Dr. L. J. Sanford on the Gorilla. 51 
description is too meagre in details to admit of a decision; the 
name, however, by which he calls it, ingena, suggests that animal, 
for this is the Mpongwe name for the gorilla. In that part of 
the work where he relates his visit to the Gaboon, he says: ‘The 
favorite and most extraordinary subject of our conversation on 
natural history was the ingena, an animal like the orang-cetang, 
ut much exceeding it in size, being five feet high, and four, 
across the shoulders. Its paw was said to be even more dispro- 
portioned than its breadth, and one blow of it to be fatal. It is 
seen commonly by them when they travel to Kaybe, lurking in 
the bush to destroy passengers, and feeding principally on wild 
honey, which abounds. Among other of their actions reported 
without variation by men, women and children of the Mpongwe 
respected, they have not ventured on much interference—not 
even for purposes of investigation ;—and for the more ferocio 
When the gorilla stories were first divulged abroad, the 
Subject of them was regarded as an improbability; but his ex- 
istence was placed beyond a doubt, before the world, in 1846. 
Towards the close of that year, the Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, 
4 missionary in the Gaboon region of Western Africa, came in 
* Mission to Ashantee, p. 440. 
