447 



imprudent to have pursued him into the forest, 

 where we must have dispersed, or marched in 

 file, amid intertwining lianas. 



In the evening- we passed the mouth of the 

 Cano del Manati, thus named on account of the 

 immense quantity of manatees caught there every 

 year. This herbivorous animal of the cetaceous 

 family, called by the Indians apcia and avia % 

 attains here generally ten or twelve feet in 

 length. It weighs from five hundred to eight 

 hundred pounds -f*. We saw the water covered 

 with it's excrements, which are very fetid, but 

 perfectly resembling those of an ox. It abounds 

 in the Oroonoko, below the cataracts, in the Rio 

 Meta, and in the Apure, between the two islands 

 of Carrizales and Conserva. We found no ves- 

 tiges of nails on the external surface or the edge 

 of the fins, which are quite smooth ; but little ru- 

 diments of nails appear at the third phalanx, when 

 the skin of the fins is taken off;};. We dissected 



* The first of these words belongs to tbe Taraanack lan- 

 guage, and the second to the Otomac. Father Gili proves, 

 in opposition to Oviedo, that the manati (fish with hands) is 

 not Spanish, but belongs to the languages of Haiti (St. Do- 

 mingo) and the Maypures. Storia del Orinoco, vol. i, p. 84 ; 

 vol. iii, 2*25. I believe also, that, according to the genius of 

 the Spanish tongue, the animal would have been called manudo 

 or manon, but never manati. 



+ It is asserted, that one has been seen of eight thousand 

 pounds weight. 



t See on the manatee of the Oroonoko, and that of the 



