GUIANA TRICHECHUS. 24? 
overflow their banks) begin to return into the bed 
of the river, the Indians make dams across the 
mouths of the shallow lakes formed by the floods, 
and thus take great numbers of Manatis, as well 
as tortoises, fish, &c. 
. We must not here omit the curious his^tory of a 
tame Manati, which, at the time of the arrival of 
the Spaniards, was kept by a prince of Hispaniola, 
in a lake adjoining to his residence. It was, on 
account of its gentle nature, called, in the lan- 
guage of the country, by the name of Matiim. 
It would appear as soon as it was called by any of 
its familiars; for it hated the S])aniards, on ac- 
count of an injury it had received from one of 
those adventurers. The fable of Arion was here 
realized. It would offer itself to the Indian fa- 
vourites, and carry over the lake ten at a time, 
singing and playing on its back : one youth it was 
particularly enamoured with, which reminds me 
(says Mr. Pennant) of the classical parallel in the 
Dolphin of Hippo, so beautifully related by the 
younger Pliny. The fates of the two animals 
were very different : Matum escaped to its native 
waters by means of a violent flood : the Hipponen- 
sian fish fell a sacrifice to the poverty of the re- 
tired colonists 
Trichechus f Hydropithecus. 
Sea- Ape Manati. Pennant. 
This species is only known from the description 
of Steller, who, near the coast of America, saw a 
* Vide Pet. Martyrs Decades of the Indies, Dec. 3. book 8, 
