which, however, like the Mesurado itself, is
navigable only for boats and canoes. The Junk
river during the rainy season has a very difficult
bar, but that obstacle once passed, to the
east is found a water-way four hundred yards
broad, and navigable for twelve or fifteen miles;
to the north another branch, running parallel
with the sea-coast, and navigable for forty miles
to vessels drawing eight feet of water. The head
of this northern branch is within four miles of
the source of the Mesurado, and that, too, by
crossing an old  "field," affords easy communication
between Monrovia and Marshal. There is,
also, the Saint John river, with shifting sandbars
at the mouth, and sand-banks in its course,
but still a noble sheet of water, which would
carry for ten miles vessels drawing seven or
eight feet, if channels could be cut through the
banks, and navigable for boats and canoes much
further. And there is the Sesters river, or
River Cess, as people call it, with the most
enchanting scenery in the world, and navigable
for fifty miles to vessels drawing ten or twelve
feet of water. It is difficult to enter, owing to
a long barrier of sunken rocks, but the exquisite
beauty on both sides would almost repay even a
shipowner for the risk. And there is the
Sanguin river, shallow and surfy at the bar, but
clear and unobstructed for fifty miles; and
the Sinou river, narrow and tortuous, but
navigable, with six or seven feet of water, for fifteen
miles to the falls, but above the falls covered
with rocks, and impracticable. The entrance of
the Sinou is sheltered by Blue Burry Point, and
thus is safe at all seasons. It is a pity it is not
a more important way when entered. Then
there is the Cavally, the largest, and in the
future the most valuable of all, navigable for
eighty miles to vessels drawing fifteen feet of
water, but then comes a ledge of rocks about
half a mile wide. These passed the river is
again open for ninety or a hundred miles more.
The banks are high, rich, and thickly populated,
but, unfortunately, the mouth is obstructed by
sand-bars and sunken rocks, making the noble
water-way beyond of very little use hitherto.
The time will come when a channel will be cut
through each of these rocky barriers, and then
the river will be free and navigable for nearly a
hundred and fifty miles—surely a highway for
ships of great future importance in the world!
There are twelve principal ports in Liberia,
on two of which, Cape Palmas and Cape
Mesurado, are lighthouses; and the kingdom is
divided into four counties, with twenty towns
and villages, besides smaller settlements,
scattered through it.

The Americo-Liberian population is estimated
at about sixteen thousand, the native at nearly
five hundred thousand—four hundred and eighty-
four thousand in stricter numbers—which makes
an immense proportion of untilled savagery,
against which the only half-civilised emigrants
have enough to do to hold their own. Every
now and then, to add to the proportion on the
wrong side, a shipload of recaptured slaves is
thrown on the country—savages to be fed, clothed,
taught, and civilised in the speediest manner
possible; as many, indeed, as four thousand
eight hundred have been thus turned adrift on
Liberian mercy during the last two years, but
lately the United States Government have made
arrangements to allow them one hundred dollars
per head for all recaptured slaves over eight
years of age, and fifty dollars for all under eight
years of age; and every now and then comes
over a batch of freed slaves from the American
Colonisation Society, though not many of these
—not above eleven thousand five hundred in all
since the first. Liberia could receive more. She
could now receive seven thousand or eight
thousand American negroes per annum, and soon
she calculates on her power to adopt twenty-five
thousand or thirty thousand per annum; in fact,
she calculates that, in twenty-five years from this
date, she could receive, house, clothe, and give
work to all the slaves of the United States.
English is the recognised official and trade
language, not only in Monrovia and other large
towns, but all along the coast, and up into the
interior; indeed, the native chiefs and head men
usually place their sons at a very early age in
the families of Americo-Liberians, expressly to
learn English, which is regarded by the natives
much as French used to be regarded in the days
of Norman rule, here—as the first requisite
towards making an African gentleman. Without
this the savage remains a savage, and
ineligible for any situation beyond that of day
labourer, but with this, and the adoption of three
years of civilised habits generally, he becomes
entitled not only to a vote, but may also fill the
higher offices and places of trust. By the
constitution the native and the Americo-Liberian are
ranked as equals; which is a pleasant instance of
negro liberalism, and a contradiction to the old
proverb. Some of the aborigines are
industrious, at least for Africans, to whom a pumpkin
and a palm thatch are all that Heaven has
decreed necessary for their temporal well-being;
but until they have been taught the artificial
wants of civilisation—until they have learned
ambition, discontent, the love of luxury, and the
other evils attendant on material progress—they
will still be satisfied with their pumpkin and
their palm thatch, and think themselves rich on
their three dollars a month, which, with rations,
is the maximum rate of wages for a native. An
Americo-Liberian gets six or eight. And, after
all, should we like to work with the thermometer
at ninety degrees, and forest fruits, sufficient for
all our wants, lying ready at our feet, for only
the trouble of picking up? Granting that the
climate is equable and healthy (seldom ranging
below sixty degrees or above ninety degrees),
yet even that is heavy odds against exertion,
and one does not want a variety of clothing, or
nourishing food, or a very substantial house and
furniture to keep oneself alive and well in the
tropics and under the palm-trees. Nature has
done so much that art and necessity are left
without work.

In healthiness of climate Liberia offers a
striking contrast to most of the other settlements