1934] Hatt, African Manatees 559 



but a flat, marshy tract of land, so nearly level, that it is almost an equal chance by 

 which way the waters will run from it. It is like a large peat-bog, or a gigantic sponge, 

 out of one side of which creeps the Arre and Shari, and out of the other the Benue. 

 The Hippopotamus goes easily from one to the other, and in the rains, when the 

 country becomes flooded, the natives go about in boats. It is like an inundation, so 

 that the manatee could with ease come up from the Atlantic and find its way into 

 Lake Tschad." 



The Upper Congo System 



1874. — Schweinfurth (II, pp. 159-160) heard from the natives of the Kibali, a 

 branch of the Uele, stories concerning a "river sheep" which he believed could be 

 nothing but a manatee. However, Schweinfurth believed that the Uele flowed into 

 Lake Chad and may have been influenced in his conclusion by Barth's report. 



1912. — From the Ubangi River tribes, von Wiese, Hauptmann, and Kaiserwal- 

 dau (I, p. 274) heard stories of a river animal which they assigned to the manatee. 



1920. — Schwarz (p. 857) states that Schweinfurth, Schubotz, and von Wiese 

 heard of the manatee in the Mbomu and Uele. The reference to Schubotz, however, is 

 obscure, for I have found no mention of the manatee in his writings. 



1887. — In his map of the distribution of the Sirenia (map 53f), Marshall accepted 

 the account of Schweinfurth and drew the conclusion that manatees occupied the 

 whole of the Uele and Congo. 



1932. — M. Lucien Blancou states that the natives affirm the existence of the 

 manatee in the lagoons along the Likouala aux Herbes and in the Sangha, right bank 

 tributaries to the Congo in the region of Lukolela. Resting as this does on native 

 accounts their presence in these streams must remain, for the present, problematical. 



Lakes Victoria, Albert, and Tanganyika 



1887. — Marshall (map 53f ) indicates that Sirenia occur in the above-named lakes, 

 but on whose authority he indicated this fabulous distribution I do not know. 



The East Coast of Africa 

 Some authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have stated 

 that manatees occur on the east coast from the Cape of Good Hope to the 

 Mozambique Channel. This must be due to credence given to reports of 

 early navigators who saw the dugong on the Madagascar coast or else- 

 where. There is on the Cape of Good Hope, between Cape Town and 

 Port Elizabeth, a Zeekoe River, this name, however, appears to refer to 

 the hippopotamus and not to the manatee or the dugong, for Sparrman 

 (1785, I, p. 346) speaks of this river harboring "sea cows (hippopotamus 

 amphibius, Plate rv)." The animal figured is clearly a hippopotamus, 

 and Sparrman's account of hunting "sea cows" further shows that this 

 animal was no sirenian. It is, however, stated in a letter which Sparrman 

 wrote to a friend, and which was subsequently published (Sparrman, 

 1777, p. 40) that the author captured a "manatee" alive, and to judge 

 by the route of this traveler, the capture must have been made in Cape 



