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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



THE SUPREME COURT OF LIBERIA P'^oto by Edgar Allen Forbes 



vChief Justice Roberts (a Georgian) in the center; Justice Tolliver on the right; Justice 

 Richardson (on the left) is also President of the College of Liberia 



Ington. That btiilding across the street 

 is the "Executive Mansion". Glance at 

 the flagstaff above it — the flag is the star 

 and stripes. And where else, on the 

 eastern side of the Atlantic, will you hear 

 men talking familiarly about "the Presi- 

 dent," "the Senate and the House/' and 

 **the Supreme Court"? 



All along Liberia's 350 miles of coast 

 and up and down the sluggish rivers the 

 story is the same. You are constantly 

 passing little settlements that bear such 

 familiar names as Virginia, New Geor- 

 gia, Clay-Ashland, New York, Louisiana, 

 Buchanan, Hartford, Greenville, and 

 Lexington. And if you go ashore at 

 Harper and Latrobe (Cape Palmas), in 

 Maryland County, you can refer to Bal- 

 timore without explaining that it is a city 

 in the United States. 



And if you stop to talk with Liberians 

 in any part of the country, you learn 



quickly that these are not the names of 

 a glory that has departed. It is a curious 

 fact that the American spirit is stronger ' 

 in Liberia than in many parts of the 

 United States itself. I once sat at a 

 banquet given in Cape Palmas by Vice- > 

 President Dossen. As the speakers re- 

 sponded to their various toasts, it struck 

 me that a chance listener would have 

 imagined that this was a company of 

 American negroes come ashore from 

 some passing steamer. 



Even the houses of the Liberians are 

 different from those of Sierra Leone and 

 other colonies ; they are built in the style 

 of the Southern States. Much of the 

 furniture and the clothing and most of 

 the books and papers that you see are 

 from the United States. The filling of 

 an American order requires months of 

 waiting, the cost is higher, and the 

 Liberians are poor people, but they want ; 



