exile of Jaja the principal resistance of the middle-men was broken, though at Benin and behind Old Calabar similar action had to be taken to secure free trade. In 1893, under Sir Claude Macdonald, a regular administration was established over Southern Nigeria (the Niger Coast Protectorate, as it was called until 1906). In 1896-7 a peaceful mission to the King of Benin in the western part of the Protectorate was attacked by the soldiers of that chieftain and the leader (J. R. Phillips) and seven other British officials were slain, together with many of the native porters. Benin had been in relations with British traders since 1553. The Dutch traded there in the 17th and 18th centuries for slaves, but were ousted by the French, and the French (in 1792) by the British. In 1823, Giovanni Belzoni, the Italian Egyptologist, died near Benin city when starting from this part of the Niger Delta to reach Timbuktu. In 1863 (Sir) Richard Burton came to Benin as British consul to try (in vain) to persuade the king to renounce his devastating human sacrifices, performed once a year for the king’s “customs” of ancestor worship. (Sir) H. H. Johnston, after making an agreement with the king’s viceroy, Nana, on the coast, explored the Benin river in a gun-boat, but was refused permission to proceed to the capital. This was accorded to (Sir) H. L. Gallwey in 1892; and a treaty was then made. After the massacre of Mr J. R. Phillips and his companions on January 1, 1897 (only two Englishmen escaped) a British punitive expedition was rapidly organized by Admiral Sir Harry Rawson; and a month afterwards the city of Benin was taken, its king was exiled, and the worst offenders among his chiefs were executed. A second punitive expedition ranged through the Benin country in 1899, since when this ancient kingdom has been peaceful. The Benin expedition revealed to us, in a far more extensive degree than had hitherto been realized, the marvellous art which had sprung up in that blood-guilty city, an art chiefly manifested by bronze castings in the _cire perdue_ process. A splendid series of examples of this work has since been exhibited at the British Museum. In all probability this art of working brass and bronze reached the Lower Niger and parts of the Niger Delta, such as Benin on the one hand and Old Calabar on the other, from the central Sudan, where it was introduced by Arab craftsmen, teachers and traders from Egypt and Tripoli; though some writers of late have argued an even earlier introduction of copper, bronze, and brass work emanating from Egypt prior to the Arab conquest, and extending from east to west across the central Sudan to the Upper Niger. In any case, this art had taken root in Benin, where it had acquired a special and national development.