338 



The National Geographic Magazine 



Women of the Solah Tribe, Liberia 



15,000 square miles — is grass or park- 

 land in the possession of the Mandingo 

 tribes, who are great cattle-breeders. 

 From all accounts I can collect, as well 

 as from the little I have seen myself, I 

 do not think that much of the interior 

 of Liberia can be described as marshy. 

 It is, on the other hand, inclined to be 

 hilly, and at distances of from 40 to 100 

 miles inland ranges of hills reach alti- 

 tudes which might almost be dignified 

 by the name of mountains. 



The population of Liberia consists of 

 about 15,000 Americo-Liberians, de- 

 scendants of negroes from the LTnited 

 States, and 2,000,000 indigenes. So far 

 as the outside world is concerned, the 

 world of treaties and congresses, the 

 country which we know as Liberia is con- 

 sidered to belong to and be governed by 

 this small caste of English-speaking 

 negroes and half-breeds of American ori- 

 gin. These English-speaking negroes 



certainly govern and administer the coast- 

 line and a belt of more or less settled 

 country which extends from 20 to 40 

 miles inland. Of late years they have 

 been on generally friendly terms with 

 the 2,000,000 indigenous negroes, some of 

 whom have come very much under their 

 influence. 



The Americo-Liberians are the sur- 

 vivors or the descendants of freed slaves 

 or persons dissatisfied with their social 

 condition in the United States of Amer- 

 ica during the early part of the nine- 

 teenth century. A considerable number 

 of them also came from the British West 

 Ladies ; but the movement which founded 

 Liberia — the black republic on the west 

 coast of Africa — originated with cer- 

 tain philanthropic societies in the United 

 States about 1821. 



The first fifty years of the history of 

 Liberia were marked by constant strug- 

 gles between the Americo-Liberian in- 



