Liberia <•- 



masses of granite, gleaming with the watercourses that slip 

 down their precipitous sides. During the rainy season, the 

 noise of all these cascades creates a perpetual roar like thunder. 

 Although Anderson implies that the luxuriant forest region 

 continued to the north and east of the Buzi country, he 

 nevertheless leads one to infer that a good deal of clearing 

 has gone on in Buziland, producing wide, grassy plains between 

 the forested hills, plains in which rice, sorghum, and ground- 

 nuts are cultivated, the last-named food-product being produced 

 in enormous quantities. Beyond the Tuma River the open 

 grass country becomes more frequent, with marshy tracts which 

 Anderson describes as cane-brakes, and fields of wild rice. The 

 soil is hard red clay (disintegrated granite), strewn with pebbles 

 and iron ore. Still farther to the north-east, on the verge of 

 the Mandingo country, the oil palm ceases, and vegetation 

 becomes more scanty. The soil (he writes) is so ferruginous 

 that it appears in many places to be a solid mass of iron ore, 

 so that the beaten roadways traversed by men, horses, and 

 donkeys shine like polished metal, and are almost impassable 

 in the dry season, owing to the frightful heat which they 

 radiate in the sunshine. There is a sparse vegetation of grass 

 and scrubby bushes in this burning land, except of course in 

 the vicinity of watercourses. 



According to Anderson, elephants swarm in great herds 

 in these territories, which are a kind of no-man's-land 

 between the true Mandingo country and the more forested 

 tracts inhabited by the Buzi and Gbalin peoples. In this 

 no-man's-land he mentions the Vukka Hills (known as " Foma " 

 by the Mandingo), in which the town of Vukka, belonging 

 to the Buzi people, is situated. Muhammadu (also called 

 Musomadu) is (or was) a large town, surrounded by a 

 quadrilateral clay wall diversified with bastions, these walls 



492 



