Liberia 



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the more open country at the back believed to be inhabited 

 by Mandingos. Founds were found in America, chiefly by 

 Henry M. Schieffelin, to meet the cost of Anderson's journey, 

 and in 1868 he set out on an enterprise which has scarcely yet 

 been repeated in the same direction. For a great many years, 

 in fact, Anderson's journey loomed large in the exploration of 

 West Africa. It did not shrink into insignificance until the 

 more remarkable explorations of Captain L. G. Binger ^ twenty 

 years later. 



Anderson started from Monrovia on February 14th, 1868, 

 and journeyed by zigzags to the town of a chief called Besa, 

 quite close to the coast, to the west of the River Mano. He 

 found at first considerable opposition to his journey on the 

 part of the Mandingo colony at Boporo. At Boporo, however, 

 he managed to conciliate the chieftain and obtained porters 

 to take him through the " Boatswain " country.^ Anderson 

 found the Boatswain country ruled over by Mandingo chiefs 

 or head-men who were large slave-holders, having in fact 

 enslaved most of the local population or purchased slaves from 

 the adjoining Kpwesi or Buzi tribes. Travelling north through 

 the Busi or Buzi country (Doma Buzi), Anderson finally quitted 

 the great forest, to his relief, at Zigapora Zue. From this 

 point his way lay over a country of parklands ascending 

 to a plateau of an average altitude of 2,200 feet. The Buzi 

 people (Bousie in Anderson's spelling) seem to have been 

 able in many districts to hold their own as an independent 



' Now Colonel L. G. Binger, of the French Colonial Office, 



2 The true meaning of this ridiculous appellation is not very clear. Need- 

 less to say, there never has been any tribe calling itself by such a name 

 pronounced phonetically. The patriarch or founder of the community was called 

 Boatswain from having served in that capacity on British ships. This chief of the 

 Boporo district (Tom Boatswain) was in existence at the foundation of Liberia in 

 1822, and is supposed to have rendered some assistance to the early Liberian 

 settlers by his influence over the Goras. 



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