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,