The animated picture above is the downstream of the St. John River falls. At the bottom is the heart of the falls. The falls is located in Bong County, about 125 miles northeast of Monrovia, the capital.

The Republic of Liberia has an area of about 43,000 square miles (111,370 km), with an Atlantic coastline of about 350 miles. It is bounded on the west by the Republic of Sierra Leone, on the north by the Republic of Guinea, and on the east by Ivory Coast or Cote d'voire. South of the country is the Atlantic Ocean, which runs for about 350 miles from Grand Cape Mount County in the West to Maryland County in the east. From the Atlantic Ocean, moving inland for about 16 to 40 miles, is the coastal plains of Liberia. This geographic area is a mixture of forest land, savannah, and low scrubs, nourished by a preponderance of ponds, creeks, brooks, streams, and rivers. Further in the interior are rolling hills, which rise for about 500 hundred feet. One of the towns which lies in this region is Bopulu, which featured prominently in Liberia history. The word itself means, "beyond the hills," in Lorma and Belle, primarily because of the rolling hills that encompass the town. Deep, in one of the world's great rain forest, are the two greatest peaks of Liberia: Wologisi range, in Lofa County, which rises for about 4,500 feet and the Nimba range in Nimba county, which has a peak of 4,540 feet. About 60 percent of the land is forest land; twenty percent is savannah; 6 percent is farmland; and 14 percent is residential.

The beauty of Liberia is probably better described by foreigners who have visited the country. Liberians sometimes take the beauty of their motherland for granted. During the nineteenth century, a white American who visited Bopulu, a town 100 miles northwest of Monrovia, gave the following description of the land: " The situation of Bopulu is very obscure, being located in a valley formed by a chain of double mountains completely encircling it, and giving to their elevation a remarkable similitude to the seats of a theatre. The scenery by which the town is surrounded, is magnificently grand; as far as the eye can see, you discern mountain towering above mountain, until they are lost in the distance. The chain runs regularly for some miles; then a portion more lofty then the rest, towers aloft, whilst from base to summit the eye can behold but one expanse of the greenest foliage. The land then assumes a gentle acclivity, and its increasing altitude soon raises it upon an elevation with other prominences, until the whole assumes the appearance of one continuous chain."

When Dr. Wlimot Blyden, a Liberian scholar and diplomat visited Bopulu, he said " The view in the distance, two or three miles northeast and southeast of Bopulu, is bounded by beautiful hills. The surrounding scenery is picturesque beyond our power to describe, resembling, in the hills by which the town is environed, the scenery about Jerusalem, with the exception that here the hills are covered with a rich and luxuriant verdure, as if fresh from the hands of their Maker, indicating fertility and abundance...".

Travelling back to the Atlantic coast are the Mano River, the Lofa River, St. Paul River, Farmington River,St John's River, Cestos River, Sanguin River, Dugbe River, Grand Cess River, and Cavalla River, all of which transport tons of natural debris into the Atlantic Ocean. Some of the rivers are navigable at some locations, as they reach the coast; others are not. Out in the southwest, in Grand Cape Mount County, is beautiful Lake Piso, which has an area of about 40 square miles.

Stretching through the length and breath of Liberia is the preponderance of ponds, brooks, creeks, and streams. While this massive pool of water assist the vegetation and provides fertility for the land, it creates extensive flooding during the raining season. As a child growing up in Voinjama, the capital of Lofa County, I recollect that travelling was especially difficult during the raining season. Streams, brooks, and creeks, that were easily passable on foot, overflew their banks, and made transportation almost impossible. The economic life of the people in the interior almost came to a standstill, because of this massive flooding. I recalled on several occasions, when we could not visit my maternal grandfather, who lived about 30 miles southeast of Voinjama, because the roads were flooded.

The country has two seasons:the rainy and the dry season. The raining season runs from May to October, and the dry season begins in November and ends in April. The location of the country, about 10 degrees above the equator and southwest of the monsoon, brings massive rainfalls during the raining season. Up to 200 inches of annual rainfall has been measured along the coast. The excessive rainfall comes during the months of June to September. The average number of rainy days during the rainy season is about twenty-two days in a month; and temperature averages around 80 Fahrenheit (27 centigrade).

One of Liberia's indigenous flowers

Wildlife in Liberia include numerous animal species including: pigmy hippopotamus, crocodile, baboons, colobus monkey, white-spotted nose monkey, chimpanzee, elephants, buffalo, leopards, antelopes, groundhog, mongoose, ,tortoise, cobras, vipers, boa constrictors. Bird species include hornbills, weaver-birds, woodpeckers, pigeons, doves, flamingoes, parrots, hawks, eagles, and bulbul the national bird, which is called pepper bird in Liberia.

Over 260 species of trees have been identified in Liberia. Among this number are teak, usually used for furniture and shipbuilding; mahogany, walnut, ironwood, makore, and sikon. Indiscriminate slaughter was inflicted Liberia's timberland, when the warlords raped the land of its timber, and sold it to countries in Europe and Asia, to finance the slaughter of their people.

On the economic front, the absence of an indigenous manufacturing base, coupled with Liberia's total dependence on the outside world for its sustenance, has always been the Achilles heel for the country. During the nineteenth century, the Liberian economy was dependent upon the following exports: camwood, which was used to manufacture dye in Europe and the United States; palm oil, which was used to make soap and industrial grease; ivory, and cyanne pepper. The Government's primary source of income during this period was customs revenue. When this source proved to be insufficient, President Edward James Roye, the fifth President of Liberia, began the national trend of borrowing from abroad to keep the Government afloat. In 1871, Roye managed to negotiate a $500,000 loan from a British firm, most of which was allegedly embezzled by Roye and his associates. The financial fiasco culminated in a civilian coup, the first in Africa, and the assassination of Roye.

By 1906 the Liberian Government was literally bankrupt. The Government could not pay its bills without borrowing money from local German merchants. This forced President Arthur Barclay to negotiate for another $500,000 English loan, through Sir Harry Johnston, a British colonial agent, and his Liberia Development Company. In his book, "THE STORY OF LIFE," Sir Harry Johnston revealed that the loan was not a legitimate business transaction, but was used to trap Liberia in the colonial claws of the British Empire. On the establishment of the company, Sir Harry Johnston wrote, "I discussed the question of my joining the Liberia Company with the African Department of the [British] Foreign office, and they were favorable to the idea...It was feared at the Foreign Office in those times that if no attempt was made to strengthen British commerce in Liberia, the whole of [Liberia would] inevitably come within the French political sphere in West Africa, since the United States had at that period professed --or seemed to profess --indifference as to its fate."

The condition of this loan was that British agents take over, as lien, the collection of Liberian Government revenue.Subsequently, this loan was also embezzled. During this period, Liberia's primary sources of revenue were customs revenue, and "head money," taxes paid by indigenous Liberian workers, who left Liberia as recruits to work on European vessels as deck hands, as soldiers in Europe's wars against other Africans during the "scramble for Africa," and on plantations in Fernando Po and Sao Tome & Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, off the coast of Cameroon.

In 1911, the Liberia Government turned to the United States for a foreign loan. In 1912, a $1.7 million loan from the United States, Britain, France, and Germany, was consummated, under the condition that a lien would be imposed on the revenue of the Liberian Government. In this regard, a receivership was imposed on Liberian Government revenue, which lasted until 1926. During this period, Liberia's primary exports were coffee, palm oil, palm kernels, and piassava. The Government's primary source of revenue during this period were hut tax, the tax imposed by the Government on individual dwellings inhibited by the indigenous people, and revenue from customs.

During World War I, income from customs revenue was disrupted, when Germany, Liberia's major trading partner, withdrew from Liberia. This situation forced Liberia to postpone payment on the $1.7 million loan, and led President Daniel E. Howard to seek a $5 million loan from the Woodrow Wilson Administration. This attempt had a quicksand effect. The United States Congress refused to grant the loan.

In 1926, Firestone Plantations Company, an American company, arrived in Liberia and consummated a 99-year lease agreement to establish a rubber plantation in Liberia. To sweeten the deal, Firestone granted a $5 million loan to the Liberian Government, under the condition that the collection of Liberian Government revenue would come under the receivership of Firestone's Finance Corporation of America. In a series of conflicts that subsequently followed over recruitment of indigenous labor and the payment of the loan, Firestone attempted to use the United States Government, to force the Liberian Government to comply with the loan agreement, through the use of gunboat diplomacy. President Roosevelt rejected this interference in Liberia internal affairs, in a memorable memorandum to Secretary Rutherford of the State Department. President Franklin Roosevelt wrote: "At all times we should remember that Firestone went to Liberia at his own financial risk, and it is not the business of the State Department to pull his financial chestnut out of the fire except as a friend of the Liberian people."

In 1944, President William V.S. Tubman ascended the Liberian presidency, and open up the Liberian economy to foreign investors, through his "Open Door Policy". This policy was a watershed in the opening of the Liberian economy to foreign investment. The idea was in agreement with the recommendation of the League of Nations, which recommended that Liberian leaders open up the country to foreign investors. Tubman's initiatives brought in hundreds of millions of dollars, especially in the mining industry. In fourteen years, the following companies arrived in Liberia: Liberia Mining Company, an American company, arrived in 1946 with $37 million to mine iron ore; DELIMCO, a German company, arrived in 1953, with $100 million to mine iron ore; and the National Iron Ore Company, an American company, arrived in 1958 with $30 million. From 1944 to 1960, total foreign investment in Liberia increased from $32 million to $436 million; and total exports rose from $10.3 million in 1944, to $83 million in 1960. Liberia's favorable balance of trade increased from $6 million to $14 million; and from 1960 to 1979, favorable balance of trade rose from $14 million to $30 million.

The elevation of William Richard Tolbert to the presidency brought a new approach to Liberian Government's relations with foreign companies. Companies like Firestone, which operated for years without being audited by the Government, were audited, and forced to retroactively pay back millions of dollars in taxes to the Liberian Government. Old concession agreements were renegotiated, and new concession agreements were negotiated with emphasis on accountability of the private sector to the Liberian Government. This aggressive approach lead to the misconception that the Tolbert Administration had an anti-business bias. However, the results for the country was positive. From 1971, to fiscal year 1976/77, Government revenue rose at an annualize rate of 18 percent, from $69.9 million to $156.0 million.

During this period, Liberia had six commercial banks: Bank of Monrovia, which was founded by Firestone Plantations Company in 1935, and was later taken over by Citibank of New York in 1955; Chase Manhattan Bank; the Bank of Liberia, which was established in 1956, and had 50 percent Liberian shares, and 50 percent which was owned by Chemical bank of New York; International Trust Company; Liberian Trading & Development Bank; and the Commercial Bank of Liberia. Most of the funding provided by these institutions were extended to foreign businesses operating in the country, who used it to finance imports and purchase their inventories. The primary funding provided to Liberians were in the form of personal loans.

The 1980s which I call, "The Years of the Bugle," the Liberian economy went into a tailspin. Economic hardship for the Liberian people became perverse. The United States dollar, which was legal tender in Liberia disappeared from the Liberian economy, and was replaced by a local currency, which proved to have very little value; and the rate of growth of Government revenue dropped to an annualize rate of 2.7 percent. Government revenue rose from $217.9 million in fiscal year 1980/81 to $247.0 million in fiscal year 1983-1984.

The country's major natural resources include: iron ore, rubber, gold, diamonds, and timber. However,nine years of military rule and mismanagement, and six years of civil war, has left the economy in shambles. Roads and bridges are in a state of disrepair; and over two-thirds of the population are either refugees in Ivory Coast, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Gambia, Burkani Faso, and Nigeria, or they are displaced. To top it off, the Liberian Government claims to have a national debt of $3.2 billion.