gold, ivory and various commodities in exchange for European goods.

Another journey with the same general results was subsequently made by
another citizen, to Pulaka, about one hundred miles to the southeast of
Monrovia. These explorations are of great interest. They show the belt
of coast occupied by Liberia to be merely the entrance to a high and
healthful interior of great fertility and unlimited resources, over
which the Republic has power to expand indefinitely.

President Payne's successor was Edward James Roye, who was duly
inaugurated January 3, 1870. Born in Newark, Ohio, in 1815, he had
passed through the public schools of his native town, afterwards
attending the college at Athens, Ohio, and Oberlin. He went to Liberia
in 1846, becoming a prosperous merchant and politician. From 1865 to
1868 he held the post of Chief Justice. Roye came into office at a time
when a rage for internal improvements possessed the country; and with
this spirit he was in full sympathy. His inaugural outlines a bold and
ambitious policy. The resources of the Treasury were entirely inadequate
to his extensive projects, and in an evil moment the Legislature passed
an Act authorizing the negotiation of a loan of $500,000. The loan was
placed in London on terms which netted only £85 per bond of £100,
redeemable at par in 15 years and bearing interest at 7 per cent. The
amount thus offered was further reduced by the requirement that the
first two years' interest should be paid in advance. From the remainder
were deducted various agents' commissions and fees, until at length the
principal reached Monrovia sadly reduced in amount,--not over $200,000.
And this soon disappeared without any visible result. It is an old
story; but in Liberia's case it was particularly disastrous. For with
her little revenue, rarely exceeding $100,000, it soon became impossible
to pay the $35,000 yearly interest on a debt for which she had