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.

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