14. A number of development companies have at different times been formed with the intention of exploiting the black Republic. Many of these have been fraudulent enterprises and have come to nothing; some, started in good faith, have failed; a few--a very few out of many--have developed promisingly. The English _Liberian Rubber Corporation_ has a farm of 1000 acres with 150,000 rubber-trees already planted; this was begun in 1904 and has now reached the period of yielding; in 1912 it was expected that it would prove a paying proposition. _The Liberian Trading Co._ (English) are exporting mahogany and other valuable woods. They are opening commercial houses in different parts of the country and seeking concessions from the government to open roads. _The Liberian Development Co._ (English) discovered gold and diamonds in 1908 and are now importing heavy machinery to work their mines, together with materials for a railway to them, and have already laid part of the railway; this is probably the company to which my correspondent, already quoted, refers. One of the latest of the development companies is the _Liberian-American Produce Co._, which was chartered in 1910 by the national legislature with the approval of the president of the Republic for a period of sixty years. It was given large and varied powers, among them being the right to build for itself or for the government, roads, bridges, harbor-improvements, railways, etc.; and the company was granted a concession of a hundred square miles with the privilege of taking up this land in any sized blocks, anywhere in the country by simply filing in the State Department a description of the lands thus taken up. The company has already selected four square miles of land containing mineral deposits, and plans to start active operations in trade, agriculture, and mining. 15. As the subject of the financial outlook of the Republic will come up again for consideration, we are here only completing our descriptive picture of the Republic. She has long been in debt; her resources have been mortgaged; her customs-houses have been in the hands of receivers. She has recently consolidated all her debts, foreign and domestic, and has secured a loan through the kind offices of the United States of $1,700,000. This loan has been guaranteed by the customs-house receipts, and the customs-service is now under the direction of an international receivership. HISTORY Africa is the Land of Black Men, and to Africa they must and will come.--JOHN KIZELL. Tell my brethren to come--not to fear--this land is good--it only wants men to possess it.--DANIEL COKER. 1821-1828.