being left in possession of the property, and his final discomfiture postponed to a more convenient season. The Enfida dispute attracted great attention in Italy, and it was hoped that by adopting some common course of action the realisation of M. Renaud’s vengeance might be averted. The unreasonable conduct of Signor Maccio very soon placed any such combination out of the question. His next quarrel with the French was the “straw which broke the camel’s back,” and, as luck would have it, the Italians were entirely in the wrong. Ten years before the Bey of Tunis granted to Messrs. Tolmé and Mancardi the concession for a railway line to Hammám-el-Lif. Mr. Tolmé was dead, and Mr. Mancardi had quitted Tunis eight years before. The Rubattino Company, in its first flush of victory, got a transfer of his rights from Mr. Mancardi, but even he had lost the original grant. According to the spirit of the cession itself, it had long since ceased to have effect, and no reasonable man would ever have thought of reviving it. As soon as Signor Maccio learned that the French railway to Susa was to pass through Hammám-el-Lif, he conceived the notion of gaining one more advantage by stopping the works on the plea of an infringement of the Mancardi grant. To this end the dead and buried concession was brought forward, and in consequence of a vigorous protest from Signor Maccio, the Bey was induced to suspend further progress pending a search for the missing title-deed. Then, and then only, did M. Roustan determine to furnish the Government with some more tangible pretext for promptly extinguishing Italy and Signor Maccio, and at the same time putting the French political and commercial _prépondérance naturelle_ at Tunis beyond the possibility of further cavil.