determined to have a fair slice of West Africa, and the British Government thought it wiser to deal with German aspirations liberally. The British flag was therefore withdrawn from the vicinity of the Cameroons river and mountain. The last patch of Cameroons territory which was given up to Germany was the interesting little settlement of Ambas Bay, on the flanks of the mighty Cameroons mountain, founded in 1858 by the English Baptist Mission when expelled from Fernando Pô. Mr Hewett annexed this territory in 1884, and (Sir) H. H. Johnston administered it from 1885 until the time of its surrender to Germany in 1887. The limits of the “Oil Rivers Protectorate” were then drawn at the Rio del Rey on the east, and the boundary of Lagos Colony on the west. The eastern boundary was subsequently extended by agreement with Germany to the upper waters of the river Benue. This acquisition—now known as the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and merged into the one great government, almost an Empire, of British Nigeria—was at first administered by consular authority, amongst others by the author of this book; and these consular administrators were obliged to face a serious difficulty in the determined opposition of certain coast chiefs to the carrying on of direct trade with the interior. These were the “middle men,” who had for several centuries prevented the penetration of Africa from the West coast by Europeans, in the dread that they would lose their lucrative commission on the products of the interior which they retailed on the coast. Some of these chiefs were of long established ruling families; others again had commenced life as slaves and had risen to be wealthy merchant-kings with incomes of £10,000 to £20,000 a year, derived from their profits on the goods from the interior which passed through their hands. Foremost among these obstructive individuals was Jaja, a slave from the Ibo country, who as servant, trader and counsellor to chiefs of Bonny had risen to such a position of wealth and influence that he had armed a large force of fighting men and a flotilla of war canoes, and made himself the most powerful chief in the Niger Delta. He resided on the river Opobo, and was very jealous of his independence, only signing a qualified treaty of protection with the British Government, from the well-grounded fear that, if he did not do so, the French would take his country as an access to the Niger. As Jaja at last went to the length of forcibly opposing trade between the British merchants and the natives of the interior, Mr H. H. Johnston, then acting consul for the Oil Rivers, removed him to the Gold Coast to be tried before a commissioner. As a result of the trial he was deposed and sentenced to five years’ banishment in the West Indies. With the