132 ZOOLOGICAL RESEARCHES 



natives usually form new plantations in the forest , as they 

 have exhausted the ground. 



The mountainous region which succeeds the cultivated 

 range is almost entirely covered with primeval forest and 

 but thinly populated by the natives. Only now and then 

 the traveller , on his weary some marches through the almost 

 endless virgin forest, reaches an open spot where he is 

 reminded by some miserable looking cabin and the sur- 

 rounding little farms , that this vast region , many days 

 journey in breadth , is peopled by some isolated natives. 

 Larger settlements and towns are very scarce in this re- 

 gion , and these latter are not seldom fortified with from 

 2 to 4 high wooden barricades and surrounded by large 

 plantations , where rice and corn , cassavas and sweet po- 

 tatoes are cultivated. 



Behind this large mountainous forest-region begins the 

 table-land or the so-called Mandingo Plains. 



Here the forest ceases to predominate and wood beco- 

 mes, higher up, so scarce that the Mandingo-tribes are 

 obliged to burn cow- and horse-dung instead of it , and 

 to use clay for building their houses and fortifications. 

 Vast grassy plains are varied with rocky hills and well- 

 cultivated fields where, certainly a strange sight to a Li- 

 berian , cows and horses , goats and straight-haired sheep 

 are abundant , and where the Elephant , exterminated in the 

 coast-region and very seldom seen in the forest-region, 

 lives in whole herds together. 



These vast Mandingo Plains , never visited yet in their 

 upper parts by white travellers , are limited by the Kong 

 Mountains which form the watershed between the Liberian 

 rivers and the tributaries of the Niger. 



Amongst the numerous large rivers I will only mention 

 the Manna, Marfa, Grand Cape Mount, Little Cape Mount 

 and the St. Pauls River , the latter the largest of all , and 

 eastward from Monrovia the Junk- and St. Johns River, the 

 River Cess (Cestos) , the Sinoe- and the Cavallo River. 



Most of these rivers have their origin on the Mandingo 



Notes irom thie Leyden ]VIu.seu.m. , Vol. VII. 



