5. There are many rivers in Liberia and the country is well watered. Several of these rivers are broad in their lower reaches, but they are extremely variable in depth and are generally shallow. Few of them are navigable to any distance from their mouth, and then only by small boats; thus the St. Paul’s can be ascended only to a distance of about twenty miles, the Dukwia to a distance of thirty (but along a very winding course, so that one does not anywhere reach a great distance from the coast), the Sinoe for fifteen miles, but by canoes, the Caballa (the longest of all Liberian rivers) to eighty miles.
A notable feature in the physiography of Liberia is the great number of sluggish lagoons or wide rivers, shallow, running parallel to the coast behind long and narrow peninsulas or spits of sand; there are so many of these that they practically form a continuous line of lagoons lying behind the sandy beach. These lagoons open onto the sea at the mouths of the more important rivers; smaller rivers in considerable numbers enter them so that in reality almost every river-mouth in Liberia may be considered not the point of entrance of a single river, but of a cluster of rivers which have opened into a common reservoir and made an outlet through one channel. As good examples of these curious lagoons, we may mention from west to east the Sugari River, Fisherman’s Lake, Stockton Creek, Mesurado Lagoon, Junk River, etc., etc.
Inasmuch as the rivers are the best known features of Liberian geography, and as they determine all its other details, we shall present here a complete list of them, in their order from west to east, together with a few observations concerning the more important.
Mano—Mannah: Bewa, in its upper course; the western boundary of the country; flows through a dense forest; no town at its mouth; not navigable to any distance; Gene, a trading village, twenty miles up; Liberian settlements a few miles east of the mouth.
Shuguri, (Sugary), Sugari, only a few miles in length; extends toward the southeast, parallel to the coast.
Behind the peninsula upon which Cape Mount stands is a lagoon called Fisherman’s Lake, which parallels the coast for a distance of ten miles; this shallow, brackish, lagoon is about six miles wide at its widest part, and is nowhere more than twelve or thirteen feet in depth; it is so related to the Marphy and Sugari Rivers that it is said of them, “These rivers with Fisherman’s Lake have a common outlet, across which the surf breaks heavily”; where these three water bodies enter the sea by a narrow mouth there is but three feet depth of water.
Half Cape Mount River, Little Cape Mount River, Lofa (in its upper part). Of considerable length; in the dry season a bank of sand closes its mouth; the village of Half Cape Mount is here.
Po, Poba. Small stream eight miles from last; here are the Vai village of Digby and the Liberian settlement of Royesville.
St. Paul’s, De; Diani, further up. This great river, the second of Liberia, rises on the Mandingo Plateau, about 8° 55′ north latitude; it is perhaps 280 miles long; it receives several important tributaries. There is a bar at its mouth, and it is not directly entered from the sea; it is navigable, after once being entered through Stockton Creek, to White Plains, about twenty miles from its mouth.
Mesurado River (Mesurado Lagoon) enters the sea at Monrovia and lies behind the high ridge on which that town is built. Through the same mouth with it Stockton Creek enters the sea, and through Stockton Creek, which runs across to the St. Paul’s, the latter is accessible for boats from Monrovia and the sea, although at low water there is but two feet of depth. At White Plains the St. Paul’s River is broken by rapids which occur at intervals for a distance of about seventy miles. Above these rapids it is probably possible to ascend the St. Paul’s and its tributary Tuma, Toma, might be navigable for a combined distance of about 150 miles. There are many Liberian settlements on the lower St. Paul’s River, and it is said that “quite half the Americo-Liberian population is settled in a region between Careysburg and the coast.”