Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Was Surprised To See That, Possessing
Such Considerable Receptacles For Air, The Manatee Comes So Often To
The Surface Of The Water To Breathe.
Its flesh is very savoury,
though, from what prejudice I know not, it is considered unwholesome
and apt to produce fever.
It appeared to me to resemble pork rather
than beef. It is most esteemed by the Guamos and the Ottomacs; and
these two nations are particularly expert in catching the manatee. Its
flesh, when salted and dried in the sun, can be preserved a whole
year; and, as the clergy regard this mammiferous animal as a fish, it
is much sought during Lent. The vital principal is singularly strong
in the manatee; it is tied after being harpooned, but is not killed
till it has been taken into the canoe. This is effected, when the
animal is very large, in the middle of the river, by filling the canoe
two-thirds with water, sliding it under the animal, and then baling
out the water by means of a calabash. This fishery is most easy after
great inundations, when the manatee has passed from the great rivers
into the lakes and surrounding marshes, and the waters diminish
rapidly. At the period when the Jesuits governed the Missions of the
Lower Orinoco, they assembled every year at Cabruta, below the mouth
of the Apure, to have a grand fishing for manatees, with the Indians
of their Missions, at the foot of the mountain now called El
Capuchino. The fat of the animal, known by the name of manatee-butter
(manteca 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 the other cetaceous animals which spout water. The hide of
the manati, which is more than an inch and a half thick, is cut into
slips, and serves, like thongs of ox-leather, to supply the place of
cordage in the Llanos. When immersed in water, it has the defect of
undergoing a slight degree of putrefaction. Whips are made of it in
the Spanish colonies. Hence the words latigo and manati are
synonymous. These whips of manatee-leather are a cruel instrument of
punishment for the unhappy slaves, and even for the Indians of the
Missions, though, according to the laws, the latter ought to be
treated like freemen.
We passed the night opposite the island of Conserva. In skirting the
forest we were surprised by the sight of an enormous trunk of a tree
seventy feet high, and thickly set with branching thorns. It is called
by the natives barba de tigre. It was perhaps a tree of the
berberideous family.* (* We found, on the banks of the Apure, Ammania
apurensis, Cordia cordifolia, C. grandiflora, Mollugo sperguloides,
Myosotis lithospermoides, Spermacocce diffusa, Coronilla occidentalis,
Bignonia apurensis, Pisonia pubescens, Ruellia viscosa, some new
species of Jussieua, and a new genus of the composite family,
approximating to Rolandra, the Trichospira menthoides of M. Kunth.)
The Indians had kindled fires at the edge of the water. We again
perceived that their light attracted the crocodiles, and even the
porpoises (toninas), the noise of which interrupted our sleep, till
the fire was extinguished. A female jaguar approached our station
whilst taking her young one to drink at the river. The Indians
succeeded in chasing her away, but we heard for a long time the cries
of the little jaguar, which mewed like a young cat. Soon after, our
great dog was bitten, or, as the Indians say, stung, at the point of
the nose, by some enormous bats that hovered around our hammocks.
These bats had long tails, like the Molosses: I believe, however, that
they were Phyllostomes, the tongue of which, furnished with papillae,
is an organ of suction, and is capable of being considerably
elongated. The dog's wound was very small and round; and though he
uttered a plaintive cry when he felt himself bitten, it was not from
pain, but because he was frightened at the sight of the bats, which
came out from beneath our hammocks. These accidents are much more rare
than is believed even in the country itself. In the course of several
years, notwithstanding we slept so often in the open air, in climates
where vampire-bats,* (* Verspertilio spectrum.) and other analogous
species are so common, we were never wounded. Besides, the puncture is
no-way dangerous, and in general causes so little pain, that it often
does not awaken the person till after the bat has withdrawn.
The 4th of April was the last day we passed on the Rio Apure. The
vegetation of its banks became more and more uniform. During several
days, and particularly since we had left the Mission of Arichuna, we
had suffered cruelly from the stings of insects, which covered our
faces and hands. They were not mosquitos, which have the appearance of
little flies, or of the genus Simulium, but zancudos, which are really
gnats, though very different from our European species.* (* M.
Latreille has discovered that the mosquitos of South Carolina are of
the genus Simulium (Atractocera meigen.) These insects appear only
after sunset. Their proboscis is so long that, when they fix on the
lower surface of a hammock, they pierce through it and the thickest
garments with their sting.
We had intended to pass the night at the Vuelta del Palmito, but the
number of jaguars at that part of the Apure is so great, that our
Indians found two hidden behind the trunk of a locust-tree, at the
moment when they were going to sling our hammocks. We were advised to
re-embark, and take our station in the island of Apurito, near its
junction with the Orinoco. That portion of the island belongs to the
province of Caracas, while the right banks of the Apure and the
Orinoco form a part, the one of the province of Varinas, the other of
Spanish Guiana.
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