264 



gold, and in weight five pounds, which could have served no other 

 purpose. It is also curious in another respect, having a thin gold wire 

 of equal purity twisted round it, evidently with the intention of bring- 

 ing the object to a certain weight and value; ad certum pondus, is 

 Csesar's expression when speaking of the monetary use of iron rings in 

 Britain ; and that these rings of valuable metal and ready distribution, 

 might not have served like any other costly chattel, immediately at 

 hand, as a reward or payment, may easily be admitted ; but only occa- 

 sionally and by no means as what their usual designation of ring money 

 might imply, the current coin of a countr}' ; we seem to have taken this 

 name and idea from the quantities of bronze objects in this form which 

 are now so largely imported into Africa from Liverpool, as a species of 

 currency, of which the late Sir John Tobin was the principal exporter, 

 and is now succeeded by Mr. Charles Stuart, who informed me, in an 

 accidental meeting at a table d'hote at Miinster, that his possession of 

 the receipt for the peculiar combination of the metals was a valuable 

 legacy from Sir John, which gave him nearly the monopoly of the 

 African trade, and of the importation of palm oil into this country, to 

 the extent of ten thousand tons annually. The swarthy negroes of the 

 Gambia and Senegal reject all such rings as do not conform to his re- 

 ceipt, by some peculiar analysis, which it might be curious and benefi- 

 cial to any one to investigate. 



To the antiquary it might be more curious and interesting to know 

 why these savages still insist upon the peculiar form of the Anglo-Saxon 

 beaga, which, to European ideas, seems very inconsistent with commer- 

 cial utility or conYenience. In my ' Shakspeare's Puck and his Folks- 

 lore" (London, 1852, 8vo., p. 238), I have traced the only religious idea 

 or emblem which those Africans, that do not profess Mahommedan 

 tenets, hold sacred, viz., their Fetisch, to a western word, and a con- 

 nexion with our legends of Eobin Goodfellow, Puck, &c. ; and it may, 

 therefore, have been by some equally circuitous route that the form and 

 shape of this ring money may have penetrated where but few Europeans 

 have forced their way. Sir William Beetham tells us ring money in 

 this form has been found in Italy ; and he exhibited at the Archseological 

 Institute, July 17, 1848, two specimens found respectively at Chiusi 

 and Perugia ; these may have been the first stepping-stones of their 

 route into Africa. 



In a country where the mind is stagnant, and progress precluded by 

 ignorance and barbarism, the prestige of sanctity once established 

 would remain unaltered for ages ; and our country receives at present 

 possibly greater material benefit from this sanctity in the manufacture 

 of the article, than our ancestors from its use. 



As an example that these rings, when of the precious metals, might 

 have frequently, like modern snuff-boxes, pins, &c., been dispensed by 

 princes as rewards, we will give an example of other valuable moveables 

 being thus disposed of from Giesebrechts, ''Geschichte der Wenden," 

 ''Hist, of the Wends," vol. i., p. 218: — '' Einar took opportunity to tell 



