348 BLACK EIVER. 



A few months before the capture of the specimen 

 which fell under my own notice, a pair were seen in 

 the harbour of Black River. My informant, who 

 saw them, assured me that they were playing at the 

 surface of the water over the bar at the river's mouth, 

 hardly a gun-shot from the bridge ; and that they 

 continued their gambols for a considerable time ; yet 

 no one cared to pursue them : a fair specimen of 

 Jamaican apathy. These were about twelve feet 

 long. 



In Dr. Robinson's MS. volumes there are some 

 occasional notices of this animal, and of the manner 

 in which it was captured, about the middle of the 

 last century. He states that a large Manatee would 

 sell at Kingston for 30/. currency ( =r 18/. sterling). 



even the docility, which would submit to the office of ferrying favourite 

 attendants across the lake, I should by no means reject as impossible, 

 nor as less likely than the same quality in the Elephant and the 

 Horse. After a description of the animal sufficiently exact, the 

 historian proceeds : — " There was a king of Hispaniola which put 

 one of these animals (being presented him by his fisherman) into a 

 lake of standing water, where it lived five and twenty years. When 

 any of the servants came to the lake and called Matto-matto, she would 

 come and receive meat at their hands ; and if any would be ferried 

 over the lake, she willingly yielded her back, and performed the office 

 faithfully : yea, she hath carried ten men at once, singing and playing. 

 A Spaniard had once wronged her, by casting a dart at her ; and 

 therefore after that, when she was called, she would plunge down 

 again ; — otherwise to the Indians she remained officious. She would 

 be as full of play as a monkey, and would wrestle with them, especially 

 she was addicted to one young man, which used to feed her. This 

 proceeded, partly from her docile nature, partly being taken young ; 

 she was kept up awhile at home, in the king's house, with bread. The 

 river swelling over his banks into the lake, it followed the stream, 

 and was seen no more." {Pilgrims, B. viii. c. 14.) 



