Liberia <4- 



coral beads (" glaserne corallen ") : from his first Guinea voyage 

 he brought back to Holland about two tons of ivory and a 

 thousand pounds of gold. 



All these journeys bristled with perils from Spanish pirates, 

 with whom sea-fights were of constant occurrence, so that one is 

 quite relieved at the end to know that this honest mariner landed 

 his cargoes safely in Holland and lived to make interesting 

 voyages to the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, then a Turkish 

 Lake. 



The results of Dutch exploration of the Grain Coast in 

 the seventeenth century are summed up by the learned Dr. O. 

 Dapper in his great work on African geography, which was 

 published at Amsterdam in both Flemish and French in 1686. 

 Dapper devotes a good many interesting pages to the description 

 of the coast tribes of what is now called Liberia. The northern 

 coast region of Liberia between the Mano River and Cape 

 Mesurado is described as the kingdom of Quoja (? Kwoya or 

 Kwia). The Quoja is said to be the name of the language ; but 

 it would seem to be that of the dominant caste at the time, 

 for all these people, Dapper is careful to tell us, belonged to the 

 Vey (Vai) tribe. 



Dapper writes much of a warlike people called the Folgia, 

 who are much mixed up in their history with the Kru tribes. 

 One of the provinces of the Folgia kingdom was called " Karou," 

 and it is a question whether this word can be in any way 

 connected with the name of the Kru people. It is stated by 

 Dapper that the most widely spread language of all this part 

 of the Liberian coast was that of the " Folgia " people, of which 

 he describes the Quoja, Gebbe (Gibi), and the Gala (Gora) as 

 being merely dialects. The Folgia appear to have repeatedly 

 attacked and decimated the Vai tribes. The Mano River is 

 mentioned under the name of Magwibba. The Mafa bears its 



86 



