4.--A continuance of favorable winds. I am not well to-day. Slight headache, and heaviness of feeling--no great matter--but these are ominous symptoms, on the coast of Africa.
5.--One year since we left America; a year not without incident and interest. We are still on the first parallel of north latitude, and going nine. I am under the surgeon's hands, apprehending a fever, but hoping to throw it off.
6.--We have made two hundred and twenty miles within the last twenty-four hours; and still the breeze does not slacken. Much better in health. Bless the man who first invented Doctors!
Recovery from Fever--Projected Independence of Liberia--Remarks on Climate and Health--Peril from Breakers--African Arts--Departure for the Cape de Verds--Man Overboard.
June 18.--A weary blank! Since my last date, I have had the coast fever, caught by sleeping on shore, at St. Anne de Chaves, and am now just recovering my physical force. My sickness was accompanied with little bodily pain, but with great prostration of strength. Able medical advice, and kind and judicious treatment, have brought me up a little; and, with the help of God, I may again call myself well, in a week or two more. But there is great danger of relapses, caution!
We are now at Monrovia, having made the passage from the river Gaboon, hitherward, in seven days and fourteen hours, from anchorage to anchorage--an unprecedented run! The Macedonian has been here, and is gone.
19.--Still better this morning. The sky looks brighter than before; the woods seem greener, and cast a lovelier shade; the surf breaks more gracefully along the beach; and the natives, paddling their canoes around the ship, look more human--more like brethren. Returning health gives a more beautiful aspect to all things. It is almost worth while to have been brought so low by sickness, for the sake of the freshness of body and spirit, the renewed youth, the tenderer susceptibility to all good impressions, which make my present consciousness so delightful. It is like being new-created, and placed in a new world. Life, to the convalescent, looks as fair and promising as if he had never tried it, and been weary of it.
20.--Still improving. The fine weather of yesterday and to-day invigorates and cheers me. Lieutenant Governor Benedict and some friends are expected on board, by special invitation. We pay much attention to the persons in authority here; it being the policy of our government to befriend and countenance the colonies. I hear that a serious effort is now in progress, at this place, to declare Liberia independent of the Colonization Society, and set up a republic. Lieutenant Governor Benedict and Mr. Teage are said to be at the head of the movement. Both are men of talent. Mr. Teage formerly edited the Liberia Herald, and preached in the Baptist Church, where his services were most emphatically gratuitous; for he not only ministered without a stipend, but supplied a place of worship--the sacred edifice being his own private property. He is certainly one of the ablest, if not the very ablest, writer and preacher in the colony. The project above-mentioned seems to me an unwise one; but benefits, which do not now appear, may possibly be obtained by sundering the relations between the settlement and the parent society. Much is expected from England. That nation, however, can never feel a maternal interest in the colony, nor will do for it what the Society has all along done, and continues to do.