Page:A Chapter on Slavery.djvu/83

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THE REPUBLIC or LIBERIA.
69

well adapted to the condition of the colored race, who seem indeed intended by nature for such a climate and for no other. Where the white man sickens and dies from the heat, there the negro sports and rejoices, and is the most strong and vigorous. "The city of Monrovia," says Mr. Freeman, "is seventy feet above the sea; and the temperature is mild and agreeable, the thermometer not varying more than from 68 to 87 degrees, and the inhabitants enjoying most of the time a refreshing sea-breeze." Of another settlement, formed at Cape Palmas, called New Maryland, it is stated that "the situation is high, open, far from any surrounding marshes, and most favorable to health." "As to the climate," says Mr. Buchanan, Agent of the ‘Young Men’s Colonization Society of Pennsylvania,’ and late Governor of the Colony at Bassa Cove, "it is entirely a mistake to suppose that it is destructive of health." He went there "with his mind filled with the graphic pictures, drawn by the prolific pencil of the poet, of burning sands, mephitic marshes, and scorching winds, but saw neither." He was "struck with the beautiful luxuriance of the soil; and as to the heat, the result of the regular thermometrical observations taken at Bassa Cove was, that in the hot season the mercury ranged between 80 and 88 degrees Fahrenheit, and in the cold or wet season it seldom falls below 70 degrees. There is besides a continual and refreshing breeze from the sea during the day, and from the land during the nigh "During his residence at Bassa Cove, not a single death had occurred in the colony.[1] Again he

  1. Plea for Africa,, Conversation XXIV.