While in the village, I visited the Court House, to hear the trial of a cause involving an amount of eight hundred dollars. Governor Roberts acted as judge, and displayed a great deal of dignity in presiding, and much wisdom and good sense in his decision. This is the highest court of the Colony. There are no regularly educated lawyers in Liberia, devoting themselves exclusively to the profession; but the pleading seems to be done principally by the medical faculty. Two Doctors were of counsel in the case alluded to, and talked of Coke, Blackstone, and Kent, as learnedly as if it had been the business of their lives to unravel legal mysteries. The pleadings were simple, and the arguments brief, for the judge kept them strictly to the point. An action for slander was afterwards tried, in which the damages were laid at one hundred dollars. One of the medico-jurisconsults opened the cause with an appeal to the feelings, and wrought his own sensibilities to such a pitch as to declare, that, though his client asked only for one hundred dollars, he considered the jury bound in conscience to give him two. The Doctor afterwards told me that he had walked eighty miles to act as counsel in this court. A tailor argued stoutly for the defendant, but with little success; his client was fined twenty dollars.
On our return, a companion and myself took passage for the ship in a native canoe. These little vessels are scooped out of a log, and are of even less size and capacity than the birch-canoes of our Indians, and so light that two men, using each a single hand, may easily carry them from place to place. Our weight caused the frail bark to sit so deep in the water, that, before reaching the ship, we underwent another drenching. Three changes of linen in one day are altogether too expensive and troublesome.
_November_ 1.--Went up the St. Paul's river on a pleasure excursion, with the Governor, and several men of lesser note. We touched at the public farm, and found only a single man in charge. The sugar-cane was small in size, was ill-weeded, and, to my eye, did not appear flourishing. The land is apparently good and suitable, but labor is deficient, and my impressions were not favorable in regard to the manner of cultivation. The mill was exposed to the atmosphere, and the kettles were full of foul water. We landed likewise at New Georgia, a settlement of recaptured Africans. There was here a pretty good appearance, both of people and farms. We called also at Caldwell, a rich tract of level land, of which a space of about two miles is cultivated by comfortable and happy-looking colonists. A very pleasant dinner was furnished by the Governor at what was once a great slave station, and the proprietor of which is still hostile to the colonists, and to both English and Americans, for breaking up the trade. We saw several alligators. One of them, about three feet in length, lay on a log, with his mouth wide open, catching flies.