The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1901-02-10

eight hours duration. In the windward
islands and Florida sport can be had
from December to February.
For November hunt 1t is advisable to
call the meet for. at latest about 6
o'clock. At that hour the sun is not over
powering though strong enough to dull
the seen. of the sea lion, which has how
/ ever, acute hearing. and although its hold
has been detected by the SPORTS
man as he came shoreward by the time
that the boats, their oarlocks swathed in
strips of palm leaf to muffle the click Of
the oars, have pushed on-being CT
course, between the game and the sea-
the manatee has generally betaken itself
10 his feeding ground. Sea lions feed in
families and upon aquatic plants chiefly,
pushing the food toward the mouth with
one or bo' hands. From these character
istics PROBABLY arose the fable-favored
by that doyen of chivalry Ponce de Leon,
who did some manatee hunting when en-
his never-to- forgotten quest for the
fountain of youth-that the manatee car
ries its young in its arms. II the chroni-
clers are to be relied upon. Ponce seems
to have been deferred from making a big
haul only by consideration for the Human
qualities he attributes to the object OF his
sport. Nowadays the manatee hunter
does not find things so easy. II is not
has probably much outdistanced his pur-
suers, for he is extremely inactive OF
habit; the difficulty lies in hitting upon
the particular one OF the often ailisator-
infested creeks running OFF these inter-
minably indented Antillano rivers-black
as night. some of them, beneath their
groined roofs of cedar and mango and cac-
ba-in which he has sought refuge under
soundless and colorIess water that knows not the
scnse Of the sun.
In this emergency the plan adcp-ed 300
years ago was. Lasagra tells us, 10 place
a line of blacks, crawling on all fJurs, as
heaters along each bank OF the creek. At
a given signal, the niggers sprang up in
a body, waved their arms franticaliy and
yelled to correspond AS the manatee is
either too stupid or too lazy to move in
any other direction that that which 1t
faces. he was inevitably netted, shot or
speared.
For us there is too much of the drive"
about this. Moreover. he of the creek is
but one of the family. Out on to the
bosom of the river shoot our boats. The
rippIes, quivering under a dancing haze
of heat flash back the light like mir
rors. so that, while the colored boaiman I
softly rows the white sportsman, standing
spear and glass in hand at the PROV, is /
fain to refresh his eyes for moment or f,
Two with the cool olive of the forest wall |
on either bank ere he turn them again +
on the glittering bit of water which each |
boat is beating as noiselessly possible. |
Never is silence more golden than during I
sea lion hunt, for If second manatee !
has been browsing in the deeper reaches. /
at the faintest echo of pursuit he lloats. I
the body arehed and the rounded chestnu. 1
colored back sufficiently under the surface .
to be undesirable until close upon the
creature, whose lungs obviously act in I
the same manner as the air sack Of hshes. I
The instant in which he catches a glimpse
of that red brown hump barely two feet .
under the cellar surface is the psychology +
cal moment for the nnanatee hunter. The
rope has been unloosed, ready; the har-
poem speeds through the sunlit air and
water: there is a convulsive writhing and
pulling and jerking; the negro boatman is
on his knees in the boat, steadying the
tiny craft with hands and feet wide apart;
the nervous fingers of the sportsman are
reeling in the rope, or, the game has
dived, just in time for the harpoon to
miss its mark by one second.
Not hint not suspicion, Of its where
abouts for a good hour for while cOs,' monty
the manatee does not stay under water for
more than from five TO eight minutes at
time it seems able. when adversely and
persecution overtake it. to remain be-
ty minutes At last, over a mile upstream,
a bubble rises in pool near the left bank.
From the bubble circles girdle and double I
and treble themselves. until their outer I
rings touch the drowsy edge Of the river. I
the boat glides nearer and 1
nearer. Whether from constitutional in /
ertia. or from the eneryating effect upon
it OF the now much warmer current. the
game is as if dormant, floating. Emphatic.
under the unstirred blossoms OF some wa
ter waits of the lotus genus. The well
known, keenly looked for hump curves it
self, seemingly molten now, against the
fercer gold thta burrows the water. In the
boat the oars are resting in the rowlocks:
there is another lungesilent swift. and
this time sure-of the harpcOn. Then, the
race for the shore, the rattle OF the Keeling
in, and the triumphal landing Of the game
amid the clatter and chatter OF the negroes
whose award is the spoil, the oil of which
they sell cutting the flesh into strips
which, when dried, are called tsajo, and
twisting out Of the cured skin those Curl
Ous canes which are to be bought in the
Of JIohopo and