Passage back to Liberia—Coffee Plantations—Dinner on Shore—Character of Col. Hicks—Shells and Sentiment—Visit to the Council Chamber—the New Georgia Representative—a Slave-Ship—Expedition up the St. Paul's—Sugar Manufactory—Maumee's beautiful Grand-Daughter—the Sleepy Disease—the Mangrove-Tree.

Our ship slides along almost imperceptibly, yet gets over the sea wonderfully well. She is a noble ship, stiff, fast, and dry. Her motion is very easy, and her performance, whether in strong or light breezes, is always excellent. Her grating-deck has been taken off, as it made her a little top-heavy and uneasy, and detracted from her speed; and she is infinitely better for the change.

March 2.—Anchored at Monrovia, in less than eight days from Porto Praya, although the winds were light, most of the time. Several of our Kroomen, who left us, two months ago, completely dressed in sailor-rig, came on board with only a hat and a handkerchief, and forthwith proceeded to haul upon the ropes, as before.

6.—I have been walking through Judge Benedict's coffee-plantation, from the condition of which I find little encouragement to persons disposed to engage in the business. The trees are certainly not so thrifty, and are apparently less in number than they were three years ago. There is little or no weeding done; consequently, the plantation is overgrown with grass and bushes, and looks as if the forest might, at no distant day, reclaim its children. All the trees have been transplanted from the neighboring woods, and, it is said, do not flourish so well as those raised from seed, in nurseries. General Lewis has several thousand coffee-plants growing from the seed, and, in two or three years, will have tested the comparative advantages of this plan.

I dined ashore to-day. At the table were a Dutchman, a Dane, four American officers, and Colonel Hicks. All, except myself, were good talkers, and composed a delightful dinnerparty. Colonel Hicks, of whom I have before spoken in this Journal, is one of the most shrewd, active and agreeable men in the colony. Once a slave in Kentucky, and afterwards in New-Orleans, he is now a commission-merchant in Monrovia, doing a business worth four or five thousand dollars per annum. Writing an elegant hand, he uses this accomplishment to the best advantage by inditing letters, on all occasions, to those who can give him business. If a French vessel shows her flag in the harbor, the Colonel's Krooman takes a letter to the master, written in his native language. If an American man-of-war, he writes in English, offering his services, and naming some person as his intimate friend, who will probably be known on board. Then he is so hospitable, and his house always so neat, and his table so good—his lady, moreover, is such a friendly, pleasant-tempered person, and so good-looking, into the bargain—that it is really a fortunate day for the stranger in Liberia, when he makes the acquaintance of Colonel and Mrs. Hicks. Every day, after the business of the morning is concluded, the Colonel dresses for dinner, which appears upon the table at three o'clock. He presides with genuine elegance and taste; his stories are good, and his quotations amusing. To be sure, he occasionally commits little mistakes, such, for instance, as speaking of America as his Alma Mater; but, on the whole, even without any allowance for a defective education, he appears wonderfully well. One circumstance is too indicative of strong sense, as well as good taste, not to be mentioned;—he is not ashamed of his color, but speaks of it without constraint, and without effort. Most colored men avoid alluding to their hue, thus betraying a morbid sensibility upon the point, as if it were a disgraceful and afflicting dispensation. Altogether the Colonel and his lady make many friends, and are as apparently happy, and as truly respectable as any couple here or elsewhere.

Coming to the beach, we found no boat; and nearly half an hour passed before one arrived to take us on board. In the interim, I strolled along the shore, picking up the small shells, which the waves had thrown in abundance upon the sand. In the eye of a conchologist, they would have been of little value, as all of them were common, and none possessed more than a single valve. But the purple blush of the interior pleased me; and what is more, I was gathering these trifles for a lady whom I have never seen, yet whom I trust that I may venture to count among my friends. I know that she will be pleased with the poor offering and its giver; for each of these shells is linked with a thought that flew over the sea—from the sunset shore of Africa to a fireside in New England—and returned thence to the wanderer, bringing grateful fancies, reminiscences, and hopes. It was a smiling half-hour.

9.—Ashore, and in the council-chamber. It is a spacious apartment on the second floor of the stone building recently erected for the purposes of a Legislative Hall and Court-House. The Governor presided, sitting in a high backed rocking-chair; which, by the by, the natives call a "Missionary Horse." The colonial Secretary acted as chief-clerk, and Doctor Prout, in gold-bowed spectacles, as his assistant. An ungainly lad, with big feet and striped hose, seemed to engross in his own person the offices of door-keeper, sergeant-at-arms, and page. The council proper consisted of ten members, who sat at separate desks, arranged semi-circularly in front of the Governor. The spectators occupied rude benches in the rear of the members.

The question before the council related to the building of a market-house in Monrovia, at the expense of the commonwealth, as proposed in one of the sections of a bill to form a city government. This being a matter of some interest, each member expressed his views, but with such brevity that the whole debate occupied scarcely forty minutes, although several individuals spoke twice. This conciseness was less a virtue of choice than necessity, being attributable chiefly to the fact, that the presiding officer set his face against all vagaries of eloquence, and kept the speakers strictly to the point. If one wandered in the least, he was instantly called to order, and compelled to take his seat, upon the slightest deviation from the rules of the house. One of the members was a wilder specimen of humanity than even our legislative bodies at home have ever presented to an admiring world. He was a re-captured African, representing New Georgia, an uncouth figure of a man, who spoke very broken English, with great earnestness, and much to the amusement of his brother counsellors and the audience generally. I regret my inability to preserve either the matter or the manner of so original an orator.

Here, as in the various other situations in which I have seen him placed, Governor Roberts acquitted himself as a dignified, manly, and sensible person. Deriving his appointment from the Society at home, he can act with more independence, in an official capacity, than if indebted to the voices of the members for his position.

15.—At sea again, on our way to Gallenas.

17.—Fell in with the English brig-of-war Ferret. Our captain went on board, and was told that she had been engaged with a large slaver, four days ago. Previous to the action, the slave-ship went to Gallenas, where the Ferret's pinnace was at anchor. She ran alongside of the boat, with three guns out on a side, and her waist full of musketeers—a superiority of force in view of which the pinnace did not venture to attack her; and the ship took in nine hundred or a thousand slaves, and went off unmolested. At sea, she encountered the Ferret, and was fired into repeatedly by that vessel, during the night, but succeeded in making her escape. The slaver was under Portuguese colors, and is said to have been formerly the American ship Crawford, now owned by Spaniards, and bearing a Spanish name.

18.—Again came to an anchor at Monrovia.

19.—Just returned from an excursion up the St. Paul's river. Three officers, in company with Dr. Lugenbeel, left Monrovia seasonably in the forenoon, in one of our boats, rowed—and well rowed too—by five Kroomen. Near the village, we passed from the Mesurado river through Stockton's creek, seven or eight miles, to the St. Paul's. Our first landing was at the public farm, where the manufacture of sugar was going on. Twelve Kroomen (whose power, in this country, is applied to as great a variety of purposes as those of steam and water in our own) were turning the mill by two long levers, walking round and round in one interminable circle, like the horse in an old-fashioned bark-mill. Three or four boys fed the mill with cane, which about a score of colonists were employed in cutting and bringing in by small armsfull, from a field in the immediate vicinity. The overseer, Mr. Moore, and a few other persons, were occupied in boiling the cane-juice. Mr. Moore informed me that sixteen Kroomen were employed on the premises, at three dollars per month, and twenty-five colonists at sixty-two and a half cents a day, besides their food. This year, they make about thirty barrels of sugar (which will cost at least twenty-five cents per pound), and two pipes of molasses. The cane, now in process of manufacture, is very small and unprofitable, all of the larger kind having been already ground. The sugar-house is a wretched building, with a thatched roof, and the sides roughly boarded like a cow-shed. There were four boilers in full bubble, and ten thousand bees in full buzz about the establishment; the insects bidding fair to hoard up more profit than the sugar-manufacturers.

Mr. Moore had accompanied the Niger expedition in the capacity of farmer, and resided nine or ten months on the model farm, without undergoing the prevalent sickness. While almost every white man perished, the colored colonists all survived. A large amount of property was left in the charge of Mr. Moore, and he returned with the expedition to England. As superintendent of the public farm, he now receives from the Colonization Society a salary of three hundred dollars.

Leaving the farm, we soon entered the St. Paul's, a noble river, which comes rolling onward from the yet unexplored interior of the country. Following its course a mile or more towards the sea, we arrived at Maumee's Town, a village of thirty or forty huts, where a considerable slave-trade was carried on, until broken up by the colonists under Governor Ashman. Old Maumee still resides here, and cherishes a bitter hatred against the Liberians, and all Americans and Englishmen, as having caused the ruin of her profitable commerce. The old hag was not now at home, having obeyed the custom of the country by retiring to a more secluded spot, for the purpose of nursing a sick granddaughter. The persons who remained were quite uninteresting. The only noticeable group was composed of two women, one lying flat on her face, with her head in the other's lap. Her hair being combed out as straight as the tenacity of its curls would allow, her friend was arranging it in that fine braid with which it is customary to cover the head.

Having procured a guide, we crossed the river, and, at the mouth of Logan's creek, exchanged our boat for a large canoe, in which we followed the windings of the deep and narrow inlet for nearly two miles. This brought us to a village of six huts. Without ceremony, we entered the dwelling of the old Queen (who was busied about her household affairs), and looked around for her grand-daughter, to see whom was the principal object of our excursion. On my former visit to Maumee's town, four or five months ago, this girl excited a great deal of admiration by her beauty and charming simplicity. She was then thirteen or fourteen years of age, a bright mulatto, with large and soft black eyes, and the most brilliantly white teeth in the world. Her figure, though small, is perfectly symmetrical. She is the darling of the old Queen, whose affections exhaust themselves upon her with all the passionate fire of her temperament—and the more unreservedly, because the girl's own mother is dead.

We entered the hut, as I have said, without ceremony, and looked about us for the beautiful grand-daughter. But, on beholding the object of our search, a kind of remorse or dread came over us, such as often affects those who intrude upon the awfulness of slumber. The girl lay asleep in the adjoining apartment on a mat that was spread over the hard ground, and with no pillow beneath her cheek. One arm was by her side—the other above her head—and she slept so quietly, and drew such imperceptible breath, that I scarcely thought her alive. With some little difficulty she was roused, and awoke with a frightened cry—a strange and broken murmur—as if she were looking dimly out of her sleep, and knew not whether our figures were real, or only the phantasies of a dream. Her eyes were wild and glassy, and she seemed to be in pain. While awake, there was a nervous twitching about her mouth and in her fingers; but, being again extended on the mat, and left to herself, these symptoms of disquietude passed away; and she almost immediately sank again into the deep and heavy sleep, in which we found her. As her eyes gradually closed their lids, the sunbeams, struggling through the small crevices between the reeds of the hut, glimmered down about her head. Perhaps it was only the nervous motion of her fingers; but it seemed as if she were trying to catch the golden rays of the sun and make playthings of them—or else to draw them into her soul, and illuminate the slumber that looked so misty and dark to us.

This poor, doomed girl had been suffering—no, not suffering, for, except when forcibly aroused, there appears to be no uneasiness—but she had been lingering two months in a disease peculiar to Africa. It is called the "sleepy disease," and is considered incurable. The persons attacked by it are those who take little exercise, and live principally on vegetables, particularly cassady and rice. Some ascribe it altogether to the cassady, which is supposed to be strongly narcotic. Not improbably, the climate has much influence, the disease being most prevalent in low and marshy situations. Irresistible drowsiness continually weighs down the patient, who can be kept awake only for the few moments needful to take a little food. When this lethargy has lasted three or four months, death comes—with a tread that the patient cannot hear, and makes the slumber but a little more sound.

I found the aspect of Maumee's beautiful grand-daughter inconceivably affecting. It was strange to behold her so quietly involved in sleep—from which it might be supposed she would awake so full of youthful life—and yet to know that this was no refreshing slumber, but a spell in which she was fading away from the eyes that loved her. Whatever might chance, be it grief or joy, the effect would be the same. Whoever should shake her by the arm—whether the accents of a friend fell feebly on her ear, or those of strangers, like ourselves, the only response would be that troubled cry, as of a spirit that hovered on the confines of both worlds, and could have sympathy with neither. And yet, withal, it seemed so easy to cry to her—"Awake! Enjoy your life! Cast off this noon-tide slumber!" But only the peal of the last trumpet will summon her out of that mysterious sleep.

On our return, we passed under the branches of the mangrove tree, and pulled some of the long fruit or seed. This singular seed is about fifteen or sixteen inches long, and in its greatest diameter not more than an inch. It is round, heavy, and pointed at both ends. When ripe, it detaches itself from a sort of acorn, to which the smaller end has been firmly joined, and falls with sufficient force to implant itself deeply in the mud. After a few days, it begins to shoot, and soon becomes a tall mangrove. This tree has many strings to its bow; for, while the seed is growing, as here described, the branches send down slender and cord-like shoots, perhaps thirty feet long, and less than an inch in thickness. These strike into the mud, and aid in giving sustenance to the tree. Thus the Mangrove presents the appearance of a large tree, supported by hundreds of lesser trunks, standing so thickly together as to be impassable for even small animals. Therein it differs from the tree described by Milton, to which it otherwise seems to bear an analogy:—

Returning to the ship, we found it lighted up, and the Theatre about to open. The scenery has been much improved, since the last performance, and the actors are more perfect in their parts.