"Mr. Hampson" 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 slender 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
Lardner's _Cabinet Cyclopædia_, it is stated that these _Gorillæ_ 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 [Greek: ANNONOS
PERIPLOUS], 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
gratifying to the studious if I were here to write down a few extracts
from certain memoranda which I formerly noted on hearing a respectable
Portugese 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; 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
_naïveté_ of the narration by attempting a translation; merely premising
that he judged the Island to be that of Fernando Po.
"E tutta la descrittione de questo Capitano era simile a quella
per alcun Scrittore Greci, quale parlande dell' isola delle
Gorgone, dicono quella esser un isola in mezzo d'una palude. E
conciacosa che havea inteso che li poeti dicevan le Gorgone
esser femine terribili, però scrisse che le erano pelose.... Ma
a detto pilotto pareva più verisimile di pensare, che havendo
Hannone inteso ne'i libri de' poeti come Perseo era stato per
ære 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. Il che li fu
facil cosa da fare, conciosia cosa che IN TUTTA QUELLA COSTA SI
TRUOVINO INFINITE DI QUELLE SIMIE GRANDE, CHE FARENO PERSONE
HUMANE, DELLE BABUINE, le pelle delle quali poteva far egli
credere ad ogniuno che fussero state di femine."
Gopelin, also, in his _Recherches sur la Géographie 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 oppressors of the
people they subjugated may be probable; 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. Singer
April 10. 1850.
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