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The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell, of Leigh, in Angola and the Adjoining Regions

Note 195 — 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.

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According to Dr. Pechuel-Loesche (Die Loango Expedition, vol. iii, p. 279), this seems to be the cowfish of the whalers, or Tursions gillii, Dale. The natives call it ngulu-mputu (ngulu, hog-fish;-mputu, Portugal). He says that the natives will not suffer this fish to be injured, as it drives other fish ashore and into their nets; and that if one of these fish were to be wounded or killed they would stop away for ever so long. The Rev. W. M. Holman Bentley, in his Dictionary of the Kongo Language, says that the ngola of the natives is a bagre, or catfish. A gigantic bagre, 8 ft. in length, is found in the Upper Coanza (Monteiro, Angola, vol. ii, p. 134). Mr. Dennett suggests the Chialambu, a kind of bream, which is said to chase other fish; Mboa, Mbwa, or Imboa certainly means dog, and is not the name of a fish.

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