The latest charts of Liberia show no less than twenty-six parallelograms stretching inland, at various angles with the shore, and stated to have been acquired by 'conquest or purchase' between 1822 and 1827; but the natives, especially the Krumen, complain that after allowing the foreigners to dwell, amongst them they have been despoiled of their possessions, and that, once lords of the soil, they have sunk to mere serfs. Hence the frequent wars and chronic bad blood. Every African traveller knows the meaning of land-purchase in these regions. There are two ideas peculiar to the negro brain, but apparently inadmissible into European heads. The first is the non-alienation of land. Niger never parts with his ground in perpetuity; he has always the mental reservation, while selling it to a stranger, that the soil and its improvements return to him by right after the death or the departure of the purchaser. Should the settler's heirs or assignees desire to remain _in loco_, they are expected to pay a fresh gratification; the lessor will raise his terms as high as possible, but public opinion will oblige him to remain content with a 'dash,' or present, equivalent to that paid by the original lessee. The second idea is even more repugnant to European feelings. In Africa a born chattel is a chattel for ever: the native phrase is, ''Pose man once come up slave, he be slave all time.' There is no such thing as absolute manumission: the unsophisticated _libertus_ himself would not dream of claiming it. We have on board a white-headed negro in an old and threadbare Dutch uniform, returning from Java on a yearly pension of fifteen dollars. According to treaty he had been given by the King of Ashanti to the Hollanders, and he had served them so long that he spoke only Low German and Malay. He will be compelled to end his career somewhere within the range of our fort-guns, or his owner's family will claim and carry off their property. At 8 A.M. we steamed against a fine fresh wind past mount Mesurado _en route_ for Grand Bassa (Bassaw), distant fifty-five miles. To port lies Montserrado County, where the shore-strip looks comparatively high and healthy. The Bassas begin some thirty miles below the Jong River, and now we enter the regions of Grand, Middle, and Little Piccaninny (_pequenino_), Whole and Half, _i.e._ half-way. Thus we pass, going south-wards, Bassa, Middle Bassa, Grand Bassa, and Bassa Cove, followed by Cestos and Cess, Settra and Sesters, Whole and Half. The coast is well known, while the interior is almost unexplored. Probably there is no inducement to attract strangers.