tamed the only gallinaceous bird which the Black Continent has
contributed to civilization. The Guinea fowl, like the African
elephant, remains wild. We know it to be an old importation in
Europe, although there are traditions about its appearing in the
fourteenth century, when Moslems sold it to Christians as the
"Jerusalem cock," and Christians to Moslems as the "bird of
Meccah." It must be the Greek meleagris, so called, says AElian,
from the sisters who wept a brother untimely slain; hence the
tears upon its plume, suggesting the German Perl-huhn, and its
frequent cries, which the Brazilians, who are great in the
language of birds, translate Sto fraca, sto fraca, sto fraca (I'm
weak). The Hausa Moslems make the Guinea fowl cry, "Kilkal!
kilkal!" (Grammar by the Rev. F. J. Schon, London, Salisbury
Square, 1862). It is curious to compare the difference of ear
with which nations hear the cries of animals, and form their
onomatopoetic, or "bow-wow" imitations. For instance, the North
Americans express by "whip-poor-will" what the Brazilians call
"Joao-corta-pao." The Guinea fowl may have been the "Afraa
avis;"but that was a dear luxury amongst the Romans, though the
Greek meleagris was cheap. The last crotchet about it is that of
an African traveller, who holds it to be the peacock of Solomon's
navies, completely ignoring the absolute certainty which the
South-Indian word "Tukkiim" carries with it.

The Mpongwe will not eat ape, on account of its likeness to
themselves. But they greatly enjoy game; the porcupine, the
ground-hog (an Echymys), the white flesh of the bush pig
(Cricetomys), and the beef of the Nyare (Bos brachyceros); this
is the "buffalo" or "bush-cow" of the regions south of Sierra
Leone, and the empacassa of the Congo-Portuguese, whose