constrictor. ^ Eunectes innrinus. 



VOL. II. P 



