laid the foundations of the British settlement of the Gambia. This river, which was at first, and probably more accurately, known as the “Gambra,” is remarkable among African rivers in that it has a mouth with a deep bar, which can be crossed by big ships at any time of the tide. Next to the Congo, it is probably the safest river to enter on all the West African coast; and as its navigability extends for over 200 miles into the interior of Senegambia, it is a very valuable means of access to the heart of the fertile regions of North-west Africa. When the British arrived on the Gambia, and for two centuries afterwards, the banks of the river were thickly studded with Portuguese trading settlements. The Portuguese, however, never seem to have raised any difficulties about its passing under British control. It was the French from Senegal who made the most determined attempts to oust the British from the Gambia. In 1592 Queen Elizabeth chartered a further association for trading on the coast between the Gambia and Sierra Leone. As regards the subsequent history of the Gambia, it may be mentioned that the first consolidated company formed to work the trade and administer the British settlements was incorporated in 1618, but it was not successful and the association following it also failed[110]. In 1664 a fort, subsequently called Fort James, was built on the island of St Mary, off the south bank of the mouth of the Gambia. This was the nucleus of the present capital of Bathurst, named a century and a half afterwards from the same Colonial Secretary whose name was given to the Australian town. In the 17th century the French made determined attacks on the Gambia, and in 1696 succeeded in destroying the British settlement, which however was reoccupied and restored four or five years later. In spite of the dissipation of the rumours of gold in the country of the Upper Gambia (the result of the mission of enquiry conducted in 1723 by Captain Bartholomew Stibbs), the Gambia settlement became rich and prosperous in the 18th century owing to the slave trade. The Gambia River became the starting place of the first serious British explorations in Western Africa and Nigeria. In 1783 the intermittent struggle with France was concluded by the French recognition of exclusive British trading rights on the Gambia, with the exception of the French factory at Albreda, in return for a similar concession to themselves of the commercial monopoly of the river Senegal; but as a set-off against the French factory on the Gambia the British retained the exclusive right to trade with the Moors of Portendik (near Cape Blanco) for gum. In 1857 these two rights were exchanged. During the Napoleonic wars England seized the French settlements at the mouth of the river