[1] Guinea may, however, be derived from Ghana (or Ghanata) the name
of the oldest known state in the western Sudan. Ghana dates,
according to some authorities, from the 3rd century A.D. From the 7th
to the 12th century it was a powerful empire, its dominions
extending, apparently, from the Atlantic to the Niger bend. At one
time Jenne was included within its borders. Ghana was finally
conquered by the Mandingo kings of Melle in the 13th century. Its
capital, also called Ghana, was west of the Niger, and is generally
placed some 200 m. west of Jenne. In this district L. Desplagnes
discovered in 1907 numerous remains of a once extensive city, which
he identified as those of Ghana. The ruins lie 25 m. W. of the Niger,
on both banks of a marigot, and are about 40 m. N. by E. of Kulikoro
(see _La Geographie_, xvi. 329). By some writers Ghana city is,
however, identified with Walata, which town is mentioned by Arab
historians as the capital of Ghanata. The identification of Ghana
city with Jenne is not justified, though Idrisi seems to be
describing Jenne when writing of "Ghana the Great."
GUINEA, a gold coin at one time current in the United Kingdom. It was
first coined in 1663, in the reign of Charles II., from gold imported
from the Guinea coast of West Africa by a company of merchants trading
under charter from the British crown--hence the name. Many of the first
guineas bore an elephant on one side, this being the stamp of the
company; in 1675 a castle was added. Issued at the same time as the
guinea were five-guinea, two-guinea and half-guinea pieces. The current
value of the guinea on its first issue was twenty shillings. It was
subsidiary to the silver coinage, but this latter was in such an
unsatisfactory state that the guinea in course of time became
over-valued in relation to silver, so much so that in 1694 it had risen
in value to thirty shillings. The rehabilitation of the silver coinage
in William III.'s reign brought down the value of the guinea to 21s. 6d.
in 1698, at which it stood until 1717, when its value was fixed at
twenty-one shillings. This value the guinea retained until its
disappearance from the coinage. It was last coined in 1813, and was
superseded in 1817 by the present principal gold coin, the sovereign. In
1718 the quarter-guinea was first coined. The third-guinea was first
struck in George III.'s reign (1787). To George III.'s reign also
belongs the "spade-guinea," a guinea having the shield on the reverse
pointed at the base or spade-shaped. It is still customary to pay
subscriptions, professional fees and honoraria of all kinds, in terms of
"guineas," a guinea being twenty-one shillings.
GUINEA FOWL, a well-known domestic gallinaceous bird, so called from the
country whence in modern times it was brought to Europe, the _Meleagris_
and _Avis_ or _Gallina Numidica_ of ancient authors.[1] Little is
positively known of the wild stock to which we owe our tame birds, nor
can the period of its reintroduction (for there is apparently no
evidence of its domestication being continuous from the time of the
Romans) be assigned more than roughly to that of the African discoveries
of the Portuguese. It does not seem to have been commonly known till the
middle of the 16th century, when John Caius sent a description and
figure, with the name _Gallus Mauritanus_, to Gesner, who published both
in his _Paralipomena_ in 1555, and in the same year Belon also gave a
notice and woodcut under the name of _Poulle de la Guinee_; but while
the former authors properly referred their bird to the ancient
_Meleagris_, the latter confounded the _Meleagris_ and the turkey.
The ordinary guinea fowl of the poultry-yard (see also POULTRY AND
POULTRY-FARMING) is the _Numida meleagris_ of ornithologists. The chief
or only changes which domestication seems to have induced in its
appearance are a tendency to albinism generally shown in the plumage of
its lower parts, and frequently, though not always, the conversion of
the colour of its legs and feet from dark greyish-brown to bright
orange. That the home of this species is West Africa from the Gambia[2]
to the Gaboon is certain, but its range in the interior is quite
unknown. It appears to have been imported early into the Cape Verd
Islands, where, as also in some of the Greater Antilles and in
Ascension, it has run wild. Representing the species in South Africa we
have the _N. coronata_, which is very numerous from the Cape Colony to
Ovampoland, and the _N. cornuta_ of Drs Finsch and Hartlaub, which
replaces it in the west as far as the Zambesi. Madagascar also has its
peculiar species, distinguishable by its red crown, the _N. mitrata_ of
Pallas, a name which has often been misapplied to the last. This bird
has been introduced to Rodriguez, where it is now found wild. Abyssinia
is inhabited by another species, the _N. ptilorhyncha_,[3] which differs
from all the foregoing by the absence of any red colouring about the
head. Very different from all of them, and the finest species known, is
the _N. vulturina_ of Zanzibar, conspicuous by the bright blue in its
plumage, the hackles that adorn the lower part of its neck, and its long
tail. By some writers it is thought to form a separate genus,
_Acryllium_. All these guinea fowls except the last are characterized by
having the crown bare of feathers and elevated into a bony "helmet," but
there is another group (to which the name _Guttera_ has been given) in
which a thick tuft of feathers ornaments the top of the head. This
contains four or five species, all inhabiting some part or other of
Africa, the best known being the _N. cristata_ from Sierra Leone and
other places on the western coast. This bird, apparently mentioned by
Marcgrave more than 200 years ago, but first described by Pallas, is
remarkable for the structure--unique, if not possessed by its
representative forms--of its _furcula_, where the head, instead of being
the thin plate found in all other _Gallinae_, is a hollow cup opening
upwards, into which the trachea dips, and then emerges on its way to the
lungs. Allied to the genus _Numida_, but readily distinguished form
among other characters by the possession of spurs and the absence of a
helmet, are two very rare forms, _Agelastes_ and _Phasidus_, both from
western Africa. Of their habits nothing is known. All these birds are
beautifully figured in Elliot's _Monograph of the Phasianidae_, from
drawings by Wolf. (A. N.)