Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/436

Rh observed; the morals of the people were good, and the community seemed to be animated by a strong religious sentiment.

“Governor Roberts of Liberia, a fair Mulatto, and Russwurm of Cape Palms, are clever and estimable men; and we have in these two individuals unanswerable proofs of the capacity of the coloured people for self-government.

“The climate of Western Africa cannot be considered as unwholesome to coloured colonists. Every one must pass through the acclimating fever, but now that more convenient dwellings are erected, so that the sick may be properly attended to, the mortality has considerably decreased. Once well through this sickness the colonist finds the climate and the air suitable to his constitution; not so the white man. The residence of a few years on this coast is certain death to him.

“The experiment of the United States to found a colony upon this coast for the free coloured people has succeeded beyond expectation, and I venture to predict that the descendants of the present colonists are destined to become a wise and powerful people.”

A white American physician who spent six years in Liberia, states that the imports of the young Negro State amount to 120,000 dollars annually, and their exports to nearly the same sum. “The trade of our country with Africa,” writes an American this year (1850), “ is becoming daily of more importance.” The Colony of Liberia is said to number at the present time upwards of 10,000 persons. The English colony at Sierra Leone, older and more important, upwards of 40,000.

It thus appears as if Liberia and Sierra Leone would become the nurseries from which the new civilisation and the more beautiful future of Africa would proceed: I cannot believe but that these plants from a foreign land