Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The
Manatees, Guided By Instinct, Have Discovered This Region Of Fresh
Waters; And The Fishermen Who Like The Flesh Of These Herbivorous
Animals,* Find Them In Abundance In The Open Sea.
(* Possibly they
subsist upon sea-weed in the ocean, as we saw them feed, on the banks
of the Apure and the Orinoco, on several species of Panicum and
Oplismenus (camalote?).
It appears common enough, on the coast of
Tabasco and Honduras, at the mouths of rivers, to find the manatees
swimming in the sea, as crocodiles do sometimes. Dampier distinguishes
between the fresh-water and the salt-water manatee. (Voyages and
Descr. volume 2) Among the Cayos de las doce leguas, east of Xagua,
some islands bear the name of Meganos del Manati.)
Half a mile east of Cayo Flamenco we passed close to two rocks on
which the waves break furiously. They are the Piedras de Diego Perez
(latitude 21 degrees 58 minutes 10 seconds.) The temperature of the
sea at its surface lowers at this point to 22.6 degrees centigrade,
the depth of the water being only about one fathom. In the evening we
went on shore at Cayo de Piedras; two rocks connected together by
breakers and lying in the direction of north-north-west to
south-south-east. On these rocks which form the eastern extremity of
the Jardinillos many vessels are lost, and they are almost destitute
of shrubs because shipwrecked crews cut them to make fire-signals. The
Cayo de Piedras is extremely precipitous on the side near the sea; and
towards the middle there is a small basin of fresh water.
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