be two feet high; crop it ten inches from the ground; and save only the most thrifty young shoot which springs from the root.

For the first two years after setting your plantation, cultivate on it corn of some vegetable which requires the frequent use of the hoe. Superfluous branches must be carefully pruned off; and only about thirty or forty left to the tree. These will begin to bear, the third year. The tree should be topped at a convenient height and prevented from shooting higher ever afterwards.

The berries when ripe, have a darkish red appearance; and should be ther gathered and cured. It is customary to gather the crop at three different periods, and stages of ripeness.

To CURE THE COFFEE, pass it through a simple hand mill, immediately after gathering it, in order to grind off the pulp, or outside envelope. When quite dry, either beat the kernel in a large mortar, or pass it through a hulling inill, of a construction different from the first, in order to separate from the kernel the parchment hull, in which it is closely wrapped. This process may also be performed by the pestle. The chaff may then be carried off by a com mon fan. The flavor of the coffee improves by keeping.

TO REMOVE THE TREES in your plantation, (which must be done' once in ten years,) cut away every alternate tree by the ground; and raise one of the suckers from the old stock or root.

No crop is surer; and African coffee frequently produces four pounds to the tree in a season.

CHAPTER XV.

INDIGO.

This crop affords a very quick return; and when successful, is the most profi table one that can be produced by the same labor in tropical climates.

It is annually raised from the seed-One peck of seed serves for more than

an acre.

Prepare the land as for corn or potatoes. Trench it slightly in lines two feet asunder. Scatter the seed in the trenches, and cover on the earth. Use the hoe freely, while the crop continues.

The seed should be planted in April, and the crop will be fit for the first cutting in August. Six or eight successive cuttings may be had of the same crop, at intervals of six or seven weeks between. The ground should be changed,

and a new crop sown every year.

TO MANUFACTURE THE INDIGO.-Cut the plant three inches above the ground. Place it in layers in a steeping vat, and cover it over with water. Let the mass ferment 'till the liquor becomes nearly transparent. Then draw it into the battery, or churn-vat. Churn it 'till the Indigo begins to appear on the

surface. Add lime-water. Let the Indigo subside. Draw off the water; and hang up the Indigo, in small canvass bags, to drain and dry. It is then shifted into small boxes, to harden and mature for use.

CHAPTER XVI.

GINGER

Is as easily cultivated as the potatoe.

dant the produce.

The richer the soil the more abun

Plant it eighteen inches distant, immediately after the rains set in. Hoe and nurse it as the potatoe, and when the tops begin to turn, as they will, in the following dry season, gather and wash it.

To cure it.-Gradually immerse the root in hot water, and dry it by a fire, or in the sun, and you have the Black Ginger.

The Yellow, is obtained by scraping off the outside of the root; and exposing it with frequent turning, to the hot sun, 'till thoroughly dry.

ARROW ROOT

Is cultivated as the ginger: and like Tapioca, is prepared by rasping, or grinding the root fine, and then steeping the pulp; as is practised in the preparation of Starch.

BIRD PEPPER

Should be planted in May, June or July, in continuous rows, two feet from each other-the ground manured highly, and the crop often hoed. The pepper gradually ripens towards Christmas, and is a valuable article, both for exportation, and domestic use.

ALOES

Are indigenous in Liberia, and possess valuable medicinal qualities. They are propagated from suckers, in the same way as the Pine-Apple; and the same mode of culture is applicable.

To prepare the article for market, pull up the plant with the roots. Wash it. Cut the whole into small pieces, and inclose them in hampers. These are to be thrown into an iron cauldron, and boiled 'till the liquor becomes highly colored, and even black. Strain it into a vat, or cask having a cock three inches from the bottom. Let the sediment subside below the cock. Draw off the liquor in six or eight hours; and boil it down to the consistence of honey. If burnt in this process, the whole is lost. Put it into gourds, or earthen pots, for sale. It hardens by age.

No. 8.

We have inserted, under number three, two letters from Mr. Ashmun, on the character of the native Africans, and the importance of introducing Christianity among them. His able letter subsequently addressed to the Rev. Dr. Blumhardt, on the same subject, is too important to be omitted.

To the Rev. Dr. Blumhardt, Principal of the

MONROVIA, APRIL 23, 1826.

Missionary College at Basle, Switzerland:

REV. AND DEAR SIR: Your much valued favor of the 18th of October, 1825, arrived in Africa, by way of the United States, nearly two months ago; but a very unusual press of other duties has hitherto deprived me of the power of answering it satisfactorily, and must render, I fear, the present reply much less perfect and detailed than the importance of your communication authorizes you to expect.

While I tender you my sincere thanks for the information your letter affords of the object, origin, and operations of the two allied Institutions in which your own labors, have borne so distinguished a part, you will do me and many thousands of my countrymen only an act of justice by assuring yourself, that both had already shared deeply in our sympathies, our hopes, and our prayers. Our civil institutions and ancestral relations, perhaps, direct our natural affections towards a different district of Europe; but as heirs of the pure faith and blessed hopes of the Gospel, American Christians have still stronger sympathies to bestow on the land of Luther and the glorious company of his associate reformers. The rekindlings of the holy light of the sixteenth century, in Geneva, Basle, Frankfort, Dresden, and many other places in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, and Prussia, are reflected to the Western World, where it mingles with a kindred radiance, proceeding, we trust, with increasing brightness from the American churches. Gladly, I am persuaded, would those churches, or the individuals who compose them, reunite their labors with those of their brethren of Continental Europe, as they have their affections, in the cultivation of the common African field, hitherto too much neglected by both. A copy of your letter to the Board of Direction of this Colony, has been put into my hands; from whom, I doubt not, you will receive assurances of their most cordial co-operation so far as the paramount and single object of their labors, "the Colonization of American Blacks in Africa," to which they stand pledged to the world to appropriate their funds, shall authorize them to act. The answer which you may expect to that communication will, I trust, prove sufficiently full and explicit to satisfy your inquiries on all the points stated in your letters, except those of local information; and on these inquiries

I shall now endeavor to afford you all the information [which a residence of nearly four years in Africa, and a very large intercourse with the natives of the country, have enabled me to communicate.

Before proceeding to take up the questions of your letter, in their order, you will permit me to premise, that the district of Western Africa more immediately within the actual or prospective sphere of this Colony's influence commences towards the north from the river Gallinas, (Spanish Gallinas,) 100 English miles to the northwestward of Cape Montserado, and terminates, towards the southeast, at Settra Kroo, (the country of the Kroomen,) 180 miles distant from the Cape; thus comprehending a line of 280 English miles of seacoast, but reaching less than one-sixth part of the same distance towards the interior. We have very little connection with, or even knowledge of, any of the nations comprehended in this extent of country, excepting the tribes of the seacoast. The Fey or Vey tribe occupies the line of coast between the Gallinas river and Grand Cape Mount, comprehending a district of fifty miles, and may have extended their settlements twenty-five to thirty miles inland. The character of these people is active, warlike, proud, and, with that of all their neighbors, deceitful. The slave traffic has furnished them with their principal employment, and proved the chief source of their wealth, to the present year, when it is believed to have been broken up entirely and forever. Their intercourse with the whites has been very great; and few of the men are unable to speak indifferent English. Three-fourths of the population are domestic slaves, now engaged in a civil strife with their masters for an extension of their privileges. The whole population of this tribe, I state at twelve to fifteen thousand.

Occupying the coast between Cape Mount and Montserado, fifty miles in extent, is the Dey tribe; reaching only half the distance of the Veys inland, and containing about half their population. They are indolent, pacific, and inoffensive in their character: but equally treacherous, profligate, and cruel, when their passions are stirred, with the Veys. The different subdivisions of the Bassa tribe are disposed along the remaining line of coast towards the southeast, over which the influence of the Colony is beginning to be felt. No writer on Africa, within my knowledge, has comprehended the inhabitants of this last division of the coast under the general designation of the Bassas. But the propriety of the designation is seen in the facts, that the language of all is radically one and the same, and that their manners, pursuits, characters, and the productions of their country, present a striking uniformity. These countries, taken in their order and reckoned by their distinct governments, are from Cape Montserado 15 miles, Mamba-thence 20 miles, Junk-thence 15 miles, Little Bassa-thence 20 miles, Grand Bassa-thence 12 miles, Young Sesters-thence 15 miles, Trade Town-thence 12 miles, Little Colo-thence 13 miles, Grand Colo; after which occurs Teembo (Sp. Timbo), Mana, Rock Sesters, Sinou, Little Botton, Grand Botton, Settra Kroo and Kroo Settra. This maritime country may reach on an average twenty miles inland. It is de

L

cidedly the most populous of any seaboard district of equal extent in Western Africa. In rice, oil, cattle, and the productions of the soil, it rivals, I will not say any part of the African coast, but any part of the savage world. An immense surplus of these articles, after abundantly supplying the wants of the inhabitants, is every year transported to other countries. The people are domestic and industrious, many of them even laborious in their habits. Their number may be estimated at 125,000. Their stationary and even manner of life, the infrequency of wars among them, and their own importunity to be furnished with the means of improvement, seem to declare their readiness to receive among them the instruments of civilization, and the heralds of divine revelation.

I have already said that we yet know but little of the natives of our interior. The vague accounts received from ignorant slaves, and by a few other channels of information, agree that they are much more extensive and powerful, and less broken into tribes, than those of the coast. All the people of the seaboard have a character made up, as their language is, of parts borrowed from their intercourse with Europeans. But both the one and the other, remote from the seaboard, are of necessity, unmixed and peculiar. Very recent accounts received from an expedition of Englishmen into these very regions, represent the populousness and even civilization of these countries in a very imposing light; accounts not without their corroborating proofs in many circumstances, well known upon the coast.

Between the settlements of the coast and those in the interior, it ought to be stated, is in most places, a forest of from half a day, to two days' journey, left by both as a barrier of separation, and which is seldom passed except by erratic traders, who are in many parts of this country very numerous.

The Dey and Vey languages have an evident affinity between themselves, but I have not been able to trace it to any other dialect of Africa. It is very imperfect in its structure, wants precision, has no numerals above 100, and abounds in sounds absolutely inarticulate. I think it not worth the labor of reducing it to a grammatical or graphical form, as the English can be used for all the purposes of education, with equal facility, and incalculably greater advantages, and as otherwise several thousand new terms must be introduced, before the language of the country can be made the medium of exact theological and philosophical instruction. The Bassa dialects may be readily reduced to one and the same written language. But no attempt of the kind has yet been made. It is more copious and artificial than the former, but an European of education can scarcely credit the fact, that a jargon so rude in its structure and pronunciation, should exist as the medium of communication among rational beings. The people of these countries universally inhabit villages of from forty to one and two thousand souls. Every town or village has its head, and several subordinate chiefs, and exhibits the harmony, and much of the economy of one great family. The chiefs have over the people of their respective towns, unlimited authority, which is seldom resisted on the