On the Ring Money of the Celte. 95 
Benin and Calabar are situated on the Gulph of Guinea, in latitude from 7 to 10 
N.; longitude, 5 to 10 east of London. It would appear from those facts that the 
Phenicians had penetrated to the Gulph of Guinea, and were acquainted with the 
whole of this coast, probably beyond the line. We know they circumnavigated Africa, 
by order of Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt; but it now appears that they traded 
regularly to the coasts of Guinea, and there introduced a money which still bears a 
Phenician name, and is still as much in estimation as it was when the merchant princes 
of Tyre supplied them with manillas in exchange for their gold, ivory, and palm oil. 
The Tobins, and other English merchants, equally eminent and illustrious with those 
of Tyre, now occupy the Tyrians’ position, while the negroe’s is not a whit more 
elevated than it was two or three thousand years since. 
The Romans knew nothing on the west coast of Africa beyond the port of Sala, 
now Sallee, in latitude 34 N. and a very narrow slip on the north coast, not even so 
far as the Great Desert ; except, perhaps, they may be said to have been acquainted 
with the existence of the Desert, but had no intercourse with any people beyond it. 
The coast of Guinea, within ten degrees of the equator, was far beyond their ken ; 
consequently, during their sway, the people of that district having no intercourse 
with any great commercial people, their customs and habits of commerce received 
no impetus likely to produce any change of their antient mode of traffic, and the me- 
tallic currency they learned from the Phenicians remains unchanged to the present 
day. The English finding the manillas current, naturally availed themselves of the 
facilities which they possessed of fabricating them, it can scarcely be justly called 
counterfeiting, because they bear no impress or mark of authority. 
The Carthaginians may have carried on the trade with these coasts after the de- 
struction of Tyre, but there is no evidence that they or the Romans ever visited 
them. The intercourse of the English, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, and Dutch, 
is of a very recent date. 
When I first ventured to assert that these things were money, the smile of some- 
thing very like pity, if not of contempt, met me on all sides; it was considered so 
wild a proposition, that sage individuals almost considered it a proof of a disordered 
imagination, and some laughed outright, it appeared so preposterous and improbable. 
I have never doubted the truth of my opinion from the moment I first saw the speci- 
men of the Monaghan manilla in the museum of my friend Mr. George Petrie; and 
it is no small gratification to me to have been able to collect such irrefragable evidence 
in its support, and to conduct the inquiry to so triumphant and satisfactory a conclusion. 
This matter of the ring money has arisen out of the investigation into the question 
of who were the Scoti? and the tracing them to be the Celtz, led to the consequent 
question of who were the Celte? which being answered that they were Phenicians, 
have led to further questions and inquiries respecting that great people, as well as to 
who were the Pelasgi and Etruscans? and in short, into the investigation of the 
