Liberia >*- 



derived from the following sources : The seeds of Strophanthus 

 gratus (which is a deadly poison, and is probably the basis of 

 the arrow-poison), the leaves of the Funtumia tree (? F. africana), 

 Guinea grains (Malagueta pepper), kola nut, one or two kinds 

 of Cassia, the leaves of a verbenaceous plant with a blue flower 

 and long flower-stalk {StachytarpheUi), the seeds and bark of 

 several kinds of acacia, a shrub which on the Gold Goast is called 

 Ahame, the leaves of the Colocasia arum, the fibre of pineapple 

 leaf, the leaves and juice of the lime {Citrus), the bark of the 

 silk-cotton tree {Bombax) reduced to ashes, the skin of bananas 

 treated in the same way, ginger, palm oil (an ingredient used 

 in a hundred difi^erent ways, internally and externally), and the 

 seeds, leaves, bark, or roots of a great many trees and shrubs 

 not yet identified by their scientific names. 



In addition to these vegetable substances, gunpowder, clay, 

 kaolin, iron ore, iron rust, and mutton fat are used. 



Palm wine, fermented or unfermented, is used with some 

 mixtures, and trade gin, as already stated, percolates through 

 a good many of the remedies. Indeed the use of this much- 

 decried form of alcohol in the interior of Liberia, as in other 

 parts of West Africa, seems to be much more medicinal than 

 anything else. 



The food of the aboriginal Liberians is mainly of a vege- 

 table character. I have already alluded to the period in their 

 history at which cultivated rice was introduced (probably from 

 the north). Maize or Indian corn has been introduced here and 

 there during the last hundred years by the Americo-Liberians ; 

 or by the Mandingo from the north, who of course received it 

 from the Senegambian coast, whither it was brought by the 

 Portuguese from America. The principal sources of vegetable 

 food possessed by the aboriginal Liberians at the present day are 

 nearly all of foreign introduction, and as most of them come 



988 



