Note 55 — 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.

Margarita is the Portuguese (and Latin) for pearl. Purchas may have suggested the word, whilst Battell simply referred to the cowrie currency of the country, or to a more valuable shell such as Cavazzi (p. 12) says was found near Cambambe, a collar of which had the value of a slave; or to a crystal found in Shela, and called “thunder-stone” by the natives. Mr. R. C. Phillips writes: “I have found that some kind of stone used to pass as money in the old slave times, say in 1850 or 1860, but I never saw one. These stones were of great value, and I have a vague idea they were called ‘agang.’”