M. Ferdinand de Lesseps came to Tunis early in November 1878, charged with the especial mission of converting Muhamed Sadek to the dogma of an Inland Sea. Failure with M. de Lesseps is almost impossible, but he found both the Bey and Mustapha unexpectedly intractable. All his eloquent descriptions of a regenerated Central Africa and an increased rainfall consequent on evaporation, were wholly lost on his incredulous hearers. “Your Inland Sea,” said the Bey, “may make your Algeria more secure, but it will cut off my richest province, the date-yielding Djerid. Dates never thrive in the neighbourhood of salt water, and your sea would ruin every palm grove in my country. I can never give my consent to so dangerous an experiment.” M. Lesseps told M. Roustan that his careful education of Mustapha had been thrown away, and went back to France greatly disappointed. About a month later Signor Licurgo Maccio arrived in the Regency to join his post as Italian Agent and Consul-General. He came, as M. Roustan fairly enough describes it, “with the sound of trumpets and the pomp of war.” Immediately after the gunboat which brought him had anchored off Goletta, a number of mysterious-looking cases were landed and transmitted to Tunis. Next day came Signor Maccio and with him forty marines. As soon as they reached the Italian consulate the boxes were opened, and each man took out his carbine. A double file of soldiers was then improvised, a band played, and Signor Maccio entered his future residence with military honours. The consequences of this almost incredible act of folly can easily be imagined. The militant M. Roustan recognised in this display a militant Signor Maccio, and went as fast as his carriage could carry him to induce the Bey to enter a formal protest against Italian aggression. An immediate estrangement between the two _consuls de combat_ was only avoided by the happy mediation of Sir Richard Wood, by whose advice the Bey contented himself with sending a friendly message to Signor Maccio requesting him “not to do it again.” About this time a change seemed to come over the Prime Minister Mustapha, and he showed unmistakable indications of restiveness in the matter of French pretensions. I have never been able to entirely fathom the motives for his new line of conduct, but I believe it was to be attributed partly to the strong personal feeling of the Bey, which he dared not offend, partly to the influence of the partisans of the Panislamite movement at the court, and partly to an affront which he received from M. Roustan.