i THE PONGO. 9 



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 Meni-Pongo, meaning thereby Lord of 

 Pongo; and that the N'Pongues (as, in agreement 

 with Dr. Savage, he affirms the natives call them- 

 selves) term the estuary of the Gaboon itself 

 N'Pongo. 



It is so easy, in dealing with savages, to mis- 

 understand their applications of words to things, 

 that one is at first inclined to suspect Battell of 

 having confounded the name of this region, where 

 his " greater monster ' still abounds, with the 

 name of the animal itself. But he is so right about 

 other matters (including t\\e name of the " lesser 

 monster ") that one is loth to suspect the old 

 traveller of error; and, on the other hand, we shall 

 find that a voyager of a hundred years' later date 

 speaks of the name " Boggoe," as applied to a 

 great Ape, by the inhabitants of quite another 

 part of Africa — Sierra Leone. 



But I must leave this question to be settled by 

 philologers and travellers; and I should hardly 

 have dwelt so long upon it except for the curious 

 part played by this word ' Pongo ' in the later his- 

 tory of the man-like Apes. 



The generation which succeeded Battell saw 



