(urth) Piteous Gate - one last rehash

[Georg Schönegger]

> We're also told that the avern -- an extremely deadly plant -- has been
> planted by Father Inire to keep manatees out of the Botanic Gardens, but
> this seems like a rather dire method for keeping out simple sea cows,
> whereas if they were meant to delimit undines and possibly Abaia...well, it
> seems like a much more effective and logical defense.
> 

maybe this has been brought up before, but: is it sure the manatees were
'simple see cows'? i had the opposite impression; nearly every mention
of them refers to their near-human features. i could very well imagine
them to be a kind of proto-undines (in earlier times, seamen even called
them "sirenes").

georg