‘An expeditionary force, under the command of General Duchesne, with General de Torcy as chief of the staff, and consisting of 658 officers and 14,773 men, with about 6,000 auxiliary conductors and baggage-bearers, 641 horses, 6,630 mules, 5,040 Lefebvre carts, and 46 pieces of artillery, was dispatched in the early part of 1895 to compel submission to the French demands. Besides this military force, a naval division of nine or ten vessels operated on the coast, and kept the inhabitants in continual alarm by the occasional firing of shells. A considerable proportion of the troops consisted of Algerians, Dahomeyans, and Senegalese. ‘The first detachment of soldiers, under General Metzinger, was landed at Mojangà, the chief port on the north-west coast, which was to form the base of operations. General Duchesne arrived there on May 6, and by the 18th, preliminary skirmishes having already taken place in the neighbourhood, everything was in readiness for an advance. The difficulties to be encountered proved greater than had been anticipated. Arrangements had been made for transporting the forces from Mojangà to Mèvatanàna (about two-fifths of the distance to the capital) by way of the river Bètsibòka. But this was found, for one reason or another, to be, to a large extent, impracticable. Attention was turned, therefore, to the task of widening the native path running alongside the river, so as to allow the transport of the baggage and ammunition by means of Lefebvre wagons. It was chiefly during these operations, carried on in a hot and fever-stricken territory, that the French lost so many lives from disease.