showing themselves to such advantage from the different prominences of this long-loved spot, really feasts one's eyes and gladdens one's heart. Many of the trees begin now to bear small quantities of coffee. But more attention should be devoted to them. The coffee tree, like the lambs and sheep in the flock of a "good shepherd," should every one be individually and particularly known. Each one's necessities should be promptly and carefully attended to. Forgetfulness or omission in duty here, abandons the tender shrub to more than wolfish suckers and parasites, or the rubbing and tread of cattle, breaking off the limbs and often the bodies of promising trees. We made what suggestion we thought proper on the occasion, and wearied with the day's work, turned our thoughts in other directions. Saturday, the 9th, we took the road for Careysburg. It was warm "too much." Careysburg was not reached by considerable, when our clothes, to our coat and pantaloons, were wet through. But what of such mere trifles? The man who will not gladly sweat in trying to do good, had better take his seat beside a certain peevish prophet, in a booth overlooking the habitations of more than six score thousand persons, awaiting the time for their destruction to come. We have been often reminded of that holy indifference in the toils of the pastoral office, so beautifully illustrated in the parable of the "Lost Sheep," MAT. 18, 12-14. Time is taken; a vigilant search is set on foot; the mountains are gone into; places of danger and difficulty are ransacked, to recover that one sheep. Forgetful, under the impulses of heavenly solicitude, of the large number at home, "the ninety and nine," no rest is to be taken, to the quenchless fires of a Christ-like love for souls, till this absent one is brought back. And Oh, how touching is the description as the search culminates in finding the lost sheep. "He layeth it on his shoulder rejoicing." Weariness, pains, trouble, all unmentioned and unthought of in the abounding joy of bringing home "the sheep that was lost." O, thank God, the christian ministry, with all that can be said in disparagement of it, has its "abundant compensations." "We are shouting in the field of battle, Dying in the field of battle, The road to Careysburg, of which we had heard much lately, is unquestionably, by the adopted route, much straightened and shortened. For the first ten miles after leaving the St. Paul's River, little else has been done, as yet, than to open the way by cutting down the bushes along the path of the intended thoroughfare, making a through, as our northerners would call it, from twenty to twenty-five feet wide. Two causeways are met with before getting to Zoda Queah's; but the sluices in their centres are indifferently set with poles, which already begin to cave in. It would be a saving to have these sluices set with stone. Then the great convenience they will now offer to every traveller in the rainy season, would be perpetuated for years to come. Besides the above named improvements, the same little narrow footpath alone, with a stick, a cluster of sticks, or a log over the streams, point out the way, and complete the sum of its accommodations, on this part of the route. Passing Zodah Queah's, and within four miles of Careysburg, you witness a change. On this part of the road, if we recollect aright, with one exception, every stream is bridged. The work is respectably done, and of good material. We found ourselves instinctively leaping up and down on the first bridge we met with, and shouting, "Hurrah for Careysburg." In the woods, away off there alone, we did not feel it was anybody's business if we did shout a little. We however regret that the work was not so arranged in the outset, as to have stones for the bridges, out and out. In no case need an arch to have been sprung from abutment to abutment over 25 feet, and that only in a single case. It might have cost a little more now; but once done, expenses would be ended. Upon the present plan, the best timber may be used, and any amount of pains taken, still we know the climate, the ravages of which nothing can stay. In three or four years, at the farthest, and most of these bridges will be unfit for use, without extensive and costly repairs. Having the bridges out of our thoughts, and the general aspects of the road onward is as above described; only causeways are more frequently to be met with, as the demand for them increases. Tuesday, the 12th, we stepped out into the Queah Country, seven or eight miles, and back, in company with Mr. C. A. Pitman, to the site of our contemplated Queah Mission. This, too, was a warm walk. Our observations led us to the conclusion that the environs of Careysburg, as a district for extensive and lucrative farming operations, commend themselves as strongly to the consideration and patronage of those desiring the advance of agriculture, as Careysburg itself ever did or ever will, to the valetudinarian or the newly-arrived emigrant, on the score of health. was Our course from Careysburg to the site of the Queah Mission, about E. by N. Descending to Paxtonville, (quite euphonical,) three miles distant, we saw the forest opening, and log-houses going up, amid bush and tree-tops, reminding us forcibly of scenes we had witnessed, and in which we had taken an active and happy part, in America, thirty years ago. Success to these dear people! coming thus far and going through immense fatigue and exposure, to find a free home for themselves and their children. They may not live to enjoy what they seek, but Liberia will live, and others will live and reap the benefit of their toil and sufferings. Amen: so let it be. Somebody will catch the bird, if we now living do not, fellow citizens. That will do for us. We will go on to Heaven, to our inheritance there: "Where the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them. * * And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. And God himself shall be with them, and be their God."-REV. 21, 1-2. We hope our friends will stretch out in this direction, to a large creek about seven miles distant; then line its banks along with large farms; open that creek down to the DuQuay in the dry season, and when the water rises, shove their produce to Marshall-pronounced lately by a judge to be one of the finest harbors in Liberia. Opening that creek, will fill the steam mill yard and water side of a certain firm in this city with the finest logs. This the owners might not like so well; but, friends at Careysburg, look out for yourselves. Don't you mind them. The site of the Queah Mission, (where we intend to build, and set to work to teach and preach, and do otherwise what good we can,) stands on this creek. We at present say little about it, as accounts of prospective labors are frequently fallacious; attracting great attention, exciting expectation unduly, and of success in an unreasonably short time; so that we prefer to await progress a little, and then talk, and if warranted by facts in the history and condition of the Mission, write too. It is easy to do great things on paper. There, men and women are met with of prodigious proportions, who off from paper are only common sized people, just like other folks. Suffice it to say, of our work at this point, we have a good man appointed, consecrated in the designations of the church to this work, and we doubt not in the personal purposes of his own heart. We intend to "prophecy to the dry bones," not forgetting or omitting at the same time to prophecy unto the "wind," to breathe upon both the slain and our work for their good. We call upon the church to unite with us in this christian enterprise, that we may be abundantly blessed in it. Of our Careysburg friends, it is due that we say a word—it must be but a word; and this we do by saying, there is, as the folks have it, some "ring," that is, some spirit and enterprise coursing their veins and bounding in their blood. Their undertakings-of roads, bridges, and receptacles, on government account-show this, as well as their openings for farms for themselves. They seem to possess the ability to adjust their expedients to the nature of their emergencies. Not exactly a stereotyped people, they can lay a new track, when in so doing expense can be cheapened, the route shortened, difficulties lessened, or their pressure lightened. Our Methodist people there have paid as much towards their church as the same denomination has paid for repairs in the city of Monrovia-that is, about $300 in each society. While I was there the Careysburg church set on foot a subscription for a church bell. They needed $25. In a few hours it was reliably pledged. We learn since it has run up to $40. The bell is ordered. Brethren in Careysburg, go on and prosper! Our Mercantile status.-Some years since, through mismanagement and superfluous expenditure, if not in some cases a downright want of principle, the credit of the merchants in Liberia, in a very large proportion, was not such as to reflect much honor upon the men of that occupation. Now things are far otherwise. The merchants of Monrovia and of Bassa, not to say more, are well spoken of. Very generally foreigners express freely the sense of security they experience in entrusting goods to and opening accounts with them. Liberia College.-Up it goes. This long-wished-for building is coming prominently into view. The third story is well underway, and shows to good advantage, surely. With the economical system of labor devised and executed under the personal superintendence of the President of the College, Hon. J. J. Roberts, the work must progress. The long trains of native laborers, with their merry shout and song, like the lyre of Orpheus, bring to this temple of science the material for its erection from all parts of our city. May God bless it to Liberia, and consecrate its rising influence to the honor of his church, and the glory of his name. Du Chaillu's Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa. New York: Published by Harper & Brothers, 1861. ADVENTURES IN GORILLA LAND. From Harpers' Magazine for June. Toward the close of the year 1846, the Rev. J. Leighton Wilson, now the respected Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, but then a missionary in the Gaboon Region of Western Africa, came into possession, accidentally, of the skull and afterward of the greater part of a skeleton of an ape which he was convinced was not known to naturalists. He forwarded these remains to the Boston Society of Natural History, in whose proceedings they were afterward described by Dr. Savage and Professor Jeffries Wyman. This was the first notice the scientific world had of the existence, in a part of Africa known to the civilized world for twenty centuries, of an animal the most monstrous and cruel, as it has been since demonstrated to be in its frame the most man-like, of all the beasts of the forest. Mr. Wilson's discovery, whose importance he modestly underrated, devoting to it only a few lines in his interesting account of Western Africa, caused naturalists to search old books of travel for any description of such an animal; and a few such traces are indeed found, but all evidently negro exaggerations with the glosses of imaginative writers; no civilized man having up to that period ever having seen a live gorilla; only Mr. Wilson was known to have had the good fortune to see its carcass. In 1855 professor Owen, of London, received from the Gaboon, from an old shipmaster, a cask of rum, in which was contained the spoiled body of a huge gorilla. Only the skeleton proved of use for descriptive purposes, and on this Professor Owen founded a most interesting paper, in which he took pains to collect all the meagre accounts so far gathered from the natives, of the appearance and habits of the animal. With this memoir the subject rested, to all intents, until in the fall of 1859 the naturalists of this country were at last gratified by the return, with a magnificent collection of stuffed gorillas of all ages, of Mr. Paul B. Du Chaillu, an enterprising American citizen, who had spent four years in a thorough exploration of the region in which alone the gorilla is found, and in hunting that animal, and gaining, with the enthusiasm of an ardent naturalist, the fullest knowledge of the habits and nature of the mysterious beast. We propose to follow Mr. Du Chaillu through a portion of his romantic and adventurous travels, as he has recounted them in the magnificent work he has just published; but must pause at the threshold to give the reader some idea of the region which may with justice be called "Gorilla Land." Turn to a map of Africa, on which are marked the most recent explorations, and you will find a belt, narrow, compared with the length of the continent, but containing a vast area of land, lying between lat. 3° North, and lat. 3° South, and which is left blank from the western coast to Captain Burton's Lake Tanganyika on the east. Barth did not reach it from the north; Livingstone stopped short of it from the south; Burton's adventurous march to the long-sought land of the Moon was but a step in the long journey across the continent from the east; and the merchants who had for many years more or less drained this mysterious region of ivory, beeswax, ebony, gold dust, and latterly of India-rubber, were content to live carefully on the coast, not caring to risk an almost certain death by rash ventures into an interior thought to be doubly protected by ferocious negro tribes and fatal fevers. Of these merchants the father of Mr. Du Chaillu was one. The son was familiar with the coast from early boyhood, quitted it to attend school, but returned, and on his father's death entered into the limited commerce himself. As a merchant he became familiar with the languages of many of the tribes who came down to trade. Having studied Natural History in France, he profited by his leisure to make collections of the numerous undescribed species of birds found on this little known coast; and at last, desirous alike of extending his trade, and of investigating the habits of the gorilla, about which he had long been curious, he determined to devote a year to an exploration of the mysterious interior. His year lasted four years! And in this time, as he modestly sums it up in his preface, he traveled-always on foot, and unaccompanied by other white men-about 8,000 miles; shot, stuffed, and brought home over 2,000 birds, of which more than 60 are new species, and killed upward of 1,000 quadrupeds, of which 200 were stuffed and brought home, with more than 80 skeletons. "Not less than 20 of these quadrupeds are species hitherto unknown to science!" He suffered fifty attacks of the African fever, taking, to cure himself, over fourteen ounces of quinine. Of famine, long-continued exposures to the heavy tropical rains, and attacks of ferocious ants and venomous flies, he thinks it not worth while to speak. These are achievements of which surely any man not yet thirty may be proud, and which place him high in the list of those adventurous spirits Livingstone, Barth, Burton, and others, the pioneers |