tablished at Jebba, and the situation had in the meantime become exceedingly strained. The Niger Company claimed Borgu; the French had issued a decree declaring that Borgu was now part of Upper Dahomey. The French, as has been seen, held the country; but the British troops, under Colonel M'Callum, had been actively pushing up from the south. On December 4, Lieutenant Turner, R.E., with twelve non-commissioned officers and sappers of his corps, left England for Lagos, to carry a telegraph wire through the hinterland of Lagos and Illórin to Jebba, in order to put the officers acting in this debateable land into direct communication with their Government. On December 12, the Hausas, under Major Ewart, occupied Ilesha, from which the French had been repulsed some months earlier; and on Christmas Day 100 Hausas, with four guns, left Saki to march on Okuta, a town of Borgu. Mr Rohrweger, a district commissioner of Lagos, who acted throughout this whole affair as politi cal agent, reported on January 15 that Okuta had been occupied. In the meanwhile preparation was being made for the telegraph wire as far as Saki, and by February 22 the wire was actually brought up to that point, and Governor M'Callum moved with it. His presence at the front was urgently necessary, because public feeling in England had been roused to fever to fever pitch. Mr Rohrweger had succeeded in occupying a couple more towns on the line between Okuta and

Kiama, and on February 6 a detachment of Hausas, under a non-commissioned officer, had hoisted the flag in Borea, some thirty-five miles south-east of Nikki. This village became suddenly notable throughout Europe, for on February 19 Mr Chamberlain read to the House of Commons two telegrams, one of which stated that thirty Senegalese had come to Borea, and had ordered the British post there to haul down the unionjack. The demand was refused, and the Senegalese camped a little distance off. The other telegram related a similar incident at Wa, on the Gold Coast. In both of these regions parties of troops belonging to the rival nations were interspersed like men on a chessboard, and it was plain that the tension on the spot must be very great. It was particularly galling to the Frenchmen, because, while England merely asserted a protectorate over these regions, on the French system whatever was part of a colony was part of France : Borgu was part of Upper Dahomey, and Lieutenant Bretonnet and the rest were defending, as they considered, the frontier of their country, just as much as if they had been, for instance, in Algeria.

Neither the Wa incident nor that of Borea had in itself any particular importance; but the manner in which they were announced, and the spirit in which the announcement was received by the country, were significant. The English continued their advance in Borgu wherever it was possible without an actual collision, which

both sides avoided. Three more companies of the 2nd West India Regiment had been despatched from Sierra Leone to Lagos, and, on February 28, 149 men of that regiment left Saki for Okuta. The British advanced posts were now within a couple of marches of Nikki. In the first week of March Governor M'Callum proceeded in person to Okuta. But the tornado season was now beginning, and he reported home that the difficulties occasioned by the rains, combined with the strength of the French line of posts between Kishi and Kiama, made it advisable that any farther advance should be made from the Niger. In the meanwhile the telegraph wire was being rapidly carried towards Illórin, which point it reached on April 3; and the presence of the British posts, interrupting lines of communication, greatly hampered the French in Borgu. They had devastated the country, which is at no time a rich one, and were in difficulty for supplies. For these they depended largely upon Kishi, a town lying about fifty miles south of Kiama. Kishi was, properly speaking, no part of Borgu, but a Yoruba town, with which a treaty had been concluded in 1894. The Yorubas are a peaceful and industrious people, and consequently Kishi, although a small place, was

much richer than the rest of the country which the French had to draw on. It was there fore a serious blow to them

when on April 22 the inhabitants of this town rose, drove out the French garrison, and called in some West Indian soldiers from the nearest British post. Politically also it was a grave reverse, as it certainly did not go to bear out the French contention that their troops were in the various towns by the special prayer of their inhabitants.

Such was the position of affairs when Colonel Lugard arrived at Jebba. He had reached Lokoja on April 10, and set out for his headquarters on the 13th. By April 17 the telegraph wire had reached its destination-having been carried from Lagos in little over three months-and he was in touch with the authorities at home. Steps were at once taken to carry on from the new base the work which had been begun by Governor M'Callum. Three hundred of the Niger Company's troops, who had shown their value in the Bida campaign, had been sent up hurriedly into Sokoto when word came that a French expedition had crossed the Niger from Say. Of this ill-fated mission under M. Cazemajou (afterwards massacred at Zinder) they could find no trace, and were returning by the Niger when they were stopped at Fort Goldie, and ordered to be in readiness to act as a field force. They could be well spared for the purpose, as the new battalions could now supply men to take their places in the Company's various garrisons. Colonel Willcocks was

put in command of the force, and ordered to march rapidly from Fort Goldie towards Kiama, and hoist the English flag wherever the tricolour was not flying.

Striking to the north-west, Colonel Willcocks occupied the village of Adube, and thence detached a party with orders to march north in the direction of Bussa. An important village named Timanji was found where no flag was flying, and the union - jack was therefore hoisted and a small garrison left there. In the meanwhile angry protests came in from the French officers in command at the different posts. It was thought necessary to strengthen the small party left at Timanji, and a reinforcement was sent up under Lieutenants Glossop and Mangles. On their way they had to pass a village where was a small detachment of Senegalese with two white sergeants. These people ordered the party to stop; but being in a minority, were content with heaping insults on the Hausas and their officers. Reliefs were left in Timanji, and Lieutenant Mangles stayed in charge of them; but Lieutenant Glossop, returning with the rest of the detachment, had again to pass through the French post. This time the Senegalese had numbers in their favour, and they were drawn up across the path with fixed bayonets. The officers on each side had it practically in their power to bring on a European war-and this is only one instance of the risks that were run continually for a matter of six months both in Borgu and in the

Mossi country-but fortunately discretion prevailed. Lieutenant Glossop kept his temper, treated the insults with contemptuous silence, and made a detour round the Senegalese, who made no further attempt to interfere with him.

After these events, Colonel Willcocks proceeded, in accordance with his instructions, to make a tour of the southern border of Borgu, inspecting the detachments of the West India Regiment and the Lagos Hausa Force posted on the northern frontier of Yorubaland. This he did with remarkable rapidity, covering from twenty to thirty miles a-day, though the country is difficult, full of rivers, none of which are bridged, and the climate, always deadly, is at its worst in the season of the rains, which were then beginning. But another incident which threatened to be critical took place at a small village near Kishi called Betekuta. There was no flag here, and though it was scarcely more than a cluster of rambling farmhouses, the union - jack was run up. But a night or two later a detachment of the French came in and hoisted their flag also, under the cover of darkness. Colonel Willcocks immediately sent to Lieutenant Loissu (in command at Kiama) to protest, and demand that it should be hauled down. The French officer then declared that the English were terrorising the country, and that Betekuta had implored his protection. This was of course denied, and Colonel Willcocks sent word to say that if the French flag remained in Betekuta he would

come and hoist the English one at exactly the same distance, 500 yards, from the French in Kiama, which was a town of importance. Lieutenant Loissu, who had only a handful of men, had no means of stopping the English force of three hundred rifles from doing this; but he petitioned for six days' postponement till he should have time to consult his chief, M. Demoulin, who was at Nikki. This was not at first granted, but was ultimately conceded, in deference to French susceptibilities, since the knowledge of the ultimatum had leaked out among the natives, and there was no desire to inflict on them a gratuitous humiliation. But in the interval a hundred Senegalese were thrown by a rapid movement into Kiama.

The fact was that the French meant to fight. The Niger Company's troops had been despatched in February on a forced march to Argungu, then hurried back to the Niger, and sent to act as a field force before they could have their clothing renewed; and they were, after three months of hard marching in African bush, a very unkempt, ragged-looking body of men. They were armed with Sniders, and it seems that the French mistook these for the muzzle-loading guns known on the coast as "long Danes." Consequently M. Loissu and his officers, having a wellgrounded confidence in their Senegalese as fighting men, were prepared to match a hundred of them, armed with repeating rifles, against what they took to be a mob of raw scallywags fighting with

muzzle - loaders. They would assuredly have found out their mistake, to their great cost, for care had been taken to concentrate a force at this point, where the crisis must come, sufficient to assure the result in case of collision. Just before the limit of time had expired, an express reached the French officer at Kiama, carrying a copy of a Havas telegram which had been sent overland from Carnotville by relays of galloping horsemen. The telegram stated that a Convention was just about to be signed, and that the imminent collision must be avoided. In view of this telegram, Lieutenant Loissu urged that action should be suspended. But the English replied that they had no similar instructions from their Government, though they were in direct telegraphic communication with London, and, consequently, insisted that the union-jack must go up in Kiama, as Lieutenant Loissu absolutely refused to remove the tricolour from Betekuta. The force advanced in fighting order to Kiama, the waterjackets of the Maxims were filled, and there was every expectation of a fight. French sentries were discovered posted in the trees, but no shot was fired, and the union-jack was hoisted 500 yards distant from the tricolour.

That was practically the end. The English settled themselves down in camp at Kiama, and did, as English officers always do, their best to make themselves happy and to live at peace with their neighbours. It was represented to the French officers that the quar