The citizens gave me sundry details about the 'rubber'-trade, which began in 1877. Monrovia now exports to England and the Continent some 100,000 lbs., which sell at 1_s_. 4_d_. each. Gum-elastic is gathered chiefly by the Bassa people, who are, however, too lazy to keep it clean; they store it in grass-bags and transport it in canoes. Liberian coffee is, or rather would be, famous if produced in sufficient quantities to satisfy demand. At present it goes chiefly to the United States, where, like Mocha, it serves to flavour burnt maize. Messieurs Spiers and Pond would buy any quantity of it, and of late years Brazilian coffee-planters have taken shoots to be grown at home. Here it fetches 1_s_. per lb.; in England the price doubles. This coffee requires keeping for many months, or the infusion is potent enough to cause the 'shakes;' it is the same with Brazilian green tea. The bouquet is excellent, and the flavour pretty good. There is a great difference in the shape of the beans, which range between the broad flat Harar and the small, round, horny Mocha. I could obtain few details concerning the 'Black Devil Society,' which suggests the old 'Know-nothings.' It has been, they say, somewhat active in flogging strangers, especially Sa Leone men. Most of the latter, however, have been expelled for refusing to change their style from 'subjects' to 'citizens'--a foreign word in English and Anglo-African ears. At the time of our visit the republic was in a parlous state. H.E. Mr. Gardiner, the new President, refused to swear in the Upper House, and the Lower refused to acknowledge the Presidential authority. Consequently business had been at a standstill for six weeks. We were disappointed in our hopes of being accompanied by the Honourable Professor E. W. Blyden, ex-minister to England and afterwards principal of the college. He had travelled with Winwood Reade, and I looked forward to hearing the opinions of an African Arabic scholar touching the progress and future of El-Islam in the Dark Continent. That it advances with giant steps may be proved by these figures. Between 1861 and 1862 I found at most a dozen Moslems at Lagos; in 1865 the number had risen to 1,200, and in 1880, according to my old friend M. Colonna, Agent Consulaire de France, it passes 10,000, requiring twenty-seven mosques.