and whether the letter was directed to
"Miss Garth."

The letter bore no such address. Mr. Noel
Vanstone had solved his pecuniary problem at
last. The blank space in the advertisement was
filled up; and Mrs. Lecount's acknowledgment
of the captain's anonymous warning, was now on
its way to insertion in the Times.

THE END OF THE THIRD SCENE.

THE NEGRO REPUBLIC.

THERE were not many noticeable things in the
straggling procession which meandered through
the International Exhibition, and then declared
it "open;" but among the most noticeable were
the negro Commissioners from Hayti and
Liberia, walking shoulder to shoulder, and on
terms of absolute quality with the representatives
of the biggest and whitest communities in
Christendom. We have nothing to do with
Hayti in our present paper; so with a friendly
nod of recognition, and a hearty God-speed,
we will pass her by, and go over the way
to that young republic, Liberia, to see how
things get on there, and how the black blood
works when uninfluenced by white example, and
uncontrolled by white coercion.

Not many people know much about Liberia,
save that it was originally a kind of
philanthropic Botany Bay, where the Americans
transported their manumitted slaves, leaving
them to sink or swim as chance and circumstance
might appoint; but how the experiment
has succeeded, and whether the Liberians
have sunk or swum has troubled the inquiring
public very little. Indeed, not many people
can even tell whereabouts it is, exactly: while of
its climate, condition, trade, productions, or
government, nothing is absolutely known, and
but a very little hazily imagined. That it is on
the west coast of Africa, is certain; and that
it is the country of the freed American slaves is
certain; but for the rest let us accept a blank.

If, then, you will take the map, you will
see scooped out from Guinea, and on the
same seaboard as Sierra Leone, the Grain, the
Gold, the Ivory, and the Slave coasts that
is on the dreaded west,—the "white man's
grave"—a little bit of land, extending only
some six hundred miles along the shore,
and no deeper than, on an average, a hundred
miles inland (some lines are thirty, and some
a hundred and twenty miles): a little bit
of land bounded on the north-west by the river
Shebar, and on the south-east by the San Pedro;
the chief town of which is called Monrovia,
from its great friend and patron, President
Monroe, and the whole territory Liberia. Here
lies the nucleus of what the poor fellows are
pleased to call "the Anglo-Saxon Negro
Nationality," to the establishment and
consolidation of which many of the soundest thinkers
and most sincere workers among the friends of
the negro have given their best attention. It
is now our turn to tell you what the country is
like, and how the Liberians stand in the great
commonwealth of nations.

A tropical land, full of rich shadowing palms
and glorious forest trees, full of fruits and
vegetables and flowers and many-coloured birds,
with rivers rushing in rapids and widening into
lakes, with capabilities of produce yet
unattempted, ought to have a future if it has not a
present or a past. A country that grows cotton,
and coffee, and sugar, and rice, and palm oil, and
dye-woods indigenously, as well as many other
things of general value, ought to claim a share
in the commerce of the world. And so Liberia
will, in time, if she has but patience and fair
play; for her destiny as the germ of the future
African nationality is too manifest to be doubted.
The river system of Liberia, if not important, is
abundant, though not at present much available.
First, there is the Shebar river, one hundred and
twenty-five miles north-west of Monrovia, by the
south-east boundary of which is the Shebar
Island, where the first settlers from America
landed, in 1821, but which was soon after
abandoned, as too unhealthy for even negroes. The
Shebar, like all the Liberian rivers, is obstructed
at the mouth by shifting sand-bars, making
navigation difficult, and entrance at times impossible;
but once inside, you can go up for two hundred
miles or so, and even sand-bars are not insurmountable
obstacles to wealth and science. Then there is
Grand Cape Mount river, in Montserrado county,
which, after a course of two miles, opens into a
lake fifteen feet broad, and reaching thirty miles
inland, both river and lake navigable to vessels
drawing six or seven feet of water. Little Cape
Mount river, though above a hundred miles
long, is navigable for only ten miles for ships of
the same draught; but as there is a heavy surf
at the bar it cannot always be entered, so its ten
miles are often practically reduced to none. The
Saint Paul river, in  the north-west, from one
hundred and twenty-five to three hundred yards
wide, is navigable for sixteen, some say twenty-
three miles, for ships drawing ten or twelve feet
of water. It has its rise in the side of a mountain,
say the natives, three hundred miles in the
interior, and runs through the most beautiful
and fertile district of all Liberia. Indeed, it is
one of the most important rivers in the settlement,
both for its power and the country
through which it travels. An informant, who
followed it along its banks for a hundred and
twenty-five miles above tide water, reports it as
obstructed by rapids from two to six miles apart,
between which, however, the water was bold
and placid, and from eight to ten feet deep. It
is studded with small islands of twenty-five or
thirty acres, some clothed with palm-trees, others
with cam-wood, and the scenery is very rich and
lovely. What mill power in those broad rapids,
with the broad bold space of still water between!
The entrance is four miles north of Monrovia,
hence it is the principal way of communication
between that city and the settlements along its
banks. Six miles up, it is intersected by Stockton
creek, the south-east branch of the Mesurado
river, at the mouth, of which lies Monrovia,