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192    NOTICES OF LIBERIA.

strongly impressed with religious feelings, their manners serious and decorous, and their domestic habits remarkably neat and comfortable.

4. "Their houses are well built, ornamented with gardens and other pleasing decorations, and in the inside are remarkably clean - the walls well whitewashed, and the rooms neatly furnished.  They are very hospitable to strangers, and many English naval officers on the station have been invited to dine with them, and have joined in their meals, which were wholesome and good.  The man of the house regularly said grace, both before and after meat, with much solemnity, in which he was joined by the rest of the family, with great seeming sincerity.

5. "They all speak good English, as their native language, and without any defect of pronunciation. They are well supplied with books, particularly Bibles and liturgies.  They have pastors of their own color, and meeting houses in which divine service is well and regularly per-formed every Sunday, and they have four schools at Cape Monteserado and three at Caldwell.  By one ship alone, they received five hundred volumes, presented by Dartmouth College, besides several boxes and packets of school books, sent by friends at Boston.

6. "The complete success of this colony is a proof that negroes are, by proper care and attention, as susceptible of the habits of industry and

NOTICES OF LIBERIA.    193

the improvements of social life, as any other race of human beings: and that the melioration of the condition of black people on the coast of Africa, by means of such colonies, is not chimerical. Wherever the influence of this colony extends, the slave trade has been abandoned by the natives, and the peaceful pursuits of legitimate commerce established in its place. A few colonies of this kind scattered along the coast, would be of infinite value in improving the natives."

THOMAS BUCHANAN, Agent of the New York and Philadelphia Young Men's Colonization Society, sailed for Bassa Cove on the 23d of November, 1835.  He arrived at Monrovia on the first of the January, and proceeded to the settlement of which he had charge, on the eight.  The following is an extract from of his letters:-"I find a state of things here altogether better than I had ever anticipated, even trying to imagine the brightest side of the picture; but with present im-perfect ability to detect the errors of first impressions, I shall withhold the remarks which my feelings would prompt.

2. "I visited New Georgia, Congo Town, and Caldwell, on Tuesday last, in company with some gentlemen of this place, for the purpose of seeing some of our emigrants who have been located at

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