STEAMERS.――Twenty-five years ago it took a passenger from the United States one hundred and thirty days to reach Corisco; now a trip via Liverpool of about a month, in a palace compared with the pent-up quarters of a sailing ship, and tables furnish with luxuries instead of ringing the changes of salt beef and hard bread from day to day. Twenty-eight steamships afford weekly communication between Liverpool and the West Coast. The vessels of “the African Steamship Company” are named as follows: Africa, Akassa, Ambriz, Benin, Biafra, Ethiopia, Landana, Mayumba, Nubia, Opobo, Whydah and Winnebah, and those of “the British and African Steam Navigation Company” bear the following names: Benguela, Bonny, Cameroon, Congo, Corisco, Dodo, Forcades, Formoso, Gaboon, Kinsembo, Loando, Lualaba, Ramos, Roquelle, Senegal and Volta. “The West African Steam Navigation Company” also employ a number of steamships in the West African trade. Messrs. Rubattino & Co. announce their intention to put on several steamers between Genoa and Bengasi. Not a steamer from the United States to Africa! [Illustration: MAP OF AFRICAN EXPLORATIONS DOWN TO AUGUST, 1877.] A company has been formed in New York for “the establishment of a line of steamships for passengers, mail and freight, between New York, Madeira, St. Thomas and Teneriffe, Cape de Verde, the Western Islands, the Canary Islands, and the ports of the West Coast of Africa.” The capital stock is $100,000; and may be increased to $4,000,000; shares $100. Such a line would open cheap and rapid communication between the Liberian Republic and our own, furnishing facilities for the thousands of people of color who desire to obtain an expansive field for their energies, and bringing to our market the valuable staples of its productive soil. In relation to this important project an experienced missionary writes: “Often, during these twenty years, I have been surprised at the apparent indifference of American capitalists and ship owners to the share that they might have obtained in the profits of the African trade, other than slaves. I have seen two English lines of steamers (the South and the West, having their termini respectively at the Cape of Good Hope and the mouth of the Niger) develop by rich opposition to five, and the termini of three of them extended from the Niger down to the Congo-Livingstone, and literally every nation of Europe engaged in their profits, while America has scarcely a showing.” A subsidy or liberal legislation by Congress is counted upon before additional steps in this enterprise are taken. And among other public action tending to success is the creation and appointment of consuls at the Gold Coast, Lagos and Bonny; and vice-consuls at smaller points between Monrovia and the Niger, to be under the supervision of the Minister Resident to Liberia.