THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



died because the walruses have forsaken some particular 

 district. From its skin the Eskimo makes the coverings of 

 his kayaks, or canoes. The bones furnish him with the 

 runners for his sledges, and the heads of his weapons. 

 The tusks are used as points for spears and harpoons, 

 and also cut up to make bird-slings. The animal's in- 

 testines are made into light garments, or split into twine 

 of great strength. The flesh supplies the Eskimo with 

 food, and the abundant fat gives him fuel for his lamps. 



The manati (often anglicized as "manatee") is the 

 most curious of all the whale's cousins. The Spanish 

 colonists of the West Indies called this aquatic mammal 

 the manattoui, and this became latinized as manatus, mean- 

 ing "furnished with hands", referring to the curious 

 hand-like form or hand-like usage of the Manati's fore- 

 flippers. The animal is somewhat whale-like in shape, 

 having an oblong head, a fish-like body, and a shovel- 

 like tail ; while it has a face which can only be described 

 as comical. Its upper lip is cleft and each of the lobes so 

 created is separately movable. The nostrils are two slits 

 at the end of its fat muzzle which resembles nothing so 

 much as the conventional "toper's nose" of cartoon 

 characters. The eyes are extremely small. The creature 

 has no external ears. It has no tusks — the face is babyish 

 although it has an odd suggestion of chronic alcoholism — 

 but it has about twenty pairs of peg-like teeth in each 

 jaw. 



From the shoulder-joint downwards the manati's 

 flippers can be moved in all directions : its "elbows" and 

 "wrists" are peculiarly flexible. In feeding, the manati 

 is almost human in its actions, conveying its food to its 

 mouth with one "hand", or both simultaneously. It uses 

 its flexible lips in an action which recalls the movements 

 of a caterpillar's mandibles in nibbling a leaf. 



All trustworthy observations show that the manati — 

 unlike other aquatic mammals such as the seals — has no 

 power of voluntarily leaving the water. It is a mammal 



230 



