did not see sufficient to justify the expression of an opinion, except that, while I noticed the attendance was full in almost every one, it seemed to me that, in some instances, the acquirements of the teachers were surpassed by the capacities of their scholars; but for all the purposes of rudimental education the materials are ample. I feel a delicacy in alluding to this subject, and only say what has escaped me from a solicitude that the generation now coming forward may sustain the institutions of the republic.

8. The colonists were all decently clothed; and of the natives moving about the streets, with very few exceptions, the most indifferently clad wore a long loose shirt, but their heads and legs were bare. One of the latter I saw reading apparently a book, which he held before him as he walked.

CHAPTER LII.

NEW VIRGINIA AND MILLSBURG.

1. OPPOSITE to Caldwell is the settlement of New Virginia, where, in 1847, the Government of the United States built a receptacle for liberated Africans. Higher up are Kentucky, Heddington, and Millsburg. Heddington was fiercely attacked by the natives in 1841, and gallantly defended by a missionary and one of the colonists; the leader of the assailants was killed and his party dispersed. These four are little more than a close contiguity of small farms; but Millsburg, at the head of navigation, and the farthest inland settlement in Liberia, is a flourishing village and missionary-school station; and on the opposite side of the river is the mission of " White Plains."

2. From its situation, Millsburg must be comparatively healthy, and is certainly beautiful. The river, separated by an island into two channels, there forces itself over a

rocky ledge with the rushing sweep and hoarse sound of a rapid. The ledge is, however, a narrow one, and a channel through it might be blasted with gunpowder, or it could be flanked by a canal. Above the ledge the stream is unobstructed for about ten miles, and the country through which it flows is yet more rolling and beautiful than it is below the rapids. The soil is a rich mold, formed by the vegetable decay of centuries, resting on a substratum of clay, and covered with a luxuriant forest.

3. At the rapids are a number of islands, clothed with luxuriant vegetation; and, as was remarked by the lamented Dr. Randall, the islands differ from each other in their verdure, and from that of the mainland. Each one seems to have caught, in the autumnal inundations, the seeds and roots of particular plants and shrubs brought down from the interior; for, while differing from those on the main, no two resemble each other in their peculiar foliage.

4. Above the islands the country is represented as most beautiful, bearing trees of immense size, clear of undergrowth, and having their branches interwoven with vines, and decorated with gaudy parasitic plants, forming a shade impervious to the sun, and imparting a coolness to the atmosphere which is truly delightful. The stream, irregular in its width, sometimes forces its way through fissures in the rocks, and at others forms deep pools, where the water is so transparent that the bottom is distinctly visible.

5. It seems as if the foot of man had never trodden these lovely solitudes, where the silence is only interrupted by the murmuring sound of water, the scream of the fishhawk, and the chattering of monkeys pursuing their gambols among the trees. This must, however, be taken cum grano salis; for in the rainy season the river overflows its banks and inundates the country.

6. The River St. Paul's has its source in the same range of hills from which the Karamanka issues; and, by barometrical measurement, these hills are 1,400 feet in height, which is about the elevation of the head waters of the Mis

sissippi. The scenery of the upper St. Paul's will, therefore, compare with that of the Karamanka, although more than two degrees intervene between their outlets.

7. The late Major Laing thus describes the country bordering on the latter river: "The valleys are picturesque and fertile, and are watered by numerous rivulets, which, running from north to south, collect behind the lofty hill of Botato, and contribute in swelling the river Karamanka. I was frequently induced to stop to contemplate the lovely scene around me, consisting of extensive meadows clothed with verdure; fields, from which the springing rice was sending forth its vivid shoots, not inferior in beauty and health to the corn-fields of England in March, interspersed here and there with a patch of ground studded with palm-trees; while the neighboring hills—some clothed with rich foliage, some exhibiting a bald and weather-beaten appearance-formed a noble theater around

me.

8. "We left the town of Nijiniah, on the Karamanka, and having walked an hour and three quarters, gained the summit of one of the hills; and in one direction, on the opposite side, a scene quite panoramic broke upon the view: an extensive valley, partly cultivated and partly covered with a long, natural grass, about five feet high, with lines of stately palm-trees, as regular as if laid out by art, and here and there a cluster of camwood trees, their deep shade affording a relief to the lighter hue of the smaller herbage.

9. "These, with a murmuring rivulet, meandering through the center, exhibited the appearance of a wellcultivated and tastefully arranged garden, rather than a tract amid the wilds of Africa; while in the distance, mountain towered above mountain in all the grandeur and magnificence of nature."

10. On both shores of Stockton Creek, as well as on the Mesurado, are many alligators' nests. They are about four feet high, and five in diameter at the base, made of mud

and grass, very much resembling haycocks. The female first deposits a layer of eggs on a floor of a kind of mortar, and she and her mate having covered this with mud and herbage, she lays another set of eggs, and so on to the top, there being sometimes as many as 200 eggs in a nest. All is plastered over with mud by the tail, and the grass around the nest is beat down with the same member, to prevent an unseen approach of enemies. The female then watches the nest until the young are hatched by heat of the sun; when she takes them under her care.

CHAPTER LIII.

THE JALOFF AND MANDINGO RACES.

1. THE Jaloff is the tallest race of men I have ever seen, and forcibly reminded me of the fabulous accounts of the Patagonians. They inhabit the vast district extending along the coast from the Gambia to the Senegal. Their frames are rather slight than muscular; they are coalblack in their complexions, and have the short, crisped hair peculiar to the negro race; but have not the thick lips, flat nose, and low, receding forehead which, in onr ideas, are associated with the features of the African. On the contrary, with the Caucasian, they have prominent noses, and their foreheads are high but narrowing at the temples.

2. Each one carries himself as stately as if he were a monarch, the women as much so as the men, and with the same proportion as elsewhere, in the respective size of the sexes. I am not alone in the opinion that the females are, on an average, as tall as men are with us. It is a very interesting race. The Europeans here represent them as easily managed by gentle means, but exceedingly danger

ous when provoked, and as being very expert in the use of fire-arms. In point of stature they correspond with the Berri, a tall race of men toward the other side of the continent. The Jaloffs are high-toned and courteous, and, in contradistinction to the other tribes, are called by foreigners the "gentlemen of Africa."

3. The Mandingoes are from the banks of the Gambia, from Manding down to the coast. It is a numerous and powerful race, with more of the characteristic features of the negro than the Jaloffs. They are represented as lively in their dispositions, prone to traffic, and with some taste for literature-a literature confined to the Koran. It is said they read no other book, and are taught no other lessons in their schools but an unmeaning repetition of its laws and precepts. I question the correctness of the assertion. The songs of the Jelli, or singing men, would bespeak a higher intellectual cultivation. Mr. Laing visited in 1822 the walled town of Kakundi, in the country of Melicouri, and was there introduced to King Yaradee, one of the chiefs of Sulima.

4. On that occasion was recited the following song, which is almost as poetic and far more genuine than the fabled poems of Ossian. It commemorates an advantage gained by Yaradee over the Foulahs, at the time when ten thousand of them, headed by Ba Dembah, laid siege to Falata: "Shake off that drowsiness, brave Yaradee, thou lion of war! Hang thy sword to thy side, and be thyself! Dost thou not behold the army of the Foulahs? Observe their lines of muskets and spears, vying in brightness with the rays of the departing sun!

5. "They are strong and powerful; yea, they are men! and they have sworn on the Al Koran that they will destroy the capital of the Sulima nation. So, shake off that drowsiness, brave Yaradee, thou lion of war! The brave Talaheer, thy sire, held the Foulahs in contempt. Fear was a stranger to his bosom! He set the firebrand to Timbo, that nest of the Islamites; and, though worsted at