^ Commerce of Liberia 



they do not cultivate nearly sufficient for their own consumption, 

 and thousands of bags are imported annually. We may compute 

 the amount of rice at 150,000 bags = 700 tons per annum, and 

 salt in rather larger quantities. The import of salt, rice, and 

 fish may be regarded as the greatest import trade of the country. 

 Another article of consumption imported in great quantities, 

 especially on the Kru Coast, is stock-fish from Norway. The 



142. SIR ALFRKD JONES'S AGENCY IN MONROVIA (ELDER, DEMPSTER AND CO., ETC.) 



Kru people, Grebos, and in fact all those tribes living between 

 Grand Basa and Maryland, are extremely fond of stock-fish, 

 which has become one of their principal articles of diet. Fish, 

 generally in the shape of herrings in barrels, is largely imported. 



Gin and rum are imported in considerable quantities, but 

 the liquor traffic, so much discussed, does not appear, from 

 the writer's experience, to have in any way affected the natives 

 of the interior, and on the whole there is very little drunkenness 



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