known in Liberia, for onr merchants are accustomed to purchasing "country cloths," as they are called, and selling them to foreign traders; but Consul Campbell's statements far exceed any realities we have ever thought of, and show that interior Africa is as great a field for the production of cotton as America or India.
Sugar-Cane.—To what extent West Africa is to become a sugar-producing country it is difficult to conjecture. Many, doubtless, have grave doubts whether this will ever be the case; for my own part I have no misgivings upon the point, that is, its capability of becoming a great sugar-producing country. The natives grow it in all the country about Cape Palmas, and frequently bring cane to the American settlements for sale. With some small encouragement, and a little stimulus, it could easily be made a staple here. My opinions have been strengthened by some observations made in a recent missionary tour. I found cane but little inferior to that grown on the St. Paul's River, growing in nearly all the towns and villages through which I passed, forty, fifty, and sixty miles in the interior. On inquiry, I learned that it is grown by the natives in the interior two hundred miles back. Dr. Livingstone, in his journal, states a like fact concerning the natives in South Africa.[1]
What a germ have we here for systematic labor,
- ↑ Dr. Livingstone saw the cane growing, in his tour through South Africa. It is more than probable that that cane is indigenous to both West and South Africa.
