Liberia <«- 



Every little dike or pool of water is sprinkled with a very 

 delicate pink orchis, which apparently grows on the surface 

 of the water. The Cyrtosperma arums with their purple and 

 green spathes line the outskirts of the forest. There is a 

 beautiful little water-lily with blue sepals on the lagoons or 

 creeks near the river. Three or four miles up its course from 

 the sea, the Sino River receives a creek which connects it with 

 the Butu River farther north, so that the tovi^n of Greenville 

 and the other settlements are really on an island. The Sino 

 River can be navigated by canoes for about fifteen miles from 

 its mouth, though usually caravans disembark at a place called 

 Jacktown, nearly opposite the mouth of the Butu Creek. The 

 Sino River rises in the Niete or Nedi Mountains, close to the 

 Cavalla watershed, and flows through the Putu country. 



With the Sino River may be said to begin on the west 

 the true Kru country. The real Kru language is spoken between 

 the Sino on the west and Grand Sesters on the east. A creek 

 starting off from the eastern bank of the Sino River near its 

 mouth runs parallel with the Kru coast at a distance of two 

 or three miles from the sea, with one or more openings, as 

 far as Little Kru River. The country behind this long creek 

 is hilly, almost mountainous. The most important river of 

 the Kru country between Sino and Grand Sesters is the Dewa, 

 which the Portuguese called Rio dos Escravos. This rises also 

 in or near the Niete Mountains, not far from the sources of 

 the Sino and Grand Sesters Rivers. All along this coast are 

 the villages of the Kru seamen who are employed on the 

 steamers plying on the West African coast between the Gambia 

 and Angola. A good many of these steamers now recruit their 

 Kruboys at Sierra Leone, from the colony which is established 

 there ; but those which are proceeding to the Bights of Benin 

 and Biafra call off the Kru coast for the canoes of boatmen 



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