Note 129 — THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF ANDREW BATTELL OF LEIGH IN ESSEX, SENT BY THE PORTUGALS PRISONER TO ANGOLA, WHO LIVED THERE, AND IN THE ADJOINING REGIONS, NEAR EIGHTEEN YEARS.

This is an electric silurus called nsõmbo, plur. sinsombo, by the natives. Fishermen dread its electrical discharges, but value its flesh (Pechuel-Loesche, Die Loango Expedition, vol. iii, p. 282). This fish, Mr. Dennett tells me, is the “xina” (taboo) of women, generally speaking, which may account for the word becoming a generic name for fish, as in Unyamwezi, Ugogo, and other countries, if vocabularies can be trusted.