114 FORESTRY OF WEST AFRICA. 



mentality of the bean of Liberia, the West African 

 native State and welcome home of the former slaves 

 and children of slaves of the New World, the seed of 

 renovation in this product, but, by means of free labour. 

 The prospect of its development looks promising 

 elsewhere, and should, in its native land ; but for 

 local success — and for a continuance of success with 

 beneficial results of some duration — perseverance, 

 exertion, energy, and care, with introduced capital, 

 must be prominent factors. 



In thus dwelling on this subject, I have with much 

 pleasure come across, in the ' Heart of Africa,' the 

 following expression of experience of that celebrated 

 and able traveller. Dr. Schweinfurth. 



"But nowhere in the world has slavery been so 

 thoroughly engrafted and so widely disseminated as 

 in Africa ; the earliest mariners who circumnavigated 

 its coasts found a system of kidnapping everywhere 

 established on a firm basis, and extending in its 

 business relations far into the interior of the continent ; 

 the idea arose, how advantageously the owners of land 

 in the distant East might cull the cost of products of 

 their soil by the hands of slaves ; and the kernel of a 

 single plant, the coffee-berry, became the means of 

 uniting the remotest lands, and had the effect of 

 throwing a large portion of the human race into 

 subjection to their fellows, whilst Christian nations 

 became the patrons and the propagators of the dis- 

 graceful traffic. It has therefore happened in the 



