souls.  Within two years from the time of the first purchase, this enterprising society held deeds from friendly proprietors for eight hundred square miles, embracing the dominions of nine kings, who bound themselves to the colonists in friendly alliance.  This territory spread over both banks of the Cavally River, and from the ocean to the town of Netea, which is thirty miles from the mouth of the river.  In the immediate vicinity of Cape Palmas,—­say within an area of twenty miles,—­there was a native population of twenty-five thousand.  Were we to go toward the interior from the Cape about forty-five or fifty miles, we should find a population of at least seventy thousand natives, the majority of whom we are sure are anxious to enjoy the blessings of education, trade, civilization, and Christianity.  The country about Cape Palmas is very beautiful and fertile.  The cape extends out into the sea nearly a mile, the highest place being about one hundred and twenty-five feet.  Looking from the beach, the ground rises gradually until its distant heights are crowned with heavy, luxuriant foliage and dense forest timber.  And to plant this colony the Maryland Legislature appropriated the sum of two hundred thousand dollars!  And the colony has done worthily, has grown rapidly, and at present enjoys all the blessings of a Christian community.  Not many years ago it declared its independence.

But Liberia, in the proper use of the term, is applied to all the settlements along the West Coast of Africa that were founded by Colored people from the United States.  It is the most beautiful spot on the entire coast.  The view is charming in approaching this country, Rev. Charles Rockwell says,—­

“One is struck with the dark green hue which the rank and luxuriant growth of forest and of field everywhere presents.  In this it respect it strongly resembles in appearance the dark forests of evergreens which line a portion of the coast of Eastern Virginia ...  At different points there are capes or promontories rising from thirty to forty to one or two hundred feet above the level of the sea; while at other places the land, though somewhatuneven, has not, near the sea, any considerable hills.  In some places near the mouths of the rivers are thickly wooded marshes; but on entering the interior of the country the ground gradually rises, the streams become rapid, and at the distance of twenty miles or more from the sea, hills, and beyond them mountains, are often met with.”

The physical, social, and political bondage of the Colored people in America before the war was most discouraging.  They were mobbed in the North, and sold in the South.  It was not enough that they were isolated and neglected in the Northern States:  they were proscribed by the organic law of legislatures, and afflicted by the most burning personal indignities.  They had a few friends; but even their benevolent acts were often hampered by law, and strangled by caste-prejudice.  Following the plans of Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, Liberia was founded as a refuge to all Colored men who would avail themselves of its blessings.