Liberia «^ 



An occasional Borassus fan palm towers above the other trees, 

 or even higher than the Borassus reach the climbing Calamus 

 palms, which scramble higher than the highest tree-top and 

 wave their hooked branches in the air. Much of the forest 

 round about Monrovia is enlivened with the brilliant white 

 bracts of a Muss^nda^ these large, smooth, pure-white leaves 

 looking as though they had been cut out of velvet. 



The Junk River, which is fed by streams from the 

 Mamba country to, the north, is a long, winding, tidal creek 

 that flows almost parallel with the coast for about fifteen miles. 

 In its eastern half it is really the estuary of two rivers, the 

 Dukwia and the Farmington. The Dukwia is a rather im- 

 portant river which is navigable for about thirty miles (it is 

 very winding) from the sea to the last rapids, a little beyond 

 Saddle Hill, a mountain said to be nearly two thousand feet high. 

 The source of the Dukwia River is unknown. It may possibly 

 have a course of about a hundred miles, and it flows through 

 a country in its upper part exceedingly rich in indiarubber and 

 covered with the thickest forest, much and dangerously 

 frequented by herds of elephants. A rough road exists from 

 the Liberian settlements on the lower Dukwia and Junk Rivers 

 overland to Careysburg, Crozerville, and White Plains on the 

 St. Paul's River. I have not personally visited Saddle Hill. 

 It would be interesting to ascertain if its altitude really is two 

 thousand feet, as in such case it ought to be a valuable and 

 easily reached sanatorium for Monrovia, since it is close to 

 the. banks of the Dukwia River, where it is still navigable from 

 the. SQa upwards. At the mouth of the joint estuary of the 

 Junk, Dukwia, and Farmington Rivers is the important settle- 

 ment of Marshall, a place of growing importance, founded 

 by the Liberians about 1828.^ Unfortunately, the entrance 



1 Named after Chief Justice Marshall, U.S.A., the biographer of Washington. 



454 



