Liberia ^ 



peninsula the makings of a handsome and healthy city, with 

 its attendant plantations, farms, and pleasure-gardens. There is 

 no marsh in the vicinity except the small patch near the cemetery, 

 and the whole of the peninsula is high, fertile land, with patches 

 of magnificent forest. 



The Mesurado lagoon, as already related, extends its 

 tidal creeks eastwards within a short walk of the most westerly 

 creek of the Junk River. Navigation up these creeks can be 

 carried on to some extent by a steam-launch, but canoes are 

 required for the narrower and shallower parts. The mangroves 

 lining these creeks rise to a fair altitude, though not to such 

 magnificent proportions as the mangroves of the lower Congo. 

 As usual, the roots up to the highest tide-mark are often 

 set with oyster clusters. On the high branches of these man- 

 groves perch the white and black, pink-faced fishing-vultures, 

 almost the only sign of bird life, while on the mud the common 

 Nile crocodile and the short-headed crocodile may sometimes 

 be seen. Grey mangabey and greenish colobus monkeys 

 frequent the thicker part of the mangrove bush ; but all this 

 region, like so much of the coast-belt of Liberia, is singularly 

 lacking in animal life. Northwards of these creeks of the 

 Mesurado the ground rises and the scenery becomes agreeable 

 to the eye. Numerous plantations, belonging, with one exception, 

 to Americo-Liberians, dot the country behind Monrovia in the 

 direction of the St. Paul's River. 



The Mount Barclay plantation (Louisiana) belongs to the 

 Liberian Rubber Corporation. It was initiated by an enter- 

 prising Bavarian named Humplmayer. Here the ground rises 

 to about four or five hundred feet, and from this point a 

 view of Monrovia can be obtained, twenty miles distant. 

 Along the roads to this and similar plantations are charming 

 avenues of oil palms, coffee trees, oranges, and raphia palms. 



452 



