Liberia 



*♦- 



to pcrtorm work of any kind till they arrive almost at the 

 age of puberty. I have heard big lads slanging their mothers 

 when asked as a favour to tetch a pail of water." Nevertheless, 

 the litde boys soon begin to frequent the society of the men 

 of the village, and pick up from their father or his friends a 

 great deal ot information about bush life, so that when they 

 are twelve years of age most of them can find their way easily 

 about the forest for miles around the village in which they 

 dwell. The girls go to work rather earlier, being taught to 

 bring in firewood, fetch water, prepare food for cooking, and 

 so on. Where the bush schools exist, no doubt a good deal 

 of the children's education and discipline is carried out by these 

 institutions in the way already related. 



So the life of these forest Negroes passes by in what would 

 be the idyllic happiness of the superior beast, if it were not 

 for the cruel customs connected with the belief in witchcraft 

 and the inter-tribal wars. These communities have arrived 

 at the state of fidelity to the family and even to the clan, but 

 have scarcely conceived of any wider human relations. A big 

 town headed by a big chief brings under its sway the surround- 

 ing villages, and this creates a " country." But this country 

 is ready and willing to go to war with the next congeries of 

 human habitations if by so doing it may capture slaves, wives, 

 cattle, goods, or accumulated produce. Even if there may be 

 no great loss of life in these wars, if by chance one party gets 

 the other at a disadvantage it kills and spares not. The 

 Mandingo, of course, are far more civilised, but after all they 

 are only just recovering from the massacres and conflicts 

 incident on Samori's bloody rule and widespread dominion. 

 If one could combine a scrupulous respect for law and order 

 anci an administration of law (without the engine of ferocious 

 customs connected with the use of "devils," secret societies, or 



1054 



