412 
Doomsday, for if it were we should have found it there 
where there is so great occasion of mention of Firmes, 
Rents, and Payments, Hovendenin Rich. I. fol. 377. b. 
Nummus a Numa, que fuit le primer Roy que fesoit 
moneies en Rome. Issint Sterlings, alias Esterlings, 
queux primes fesoient le money de cest Standard en Engle- 
terre.”— Sheriffs’ Accompts, p. 5—9. 
So much for the derivation of Sterling, which 
evidently applied originally to the metal rather 
than toacoin. May Ibe allowed to hazard a 
suggestion as to the origin of peny, its synonym ? 
They were each equivalent to the Denarius. 
“ Denarius Anglia, qui nominatur Sterlingus, rotundus 
sine tonsura, ponderabit 32 grana in medio spice. Ster- 
lingus et Denarius sont tout un. Le Shilling consistoit 
de 12 sterlings. Le substance de cest denier ou sterling 
peny al primes fuit vicessima pars unice.”—Indentures of 
the Mint, Ed. I. and VI. 
May we not derive it from Denarius by means 
of either a typographical or clerical error in the 
initial letter. This would at once give a new 
name — the very thing they were in want of — 
and we may very easily understand its being 
shortened into Penny. G. 
Milford, April 15. 
HANNO’S PERIPLUS. 
“Mr. Hameson” has served the cause of truth 
in defending Hanno and the Carthaginians from 
the charge of cruelty, brought against them by 
Mr. Attorney-General Bannister. A very slen- 
der investigation of the bearings of the narration 
would have prevented it. I know not how Dr. 
Falconer deals with it, not having his little volume 
at hand; but in so common a book as the History 
of Maritime Discovery, which forms part of Lard- 
ner’s Cabinet Cyclopedia, it is stated that these 
Gorilie were “ probably some species of ourang- 
outang.” Purchas says they might be the baboons 
or Pongos of those parts. 
The amusing, and always interesting, Italian, 
Hakluyt, in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
gives a very good version of the ANNONOZ MEPI- 
TIAOTS, with a preliminary discourse, which would 
also have undeceived Mr. Bannister, had he been 
acquainted with it, and prevented Mr. Hampson’s 
pleasant exposure of his error. 
Ramusio says, “Seeing that in the Voyage of 
Hanno there are many parts worthy of considerate 
attention, I have judged that it would be highly 
ratifying to the studious if I were here to write 
down a few extracts from certain memoranda which 
I formerly noted on hearing a respectable Por- 
tuguese pilot, in frequent conversations with the 
Count Raimondo della Torre, at Venice, illustrate 
this Voyage of Hanno, when read to him, from 
his own experience.” There are, of course, some 
erroneous notions in the information of the pilot, 
and in the deductions made from it by Ramusio ; 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 26. 
but the former had the sagacity to see the truth 
respecting this Gorgon Island full of hairy men and 
women. I will not spoil the naiveté of the narra- 
tion by attempting a translation; merely pre- 
mising that he judged the Island to be that of 
Fernando Po. 
« E tutta la deserittione de questo Capitano era simile 
a quella per aleun Scrittore Greci, quale parlande dell’ 
isola delle Gorgone, dicono quella esser un isola in 
mezzo d'una palude. EE conciacosa che havea inteso 
che li poeti dicevan le Gorgone esser femine terribili, 
pero scrisse che le erano pelose. . .. Maa detto pilotto 
pareva piu verisimile di pensare, che havendo Hannone 
inteso ne’ i libri de’ poeti come Perseo era stato per aere 
a questa isola, e di quivi reportata la testa di Medusa, 
essendo egli ambitioso di far creder al mondo che lui vi 
fasse audato per mare; e dar riputation a questo suo 
viaggio, di esser penetrato fuio dove era stato Perseo ; 
volesse portar due pelli di Gorgone, e dedicarla nel 
tempio di Ginnone. I] che li fu facil cosa da fare, con- 
ciosia cosa che IN TUTTA QUELLA COSTA SI TRUOVINO IN- 
FINITE DI QUELLE SIMIE GRANDE, CHE PARENO PERSONE 
HUMANE, DELLE Basurng, le pelle delle quali poteva 
far egli credere ad ogniuno che fussero state di femine.” 
Gopelin, also, in his Recherches sur la Géogra- 
phie des Anciens, speaking of this part of Hanno’s 
voyage, says :— 
“ Hanno encountered a troop of Ourang- Outangs, 
which he took for savages, because these animals walk 
erect, often having a staff in their hands to support 
themselves, as well as for attack or defence; and they 
throw stones when they are pursued. They are the 
Satyrs and the Argipani with which Pliny says Atlas 
was peopled. It would be useless to say more on this 
subject, as it is avowed by all the modern commentators 
of the Periplus.” 
The relation we have is evidently only an 
abridgment or summary made by some Greek, 
studious of Carthaginian affairs, long subsequent 
to the time of Hanno ; and judging from a passage 
in Pliny (I. ii. c.67.), it appears that the ancients 
were acquainted with other extracts from the 
original, yet, though its authenticity has been 
doubted by Strabo and others, there seems to be 
little reason to question that it is a correct outline 
of the voyage. That the Carthaginians were op- 
pressors of the people they subjugated may be pro- 
bable; yet we must not, on such slender grounds 
as this narration affords, presume that they would 
wantonly kill and flay human beings to possess 
themselves of their skins! S. W. Srncer. 
April 10. 1850. 
FOLK LORE. 
Cook-eels. —Forby derives this from coquille, in 
allusion to their being fashioned like an escallop, 
in which sense he is borne out by Cotgrave, who 
has “ Pain coguillé, a fashion of an hard-crusted 
loafe, somewhat like our still-yard bunne.” Ihave 
always taken the word to be “coquerells,” from 
