IN WESTERN AFRICA. 
245 
nity will show that it is labor well spent. Yours 
for the blessed cause. 
D , W . Burton. 
Plymouth, Illinois, September 1877. 
BISHOP HAVEN AND LIBERIA. 
Bishop Haven, of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, who visited Liberia November 1877, says 
of that people, who are only two hundred miles 
south of Shengay : 
There are about twenty thousand colored 
Americans. The native population is about four 
hundred thousand. The American population is 
found chiefly in about six towns on the coast. 
The natives are heathens, of course. They have 
no forms of civilization. They go in a nude state. 
There is no relation between the natives and the 
colored Americans. They are just as industrious 
as any class of people who live in the tropical 
countries. The frosts of the North give north- 
erners a start ahead of southerners. The Liberi- 
ans I met are quite industrious, and in business 
transactions are quite shrewd. Some of the larg- 
est merchants are colored men. They own farms 
up the St. Johns and St. Paul’s rivers. Hundreds 
of acres of land have been cleared and cultivated. 
Liberia, like all other countries that are poor, 
needs money. There is a clause in the constitu- 
