FLESH FOOD FEOM MAMMALS. 131 



The flesh of the full grown dugong is good and palat- 

 able, resembling fair beef. The meat of the young ani- 

 mal, salted and cured with the flesh and fat in its alternate 

 layers, produces excellent bacon which cannot readily be 

 distinguished from the orthodox pig, and meets with 

 ready sale in Queensland. The oil properly boiled out 

 from the fat and used on hot toast is equal to fresh but- 

 ter, and it can also be made to serve exactly the same 

 purpose in cooking. 



The oil from the fat is free from that rancid odour 

 common to animal oils, and is held in high esteem. 



The flesh of this animal affords excellent food in the 

 countries where it is captured. Humboldt compares it 

 to ham, and "Von Martins says he never tasted better 

 meat in the Brazils. When properly dried and salted in 

 the sun, the flesh will remain sweet for a whole year. 

 Amongst the South American monks, it is regarded, from 

 an ecclesiastical point of view, as a fish, together with 

 whales, seals, and other water-loving mammals; hence 

 they fare sumptuously upon its flesh during Lent. Mr. 

 Bates describes the capture of a manatee or vaeca marina, 

 during his canoe voyage on the Upper Amazon; but 

 does not praise the flavour of its flesh as other travellers 

 have done. He says : — " The meat was cut up into cubi- 

 cal 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. The 

 meat has somewhat the taste of 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 flesh of the manatee of South America is edible, 

 and pronounced by Humboldt and others sweet and palat- 

 able. "When salted and sun dried it will keep for a year 

 or more. The true manatees or lamantines are confined 

 to the Atlantic Ocean. The largest species (Manatus 

 laterostris) is found in the United States upon the 

 Florida coast ; another species inhabits the mouths of 

 the rivers in South America, 



In Africa, the M. Senegalensis and a second species, 



k2 



