Chap. III. COW-FISH. 165 



to range. 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 to 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. Fires were made, and the spits stuck 

 in the ground and slanted over the flames to roast. A 

 drizzling rain fell all the time, and the ground around the 

 fires swarmed with stinging ants, attracted by the entrails 

 and slime which were scattered about. The meat has 

 somewhat the taste of very coarse pork ; but the fat, 

 which lies in thick layers between the lean parts, is of a 

 greenish colour, and of a disagreeable, fishy flavour. The 

 animal was a large one, measuring nearly ten feet in 

 length, and nine in girth at the broadest part. The 

 manatee is one of the few objects which excite the 

 dull wonder and curiosity of the Indians, notwithstand- 

 ing its commonness. The fact of its suckling its young at 

 the breast, although an aquatic animal resembling a fish, 

 seems to strike them as something very strange. The 

 animal, as it lay on its back, with its broad rounded 

 head and muzzle, tapering body, and smooth, thick, 

 lead- coloured skin, reminded me of those Egyptian 

 tombs which are made of dark, smooth stone, and shaped 

 to the human figure. 



It rarely happened that we caught anything near the 

 canoe ; but one day, as we were slowly progressing 

 along a remanso past a thick bed of floating grasses, 

 the men caught sight of a large Pirarucu : the fish 



