resist the association
with Babylon, Nineveh, Tyre, and Thebais. The buildings are heavy and
substantial for their kind, many of which are very extensive. These
towns and cities are all entrenched and walled; extending entirely
around them; that of Abbeokuta with the new addition being twenty-seven
miles, though the population is less by forty thousand than Ibaddan,
which embraces about twenty-three miles.

Conjugal and Filial Affection. Activity of Children

Great affection exists between husband and wife, the women being mostly
restricted to household work, trading, and gathering in the fields, and
aiding in carrying, whilst the men principally do the digging, planting,
chopping, and other hard work. The children are also passionately
beloved by their parents, sometimes with too much indulgence. They are
very active, and every day some of them of all sizes may be seen dashing
along a road or over a plain at fearful speed on horseback. They are
great vaulters and ankle-springers, and boys may frequently be seen to
spring from the ground whirling twice--turning _two_ summersets--before
lighting on their feet.

Population of Monrovia and the State

It may not be out of place here to add, that the population of the
capital of Liberia is certainly not above three thousand, though they
claim for it five thousand. And what has been said of the lack and
seeming paucity of public improvement may be much extenuated when it is
considered that the entire population of settlers only number at present
some 15,000 souls; the native population being 250,000, or 300,000, as
now incorporated.

Canine and Feline

As the enquiry has been frequently made of me as to "whether there are
really dogs and cats in Africa," and if so, "whether they are like other
dogs and cats"; and since a very intelligent American clergyman said to
me that he had read it somewhere as a fact in natural history, that dogs
in Africa could not bark; I simply here inform the curious enquirer,
that there are dogs and cats plentifully in Africa, which "look like
other dogs and cats," and assure them that the dogs bark, eat, and
_bite_, just like "other dogs."

Slavery

A word about slavery. It is simply preposterous to talk about slavery,
as that term is understood, either being legalized or existing in this
part of Africa. It is nonsense. The system is a patriarchal one, there
being no actual difference, socially, between the slave (called by thei