Concurrently with this had arisen an exquisite taste in the carving of ivory, almost oriental in its grace and finish. In 1906 the Niger Coast Protectorate which had come under the Colonial Office in 1900, was fused with the contiguous colony of Lagos under the name of Southern Nigeria. It had previously (1900) united its east and west halves by acquiring the whole deltaic course of the Niger from Idda to the sea, after the Royal Niger Companies’ territories had been taken over by the British Government. Several small native wars were necessary between 1900 and 1910 for the subdual of the Arõ tribe (whose cruel fetish rites—the “long juju”—demanded constant victims) in the north-eastern part of the delta, and the Ibo people in the north; but the prosperity of Southern Nigeria has been notable. Its total trade averages in the year a value of £11,000,000. A railway now proceeds inland from Lagos to the Niger and from the Niger to Kano, about 850 miles. In 1912, the government of Southern and Northern Nigeria were united under a joint Governor-General. Lagos, the delta of the Niger and the lands of the Cross river (Old Calabar), have thus been united at last in peaceful and prosperous development under the British flag. But strong as were the British claims to control the lands along the main stream of the Niger, they were vigorously contested by France in the second half of the 19th century. The Niger had been discovered from its source to the last rapid at the head of its seaward navigability by Mungo Park, one of the greatest of British explorers, and by later travellers from Sierra Leone. The rest of the exploration from Busa to the sea had been completed by other British adventurers and officials; from the point of view of discovery the whole Niger was British from source to mouth. The navigation of the river from the sea to above its confluence with the Benue was first organized in 1832 by a Scotchman, MacGregor Laird, who has been rightly called “the father of British trade on the Niger.” Laird between 1832 and 1859 spent about £60,000 vainly in developing Nigerian commerce. In 1841, 1854 and 1857 the British Government despatched or supported various expeditions to explore and make treaties; they also established a consulate at Lokoja, where the Benue meets the Niger, but the loss of life from the effects of the climate was so great in those days that the British Government became discouraged. The most distinguished of their consuls at Lokoja was Dr W. B. Baikie, who between 1854 and 1864 established the beginnings of British Nigeria[118]. But the consulate at Lokoja was abolished in 1868; and in another direction no attempt whatever was made to attach to the interior of Sierra Leone the rich countries lying beyond the sources of the Niger.