Liberia 



«4- 



black pig which is described as being very dangerous, and with 

 teeth so sharp that they snap through everything they bite. 

 It may be that an allusion here is made to the Forest Pig or 

 Equatorial Africa, the existence of which in Liberia has been 

 already reported from native accounts by Mr. M. Pye-Smith, 

 while a skull collected by Mr. G. L. Bates serves to prove 

 its existence in the Cameroons. The chimpanzee is described 

 accurately, and the leopard is called a " royal " animal, being 

 regarded by the natives as the king of beasts. Dapper mentions 

 that there is a tiger in the country which does no harm to 

 mankind. The description given of the " tiger " is very vague, 

 and may be due really to stories of lions brought to the coast 

 by the Mandingo people. A good deal is said about the native 

 beliefs in bird-oracles. This bird-lore, of which Dapper gives 

 many instances, is another proof of the homogeneity of the 

 Negro race, as they might be capped by similar stories from 

 East, South, and Central Africa. 



According to Dapper, the natives of this part of Liberia 

 knew nothing of dysentery, which was apparently introduced 

 into West Africa by a Dutch trading ship that called at Sierra 

 Leone in 1626. It spread to Northern Liberia as a terrible 

 plague soon afterwards, so that the plantations were left untilled 

 for three years, and many people died or fled into the interior 

 in panic. Smallpox was already established in the country. 



The great monarch of the country appears to have been 

 the King of Manu, referred to occasionally as " Mendi Manou," 

 possibly a Mandingo chieftain. No direct statement is made 

 by Dapper of the advance of Muhammadanism, but it is pro- 

 bable, from one or two of his allusions that Islam had already 

 reached the interior of the Vai country. Dapper gives an 

 admirable description of the various initiation ceremonies of 

 boys and girls nearly identical with those of the present day. 



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