-* Portuguese Explorations 



that is to say, in addition to their native language they could 

 speak Portuguese and English/ Dutch, French, and English 

 adventurers who visited the Liberian coast in the sixteenth and 

 early seventeenth centuries noted the extraordinary hold that the 

 Portuguese language had acquired over natives of the littoral, 

 especially in the Vai country. The early Portuguese visitors 

 or settlers had intermarried much with native women, and 

 hundreds of Mulattos, still speaking Portuguese, and resolutely 

 firm in their Christianity, were dwelling on the Senegal River, 

 on the Gambia, and on most of the rivers of Guinea as far 

 as Sierra Leone, perhaps as far as the River Gallinhas on the 

 borders of Liberia, down to the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century. 



During the first hundred years of their adventures (1445 

 to 1525) the Portuguese had named nearly every cape, inlet, 

 river, and mountain on the west, south, and east coasts of 

 Africa, from Morocco past the Cape of Good Hope to the Red 

 Sea. Their nomenclature in West Africa has been more lasting. 

 If we look at the coast of Liberia we may begin with the River 

 Gallinhas, near the Liberian frontier, so named by the Portuguese 

 from the abundance of domestic fowls in the possession of the 

 natives. Inland of the Gallinhas, which is really little else than 

 a lagoon, there is a considerable lake of brackish water named by 

 the Portuguese " Palma," from the abundance of oil palms in its 

 vicinity. Tracing the coast eastwards, we next come to Cape 

 Mount, styled by the Portuguese Cabo do Monte, from the 

 lofty hill of 1,066 feet which rises up from the shore. The 

 biggest river of Liberia they named the St. Paul, and the cape 



• The Dutch travellers state that at Cape Mount there were chiefs who 

 could speak Portuguese fluently, and in addition a little Dutch, French, and 

 English. Between Cape Verde and Cape Palmas there arose a medium of 

 intercommunication in the form of a " pidgin " Portuguese, which only gave way 

 to "pidgin" Enghsh in the eighteenth century. 



VOL. I 49 4 



