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 or not. On the day following he paraded his men and marched out amid hootings and derisive laughter, but when he had reached the Ordah river runners overtook him with the gold dust. The Colonial Government, however, thought it would not be advisable to send for any more instalments, and no more have been paid. West African natives are now beginning to regard Great Britain as a power which is satisfied with threatening punishment, and one that would not go to any trouble to obtain actual redress, especially where the offending state was powerful.

It was indeed whispered in official circles on the Gold Coast that an expedition to Abomey would have been undertaken but for the opposition of the French Government. There is no doubt that the French are a little sore at the withdrawal of our offer to give them our possessions on the Gambia river, and this has been shown by their endeavouring to intimidate the people of Catanoo into hoisting the French flag, and, later, by their occupation of the island of Matacong near Sierra Leone; but as far as regards Whydah neither France nor any other European power has any claim to any portion of its soil.

The annexation of Whydah would not be a difficult matter, and that is the only real obstacle to our possessing a compact colony extending from