48 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
serve as deck hands and cargo workers on the various steamers which ply back 
and forth along the West African coast, and still others are employed as laborers 
about the vessels in the ports themselves. It is customary for the Kru boy to 
enter service on the European steamer as it reaches Freetown or Monrovia, and 
to leave the ship at either of these ports on the return trip. Apparently much 
attached to their own land, they return, as a general rule, to their villages after 
each voyage. About their villages on the coast there are always a number of 
canoes and fish nets and traps. They are negroid, thick and sturdy and unattrac- 
tive in appearance but they are a hardy, virile and industrious race. It 1s said 
that they have always especially resisted slavery. Their tribal mark consists 
of a broad blue band between the center of their forehead and the bridge of the 
nose and is produced by making a number of sharp cuts with a knife and then 
rubbing charcoal or indigo into the wounds. When the cuts are healed there is 
often a slightly raised sear, dark blue in color. The Krus call it their mark of 
freedom. In addition they sometimes make two blue triangular marks starting 
from the outer corner of each eye, and extending to the edge of the cheek bone. 
These are said to be distinguishing Kru marks. The Krus particularly delight 
in wearing the white man’s cast-off clothing and usually possess one or two arti- 
cles, such as a dilapidated hat, a ragged pair of trousers, or a singlet or trunks of 
soiled underwear. They are not farmers, and neither the men nor the women pay 
any special attention to the cultivation of the soil, though sometimes a small 
amount of mandioca and a few yams or plantains are found growing in their gar- 
dens. Occasionally the Kru women do some work on the farms further in the in- 
terior. Their diet consists in general of the vegetables mentioned, which they 
raise, breadfruit, and particularly of fish, much of which is dried. The Krus live 
along the coast, particularly in the stretch between Garawé and Grand Bassa, and 
are especially numerous in Sass Town, Nana Kru, Settra Kru, and Kru Town. 
Their most important village, Kru Town, is built on the sands at the foot 
of the hill on which Monrovia is built. It is a town of rather dilapidated 
small houses, constructed of wood or sometimes of thatch and many have tin 
or corrugated iron roofs. The streets are merely narrow lanes. It is esti- 
mated that there are between three and four thousand people living in Kru 
Town at different times. It has its own governing body, but the Governor, 
although a Kru, is appointed by the President of Liberia. Each ship taking on 
boys at Monrovia, pays to the Liberian Government one dollar head money per 
boy, and the Government is said to receive between twenty and twenty-five 
thousand dollars in some years from this source. Ship agents assert that this 
head money is deducted from the boy’s pay. On his return to his village from the 
boat, the Kru boy pays one shilling into a municipal fund used by the Kru Town 
Governor. A sanitary tax of three and one-half shillings is also imposed. It is 
not clear in what way this money is expended but it is certainly not spent on 
sanitation. As the central Liberian Government also collects an electric hight 
and poll tax the Kru boy or man is lucky if he retains half of his earnings. 
In addition to furnishing Kru labor for boats and steamers, Liberia also 
furnishes Kru labor for plantation work at Fernando Po. This arrangement was 
