Sir Edward Malet spoke of the Falls of Burrum; it would have been quite enough to open Barth’s narrative to answer that these Falls were non-existent. Reading the narrative of the German traveller might also have taught us that when he passed through, _a descendant of the ancient chiefs of the country was maintaining an independent position in Argungu_, and the account of his perilous journey from Sokoto to the banks of the Niger would have shown how very precarious was the influence exercised by the Emir of Sokoto on the countries through which he passed. Since 1890, when the Anglo-Franco treaty was signed, that authority has continued to decrease. Kebbi, Mauri, Djerma, and Dendi would very soon have got the better of their oppressors if they had always worked together. However that may be, they have at least now regained independence, and we French are the only European people who have made any conventions with them. Strickly speaking, the treaty signed by Monteil with Kebbi would be enough. It is therefore no longer at Say, as the English pretend, that the limit of French influence is reached. The line of demarcation, according to the spirit as well as the letter of the treaty of 1890, ought to leave us the four provinces I have just named. We are again about to abandon our rights won at the price of so much trouble and fatigue. Better still, are we going to leave Sokoto (strong through the weapons supplied by the English), after spreading fire and destruction everywhere, to reduce to captivity and slavery the peaceful but courageous swarms of population, capable as those populations are of achieving prosperity under the paternal authority of the French, so different from the commercial control aimed at by our rivals? Lord Salisbury, in the English Parliament, said scoffingly that they had left nothing for the Gallic cock to do but to scratch up the sand. Let us at least reclaim that sand, and if we can find a little corner of fertile land which the diplomacy of that time forgot to abandon, shall we let the diplomacy of to-day generously hand that also over to our neighbours? Or will our diplomatists, eager to avenge the insult put upon us, reply, “You deceived us by false affirmations, we were stupid enough to have confidence enough in your good faith without any preliminaries to assure us of it, we are willing to bear with the results of our own simplicity, but it has been a good lesson, and we forbid you to attempt to give us another like it”? I remember an Arab saying, which well applies to the circumstances under discussion: “If my enemy deceives me once, may God curse him; if he deceives me twice, may God curse us both; but if he deceives me three times, may God curse me only.”