FEBRUARY 28.
Hearing that a manati (the sea-calf) bad been taken at the
mouth of the Cabrita River, and was kept alive at the Hope
Wharf, I got a sailing-boat and went about eight miles to see
the animal. It was suffered to live in the sea, a rope being fastened round
it, by which it could be
landed at pleasure. It was
a male, and a very young one, not more than nine feet in length,
whereas they frequently exceed eighteen. The females yield a
quart of milk at a time: a gentleman told me that he had tasted
it, and could not have distinguished it from the sweetest cow's
milk. Unlike the seal, it never comes on shore, although it
ventures up rivers in the night to feed on the grass of their
banks; but during the day it constantly inhabits the ocean
where its chief enemy is the shark, whose attacks it beats off
with its tail, the strength of which is prodigious. It was killed
this morning, and the gentleman to whom it belonged was
obliging enough to send me a part of it : we roasted it for dinner,
and, except that its consistence was rather firmer, I should
a 6t have known it from veal.