Note 157 — IBN BAṬÚṬAH’S JOURNEY.

Leo says (pt. VII. c. 1), “Our ancient writers on Africa, as El Bekrí and El Mesúdí, have written nothing respecting any part of Negroland, except el Waḥat (the Oases) and Cano.” This sentence, which has been of course copied with little change by Marmol (tom. III. fol. 21), can be explained only by supposing that Cano (Kanó) here means Ghánah. However ill-considered or obscurely intimated may be Leo’s opinion, it yet probably influenced not a little the decision of D’Anville in favour of the identity of Kanó with Ghánah. Major Rennell most unaccountably assumes that by Cano Leo meant the town of Ganat (or rather Janat), between Fezzan and Ghát. Perhaps the latter writer’s statement that “Cano is a great province, about 500 miles distant from the Niger towards the east,” contained something incompatible with the Major’s system, and made it absolutely necessary for him to expel Leo’s Cano from Negroland. Major Rennell disserted always shrewdly, and sometimes with a very imperfect knowledge of his authors. Thus he asserts that, under the name Genni (Jenni), Leo meant to describe Ghánah; and that he was wrong in placing Genni or Ghánah, and Melli, west of Tomboktú, “for Leo certainly never saw the Niger.” Now Leo, when he speaks of Genni, says that it is the name used by the natives, and derives it (with little reason) from Gheneoa (Genéwa), a name as ancient as Ghánah, and quite distinct from it. Moreover Leo not only saw the Niger, but actually navigated it to Jenni and Málí (pt. I. c. 3). It is not easy to discover from Major Rennell’s dissertations the position assigned by him to Ghánah, but his map shows that he confounded it with Kanó. These two names, as pronounced in Africa, have much less resemblance in sound than is commonly imagined. Written in Arabic, they have but one letter in common. Ghánah begins with a peculiar sonorous guttural, which is followed by a long vowel; Kanó is like our word canoe. Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkwürdige Reisen, vol. III. p. 435) writes it Gnou.