Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/267

 LIBEEIA. 217 the morning, following a mean direction from north to south, and is replaced in tl^iO afternoon by sea breezes from the west. The Liberian climate is considered highly dangerous for immigrants, but still Jess so than that of Sierra-Leone. The whites have a settled belief that a residence of over three years would be fatal to Europeans, who especially dread the dry season and marsh fever. Most maladies cause a certain decomposition of the blood, which is expressed by the local saying that the prick of a needle first draws a drop of water and then one of blood. Even Negroes from the United States are liable to marsh fever, from which the aborigines are exempt. Flora of Liberia. The Liberian flora, coming within the Sudanese zone, differs little from that of Sierra-Leone, which it rivals in the wealth of its vegetation and the extent and beauty of its woodlands. Even the dunes are clothed with plants, such as the convolvulus with its flowery wreaths, and the dwarf palm {hyphcene) expanding its fan-shaped foliage within a few feet of the ground. The cocoa-nut, introduced at an unknown date, here found a congenial soil, and has run wild not only on the coast but also along the riverain tracts. Few of the uncultivated plants yield edible fruits, although Liberia is the home of a variety of the coffee plant which grows spontaneously in the forests, and which has recently acquired great econo- mic importance for the revival of exhausted plantations in other tropical regions. The Lemileia vasfafrix, which has committed such havoc in Ceylon, India, Java, and Brazil, has compelled growers to replace the old Abyssinian and Arab stock by the Liberian plant, at least on plantations at a corresponding altitude, this variety generally occupying a lower zone than that of the common species. Its berry also is equally fragrant, when subjected to suitable treatment. It is not, however, a shrub like that of Arabia, but a tree, which in the primeval AYest African forests occasionally attains a height of from 40 to 50 feet. More pre- cocious and productive than the ordinary plant, it resists the attacks of the Lemileia vastatrix, and flourishes in the vertical zone comprised between sea-level and 2,800 or 3,000 feet of altitude, thriving best in an argillaceous and slightly silicious soil. Liberia also exports palm-oil, caoutchouc, and the camwood {baphia Lcematoxylon) employed especially in France for dying textiles. The native flora also includes a "fever tree," whose foliage appears to possess the efficacy of quinquina. Yew ground-nuts are now exported, owing to the depredations of rodents and other animals, but the lower course of the St. Paul is already fringed with cocoa-nuts and sugar-cane. But the so-called " pepper," which gives its name to the " Grain Coast," is now entirely neglected by exporters. It is a species of cardamom (amomum granum paraclisi), which in the sixteenth century was used for adding fire to alcoholic drinks, and which is still employed by the natives as a febrifuge and for perfuming the dead. 78— AF