But a slight reverse was to follow. Over-rash, Colonel Bonnier started with a small force to reconnoitre the country round Timbuktu and rid the neighbourhood of the Tawareq. Too confident, they marched into a trap. Their camp was surprised by the Tawareq at early dawn, and almost all the French troops were massacred, only three French officers and a handful of men escaping to tell the tale. Twenty-five days afterwards, a second column under Colonel Jouffre arrived on the scene, and collected the remains of the unfortunate Frenchmen for interment at Timbuktu. It then set out to follow up the Tawareq, whom the French surprised in turn at night in their encampment, and of whom Colonel Jouffre believed his soldiers to have slain many. From that time the French have had no serious fighting near Timbuktu. French merchants are established there already and French missionaries—the White Fathers—from Algeria. A curious episode in the French conquest was an appeal, when hearing of the French approach, by the notables of Timbuktu to the Emperor of Morocco to intervene. After a year’s delay the Moroccan Sultan replied that upon receiving proofs of the vassalage of Timbuktu he would march upon the French and drive them away. Subsequently the French patrolled the Niger far to the south of Timbuktu, and found it much more navigable than was at first believed. They established a post at Say, and Lieutenant Hourst explored that small portion of the river between Say and Gomba which till then had remained marked by dotted lines on the map. Numerous expeditions came across the bend of the Niger from its upper waters to its middle course, incessantly making treaties and extending the rule of France. Again, following on the conquest of Dahomé, the French marched northwards across the 9th parallel, which had hitherto marked the limitation between the French and British possessions, and occupied the country of Nikki, which had previously been acquired for the Royal Niger Company by Major, now Colonel Sir Frederick, Lugard. A bolder step still was taken by the occupation of Busa (already declared to be in the British protectorate), at a time when Sir George Goldie and his little army were winning victories over the forces of Nupe in the vicinity. This step however roused such a strong expression of popular feeling in England that a conference was formed in Paris to negotiate a settlement between England and France; and eventually France gave way on the point of Busa, though she kept Nikki, and was able to extend her control of the west bank of the Niger to Ilo, a considerable distance below Say. She thus united her Dahomean conquest to the rest of her Nigerian dominions. There is now no great native monarch or independent people existing in the vast area of French West Africa,