When Monsieur Cambon and Herr von Kiderlein-Waechter put their pens to the piece of parchment of which I have already spoken, the boundary of the Kamerun was automatically extended southward almost to the Equator and eastward some hundreds of miles to the Logone River, the apex of the angle formed by the meeting of these new frontiers touching the Congo River and thereby bringing the Kamerun into contact with the Belgian Congo. In other words, Germany's great colonies on either coast are no longer separated by French and Belgian territory, but by Belgian alone—and Belgium, remember, is both weak and neutral. Now, it is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that Belgium might consent to sell Germany either the whole or a portion of the Congo, for the financial difficulties of that colony have been very great, and it has never been able to pay its way, its wants having been supplied at first by large gifts of money from King Leopold, and more recently by loans raised and guaranteed by Belgium. This unsatisfactory financial condition not having helped to popularise the Congo with the thrifty Belgians, there is considerable reason to believe that the Brussels Government would lend an attentive ear to any proposals which Germany might make toward its purchase. England might be expected, of course, to oppose the sale of the Congo to Germany tooth and nail, it being the fear of just such an eventuality which caused her to seize on the rubber atrocities as an excuse for her vigorous and persistent advocacy of the internationalisation of the Congo. Though France holds the reversionary rights to the Congo, there are no grounds for believing that she would place any serious obstacles in the way of its acquisition by Germany, for she has given it to be understood that she intends devoting her energies henceforward to the exploitation of her enormous possessions in North Africa. Assuming, then—and these assumptions, believe me, are not nearly so chimerical as they may sound—that the Belgian Government should sell Germany all or a part of the Congo, Germany's possessions would then stretch across the continent from coast to coast, comprising all that is most worth having in Equatorial Africa.