But this account was written at the early sunrise of civilization in Sierra Leone.  Now civilization is at its noonday tide, and the hopes of the most sanguine friends of the liberated Negro have been more than realized.  How grateful this renewed spot on the edge of the Dark Continent would be to the weary and battle-dimmed vision of Wilberforce, Sharp, and other friends of the colony!  And if they still lived, beholding the wonderful results, would they not gladly say, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word:  for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel”?

FOOTNOTES: 

[101] Savage Africa, p. 25.

[102] Precis sur l’Etablissement des Colonies de Sierra Leona et de Boulama, etc.  Par C.B.  Wadstroem, pp. 3-28.

[103] Wadstroem Essay on Colonization, p. 220.

[104] This led to the sending of 119 whites, along with a governor, as counsellors, physicians, soldiers, clerks, overseers, artificers, settlers, and servants.  Of this company 57 died within the year, 22 returned, and 40 remained.  See Wadstroem, pp. 121, sq.

[105] See Livingstone’s Zambesi, pp. 633, 634.

CHAPTER X.

THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA.

     LIBERIA.—­ITS LOCATION.—­EXTENT.—­RIVERS AND
     MOUNTAINS.—­HISTORY OF THE FIRST COLONY.—­THE NOBLE MEN WHO
     LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE LIBERIAN REPUBLIC.—­NATIVE
     TRIBES.—­TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT INTO THE VEI
     LANGUAGE.—­THE BEGINNING AND TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS
     TO LIBERIA.—­HISTORY OF THE DIFFERENT DENOMINATIONS ON THE
     FIELD.—­A MISSIONARY REPUBLIC OF NEGROES.—­TESTIMONY OF
     OFFICERS OF THE ROYAL NAVY AS TO THE EFFICIENCY OF THE
     REPUBLIC IN SUPPRESSING THE SLAVE-TRADE.—­THE WORK OF THE
     FUTURE.

That section of country on the West Coast of Africa known as Liberia, extending from Cape Palmas to Cape Mount, is about three hundred miles coastwise.  Along this line there are six colonies of Colored people, the majority of the original settlers being from the United States.  The settlements are Cape Palmas, Cape Mesurado, Cape Mount, River Junk, Basa, and Sinon.  The distance between them varies from thirty-five to one hundred miles, and the only means of communication is the coast-vessels.  Cape Palmas, though we include it under the general title of Liberia, was founded by a company of intelligent Colored people from Maryland.  This movement was started by the indefatigable J.H.B.  Latrobe and Mr. Harper of the Maryland Colonization Society.  This society purchased at Cape Palmas a territory of about twenty square miles, in which there was at that time—­more than a half-century ago—­a population of about four thousand