out, at least in its primitive form and signification. Indeed, there is evidence that not only in Battell's time, but up to a very recent date, it was used in a totally different sense from that in which he employs it.
For example, the second chapter of Purchas' work, which I have just quoted, contains "A Description and Historicall Declaration of the Golden Kingdom of Guinea, &c. &c. Translated from the Dutch, and compared also with the Latin," wherein it is stated (p. 986) that—
"The River Gaboon lyeth about fifteen miles northward from Rio de Angra, and eight miles northward from Cape de Lope Gonsalvez (Cape Lopez), and is right under the Equinoctial line, about fifteene miles from St. Thomas, and is a great land, well and easily to be knowne. At the mouth of the river there lieth a sand, three or foure fathoms deepe, whereon it beateth mightily with the streame which runneth out of the river into the sea. This river, in the mouth thereof, is at least foure miles broad; but when you are about the Iland called Pongo, it is not above two miles broad.… On both sides the river there standeth many trees.… The Iland called Pongo, which hath a monstrous high hill."
The French naval officers, whose letters are appended to the late M. Isidore Geoff. Saint Hilaire's excellent essay on the Gorilla,[1] note in similar terms the width of the Gaboon, the trees that line its banks down to the water's edge, and the strong current that sets out of it. They describe two islands in its estuary;—one low, called Perroquet; the other high, presenting three conical hills, called Coniquet; and one of them, M. Franquet, expressly states that, formerly, the Chief of Coniquet was called
- ↑ Archives du Museum, Tome X.
