oblong form which marks growing civilisation. The American missionaries
laboured strenuously to build St. Mark's Hospital and Church, the latter a
very creditable piece of lumber-work, with 500 seats in nave and aisles.
But now everything hereabouts is 'down in its luck.' This puerile copy, or
rather caricature, of the United States can console itself only by saying,
'Spero meliora.'



CHAPTER XIV.

FROM CAPE PALMAS TO AXIM.

I had no call to land at Cape Palmas. All my friends had passed away; the
Rev. C. E. Hoffman and Bishop Payne, both in America. Mr. Potter, of the
stores, still lives to eat rice and palm-oil in retirement; but with the
energetic Macgill departed the trade and prosperity of the place. Senator
John Marshall, of Marshall's Hotel, has also gone to the many, and the
stranger's only place of refuge is a mean boarding-house.

Much injury was done to the settlement by the so-called 'Grebo war.' These
wild owners of Cape Palmas are confounded by Europeans with the true
Krumen, their distant cousins. The tribal name is popularly derived from
_gré_, or _gri_, the jumping monkey, and it alludes to a late immigration.
A host of some 20,000 savages closely besieged the settlement and ravaged
all the lands belonging to the intruders, especially the fine 'French
farm.' Fighting ended with a 'treaty of peace and renewal of allegiance'
(_sic!_) at Harper on March 1, 1876, following the 'battle of Harper'
(October 10, 1875). The latter, resulting from an attack on Grebo Big
Town, proved a regular 'Bull's Run,' wherein the citizens lost all their