450 



teca de manati, is used for lamps in the churches ; 

 and is also employed in preparing food. It has 

 not the fetid smell of whale oil, or that of other 

 cetaceous animals that spout water. The hide 

 of the manatee, which is more than an inch and 

 half thick, is cut into slips, and serves^ like 

 thongs of ox leather, to supply the place of cord- 

 age in the Llanos. When immersed in water, 

 it has the defect of undergoing an incipient 

 degree of putrefaction. Whips are made of 

 it in the Spanish colonies. Hence the words 

 latigo and mcmati are synonimous. These whips 

 of manatee leather are a cruel instrument of 

 punishment for the unhappy slaves, and even for 

 the Indians of the missions, who, according to 

 the laws, ought to be treated like free men. 



We passed the night opposite the island of 

 Conserva. In skirting the forest, we were struck 

 at the view of an enormous trunk of a tree se- 

 venty feet high, and thickly set with branching 

 thorns. It is called by the natives harba de 

 tigre. It was perhaps a tree of the berberideous 

 family *. The Indians had kindled fires at the 



* We found, on the banks of the Apure, ammania apuremis, 

 cordia cordifolia, c. grandiflora, mollugo sperguloides, myos- 

 otis lithospermoides, spermacocce diffusa, coronilla oncidentalis, 

 bignonia apuraisis, pisonia pubescens, ruellia viscosa, some new 

 species of juss'teua, and a new genus of the composite family, 

 approximating to rolandra, the trichospira menthoides of Mr. 

 Kunth. 



