HANNINGTON, JAMES (1847-1885), English missionary, was born at Hurstpierpoint, in Sussex, on the 3rd of September 1847. From earliest childhood he displayed a love of adventure and natural history. At school he made little progress, and left at the age of fifteen for his father’s counting-house at Brighton. He had no taste for office work, and much of his time was occupied in commanding a battery of volunteers and in charge of a steam launch. At twenty-one he decided on a clerical career and entered St Mary’s Hall, Oxford, where he exercised a remarkable influence over his fellow-undergraduates. He was, however, a desultory student, and in 1870 was advised to go to the little village of Martinhoe, in Devon, for quiet reading, but distinguished himself more by his daring climbs after sea-gulls’ eggs and his engineering skill in cutting a pathway along precipitous cliffs to some caves. In 1872 the death of his mother made a deep impression upon him. He began to read hard, took his B.A. degree, and in 1873 was ordained deacon and placed in charge of the small country parish of Trentishoe in Devon. Whilst curate in charge at Hurstpierpoint, his thoughts were turned by the murder of two missionaries on the shores of Victoria Nyanza to mission work. He offered himself to the Church Missionary Society and sailed on the 17th of May 1882, at the head of a party of six, for Zanzibar, and thence set out for Uganda; but, prostrated by fever and dysentery, he was obliged to return to England in 1883. On his recovery he was consecrated bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa (June 1884), and in January 1885 started again for the scene of his mission, and visited Palestine on the way. On his arrival at Freretown, near Mombasa, he visited many stations in the neighbourhood. Then, filled with the idea of opening a new route to Uganda, he set out and reached a spot near Victoria Nyanza in safety. His arrival, however, roused the suspicion of the natives, and under King Mwanga’s orders he was lodged in a filthy hut swarming with rats and vermin. After eight days his men were murdered, and on the 29th of October 1885 he himself was speared in both sides, his last words to the soldiers appointed to kill him being, “Go, tell Mwanga I have purchased the road to Uganda with my blood.”
His Last Journals were edited in 1888. See also Life by E. C. Dawson (1887); and W. G. Berry, Bishop Hannington (1908).
HANNINGTON, a lake of British East Africa in the eastern rift-valley just south of the equator and in the shadow of the Laikipia escarpment. It is 7 m. long by 2 m. broad. The water is shallow and brackish. Standing in the lake and along its shores are numbers of dead trees, the remains of an ancient forest, which serve as eyries for storks, herons and eagles. The banks and flats at the north end of the lake are the resort of hundreds of thousands of flamingoes. The places where they cluster are dazzling white with guano deposits. The lake is named after Bishop James Hannington.
HANNO, the name of a large number of Carthaginian soldiers and statesmen. Of the majority little is known; the most important are the following[1]:—
1. Hanno, Carthaginian navigator, who probably flourished about 500 B.C. It has been conjectured that he was the son of the Hamilcar who was killed at Himera (480), but there is nothing to prove this. He was the author of an account of a coasting voyage on the west coast of Africa, undertaken for the purpose of exploration and colonization. The original, inscribed on a tablet in the Phoenician language, was hung up in the temple of Melkarth on his return to Carthage. What is generally supposed to be a Greek translation of this is still extant, under the title of Periplus, although its authenticity has been questioned. Hanno appears to have advanced beyond Sierra Leone as far as Cape Palmas. On the island which formed the terminus of his voyage the explorer found a number of hairy women, whom the interpreters called Gorillas (Γορίλλας).
Valuable editions by T. Falconer (1797, with translation and defence of its authenticity) and C. W. Müller in Geographici Graeci minores, i.; see also E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, i., and treatise by C. T. Fischer (1893), with bibliography.
2. Hanno (3rd century B.C.), called “the Great,” Carthaginian statesman and general, leader of the aristocratic party and the chief opponent of Hamilcar and Hannibal. He appears to have gained his title from military successes in Africa, but of these nothing is known. In 240 B.C. he drove Hamilcar’s veteran mercenaries to rebellion by withholding their pay, and when invested with the command against them was so unsuccessful that Carthage might have been lost but for the exertions of his enemy Hamilcar (q.v.). Hanno subsequently remained at Carthage, exerting all his influence against the democratic party, which, however, had now definitely won the upper hand. During the Second Punic War he advocated peace with Rome, and according to Livy even advised that Hannibal should be given up to the Romans. After the battle of Zama (202) he was one of the ambassadors sent to Scipio to sue for peace. Remarkably little is known of him, considering the great influence he undoubtedly exercised amongst his countrymen.
Livy xxi. 3 ff., xxiii. 12; Polybius i. 67 ff.; Appian, Res Hispanicae, 4, 5, Res Punicae, 34, 49, 68.