In the various records that constitute the history of these apes are found many novel and incoherent tales, but most of them appear to rest upon some basis of truth. In order to arrive at a more definite knowledge concerning them, we may review the data at our command. In the annals of the world, the first record that alludes to these manlike apes is that of Hanno, who made a voyage from Carthage to the west coast of Africa, nearly five hundred years before the Christian era. He described an ape which was found in the locality about Sierra Leone. It is singular that the description which he gave of those apes should coincide so fully with the apes known at the present day; but it is quite certain that the apes of which he gave an account were neither gorillas nor chimpanzees. There is nothing to show that either of these apes ever occupied that part of the world, or that any similar type has done so. The ape described by Hanno was certainly not an anthropoid, but a large dog-faced monkey or baboon, technically called _cynocephalus_. These animals are found all along the north coast of the Gulf of Guinea, but there is no trustworthy evidence of any true ape living north of Cameroon valley. The river that waters it empties into the sea about four degrees north of the equator. Here begins the first trace of the chimpanzee. As we pass along the windward coast, casual reports are current to the effect that gorillas and chimpanzees occupy the interior north of there; but when these reports are sifted down to solid facts, it turns out to be a big baboon or a monkey upon which the story rests. Its likeness to man, as described by Hanno, was doubtless the work of fancy, and the name _troglodytes_ which he gave to it shows that he knew but little of its habits, or cared but little for the exactness of his statements. The account given by Henry Battel, in 1590, contains a thread of truth woven into a web of fantasy. He must have heard the stories he relates, or seen some specimens along the coast north of the Congo. There are certain facts which point to this conclusion. The name _pongo_ which he gave to one of them belongs to the Fiote tongue, which is spoken by the native tribes around Loango. Those people use the name, and it is commonly understood to be synonymous with the name _njina_, used by the tribes north of there. It is always applied to the gorilla. To me, however, it appears to coincide with the name _ntyii_, as used by the Esyira people for another ape, which is described in the chapter devoted to gorillas. It was from Loango that Dr. Falkenstein, in 1876, secured an ape under that name. It is singular that Baron Wurmb, in 1780, makes use of the name _pongo_ for an orang. I have not been able to learn where he acquired this name, but it appears to be a native Fiote name for more than four hundred years, and the history of their language is fairly well known.