Note 70 — 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.

“Gingado,” elsewhere spelt “Iergado,” is evidently a misprint for Jangada, a Portuguese word meaning “raft.” Such a raft is called Mbimba, and is made of the wood of the bimba (Herminiera Elaphroxylon, Guill. et. Perr.), which is identical with the Ambaj of the Nile, and grows abundantly on the swampy banks of the rivers. Battell himself, at a critical point of his career, built himself such a jangada (Ficalho, Plantas uteis da Africa, 1884, p. 33).