Liberia ^ 



during the next few months It cannot be said that they received 

 even common courtesy from the colonial authorities at Sierra 

 Leone, nor were the proceedings of the commission conducted 

 fairly and impartially. The matter was allowed to drag on 

 and on, and during these delays much pressure was brought 

 to bear on the chiefs of the frontier districts west of the 

 Mano River to deny that they or their predecessors had ever 

 made any cession of their territories to the Liberian Republic. 

 Naturally, in the time which had elapsed between 1850 and 

 1856 and the year 1879 local conditions had changed. Tribes 

 had increased or diminished in power. Those which were 

 dominant when the Liberian rights had been acquired by 

 President Roberts thirty years bqfore were now displaced by 

 other tribes, who were much better disposed to come under 

 the rule of the British than under the Liberian Government. 

 The British commissioners sought to compel the Liberians 

 into accepting as their frontier the 'little River Mafi or Mafa, 

 which lies to the east of the Mano and which would have 

 brought the valuable possession of Cape Mount almost within 

 the grasp of the British. A long wrangle also took place when 

 the commission was established on the Sulima River on the 

 amount of indemnity due not only to Harris but to several 

 other British or Sierra Leone traders who declared themselves 

 to have suffered from the attacks of the Liberian Vais in 

 I 87 I. The commission broke up without arriving at any settle- 

 ment of the questions of frontier or indemnity. 



Later on, in 1879, another unfortunate incident occurred 

 to lessen the dignity of the Liberian Republic, already gravely 

 compromised by the British action on the north-west and the 

 repudiation of the London loan. A German steamer, the Carlos, 

 went on the rocks at Nana Kru, near the mouth of the Dewa 

 River. The Krumen on the coast not only pillaged the vessel 



270 



