128 



TRAVELS ON THE RIO NEGRO. 



Xjulyy 



some large pinkish-white marbled blotches on the belly. The 

 skin is about an inch thick on the back, and a quarter of an 

 inch on the belly. Beneath the -skin is a layer of fat of a 

 greater or less thickness, generally about an inch, which is 

 boiled down to make an oil used for light and for cooking. 

 The intestines are very voluminous, the heart about the size of 

 a sheep's, and the lungs about tv/o feet long, and six or seven 

 inches wide, very cellular and spongy, and can be blov/n out 

 like a bladder. The skull is large and solid, with no front 

 teeth; the vertebrae extend to the very tip of the tail, but 

 show no rudiments of posterior limbs ; the fore limbs, on the 

 contrary, are very highly developed, the bones exactly corre- 

 sponding to those of the human arm, having even the five 

 fingers, with every joint distinct, yet enclosed in a stiff inflexible 

 skin, where not a joint can have any motion. 



The cow-fish feeds on grass at the borders of the rivers and 

 lakes, and swims quickly with the tail and paddles ; and though 

 the external organs of sight and hearing are so imperfect, these 

 senses are said by the hunters to be remarkably acute, and to 

 render necessary all their caution and skill to capture the 

 animals. They bring forth one, or rarely two, young ones, which 

 they clasp in their arms or paddles while giving suck. They 

 are harpooned, or caught in a strong net, at the narrow 

 entrance of a lake or stream, and are killed by driving a 

 wooden plug v/ith a mallet up their nostrils. Each yields from 

 five to twenty-five gallons of oil. The flesh is very good, 

 being something between beef and pork, and this one furnished 

 us with several meals, and was an agreeable change from our 

 fish diet, 



As I now expected a canoe shortly to arrive, bringing me 

 letters and remittances from England, after which I was 

 anxious to set ofl" for the Upper Rio Negro as soon as possible, 

 I determined to return to Barra, and having agreed for a 

 passage in a canoe going there, I took leave of my kind host. 

 I must, however, first say a few words about him. Senhor Jose 

 Antonio Brandao had come over from Portugal when very 

 young, and had married early and settled, with the intention 

 of spending his life here. Very singularly for a Portuguese, 

 he entirely devoted himself to agriculture. He built himself 

 a country-house at Manaquery, on a lake near the main river, 

 brought Indians from a distance to settle with him, cleared the 



