Liberia 



^4- 



of the American settlers in 1822 to choose it for their future 

 capital instead of the less attractive Cape Mesurado. Several 

 times slave traders or pirates in the past conceived the idea 

 of Cape Mesurado as a stronghold. The last to do so was 

 Captain Theodore Canot, who, as related in another chapter, 

 was so taken with the beauty of the scenery and agreeable 

 conditions of Cape Mount that he resolved to lead a new life 

 there and settle down as an agriculturist and stock-breeder. 

 He would in fact have done so had not a ruthless British gun- 

 boat destroyed his settlement, in the conviction that he was 

 still carrying on a disguised slave trade. 



East of Cape Mount the coast is low, and in places 

 swampy. It is broken by the Little Cape Mount River (called 

 Lofa in the upper reaches) at Half Cape Mount. ^ This is a 

 stream of some length of course, which may be the Lofa which 

 rises on the Mandingo Plateau. It flows in its lower course 

 past the Po range of hills in the Boporo country. The river 

 deserves to be called by its native name of Lofa, instead of 

 by the unwieldy term of " Little Cape Mount." The settlement 

 of Half Cape Mount was so named because it was half-way 

 between that promontory and the next cape. 



On or near the little Poba River, a few miles to the east 

 of Half Cape Mount, are the Vai and Liberian settlements 

 of Digbi and Royesville. Digbi was often the scene of slave 

 raids and wars provoked by the slave trade, or of the em- 

 barcation of slaves down to the middle of the nineteenth 

 century. 



A short distance beyond Poba stream (always proceeding 



^ The term "Half" is constantly applied to rivers or capes or places of call 

 all along this coast, originating from sailors, who, unatlle to find the native name 

 or to invent a distinctive term of their own, named such places thus because they 

 were half-way or half a day's journey between one prominent feature and 

 another, 



436 



