Wl-xr AFRICA. 



817 



protected peoples. In May. Is'.Ni. 200 of tin- com- 

 pany's force of llaii->;i- with niouiiljiin and ma- 

 chine guns put to flight 7.000 Ibarras who attacked 

 Gendc. the chid' town of tin- l!a>abonti tribe, and 

 afterward overran the Ibarra country, dcst r< 

 the towns of the chiefs. who would not submit. In 

 August the stronghold of the brigand slaver Kat- 

 ehella, on tlie middle Bcnuc. wa- captured and de- 

 stroyed by the Niger Company'.- for 



The Niger Coast Protectorate. The Nig. T 

 : Protectorate occupies the entire coast from 

 the British colony of Lagos to the ( 'ainen.oiis with 

 the exception of the stretch between the For* 

 and Brass rivers, which falls within the territories 

 of the Niger Company. In 1*91 an imperial com- 

 missioner and consul general was placed over the 

 protectorate. The majority of the merchants com- 

 bined in 1N89 into the African Association. Lim- 

 ited, of Liverpool, with a nominal capital of 2.000.- 

 000, of which 423.000 were subscribed. The im- 

 ports in 1894 were 739.S64 and exports S25.09S 

 in value. The duties collected amounted to 117.- 

 423. The chief exports are palm oil, palm kernel-, 

 India rubber, ivory, ebony, cam wood, barwood, hides. 

 and some cacao. The imports are cotton goods, wool- 

 ens, hardware, spirits, tobacco, gunpowder, guns. 

 rice, pickled meat, salt, soap, pottery, hardware, and 

 fancy articles. 



The King of Benin, notwithstanding the fact 

 tnat he has entered into treaty obligations with the 

 British, has for some time shown a hostile spirit. 

 At the end of 1896 a pacific expedition set out 

 from Bonny for the city of Benin with the object 

 of inducing the King of Benin to remove the obsta- 

 cles he places in the way of trade. It was thought 

 that this could more readily be attained without a 

 display of force, and therefore neither the officers 

 of the expedition nor the 250 Kromen porters car- 

 ried firearms. When within a few miles of its 

 destination the expedition was attacked by natives. 

 Acting-Consul-General Phillips, Major Copland- 

 Crawford, and 5 other officers were killed, only 2 

 escaping, and of the Kromen all but 7 were massa- 

 cred. An expedition was at once formed for the 

 purpose of punishing the King of Benin. Several 

 expeditions against other recalcitrant chiefs had re- 

 sulted in their submitting without fighting. The 

 King of Okrika, the head of the party addicted to 

 human sacrifices, was driven out of his country, 

 and when hisjiiju house was destroyed by the con- 

 sul general his people forsook the fetich worship 

 and would not receive back their former chief. 



British Colonies. The colonies of Great Brit- 

 ain on the west coast of Africa are the Gold C 

 Lagos, Gambia, and Sierra Leone. The Gold C'oast 

 has a coast line of 350 miles on the Gulf of Guinea. 

 The area of the colony is estimated at 13.000 square 

 miles and that of the Gold Coast Protectorate at 

 31.600 square miles. The estimated population is 

 1.473,882. The number of European residents is 

 about 150. There are Government schools at Ac- 

 cra and Cape Coast Castle, but the education of the 

 people is chiefly furnished by the Wesleyan. Konian 

 Catholic, and German missionaries, who have 7.6*'.) 

 pupils under their tuition. Gold was formerly 

 obtained by washing, and recently mines have been 

 opened. The chief exports are palm oil and ker- 

 nels, India rubber, and cabinet woods. There are 

 391 miles of telegraph. The revenue in 1*94 was 

 218.261 ; expenditure. 226.932. The imports 

 were (588.467 and the exports 850,343. A joint 

 commission to delimit the boundary between the 

 Gold Coast colony and Togoland began its labors in 

 March, 1896. Sir William E. Maxwell is Governor 

 of the Gold Coast. The export of gold has fallen 

 off greatly since the abolition of slavery, for the 

 free negroes will not work to amass wealth. 



VOL. xsxvi. 52 A 



to it is a protectorate ext< ndinj . 



inland. . 



whole i> 1.071 square miles, \\ilh a | 

 mated ai loo.noo. Yoruba, which is included j, 

 British sphere in Ihi- region, N nearly 2<i." 



miles in extent, with 3.o<i<i.n(i( inhabitant 



i> carried on with Germany and Bra/.il. I 



' Britain. The principal expo: ,, oil 



and kernels, ivory, .r,,,,, copal, cotton. India ru 

 cacao, and cofl'ee. The Governor u >ir Gilbert 

 Thomas Carter. TL- l:;?.017 



in 1894; expenditure, 124>2H. T 

 imports was 741.561, and of tl 

 Tiie llorins, though tributary to the N 

 pany. come into conflict with the , 

 incut. The trouble is the old on the 



European merchants and Hie tribes of the ; 

 licit who have always acted as middlemen be: . 

 the coast traders and the tribe- of the interior, and 

 will not allow the traders free passage through their 

 territory. The Governor established a block;. 

 prevent the llorins from trading with Lagos, and 

 built a fort at <>do<>tin to prevent their invasion 

 of the Yoruba country. The llorins are said to be 

 addicted to slave-raiding. On March 31. 1N96. the 

 fort was attacked by 2,000 llorins. who were put to 

 flight by artillery. 



Gambia, situated at the month of the river of 

 the same name, was constituted into an inde- 

 pendent colony in 1888. The area is estimated 

 at 2.700 square' miles, and the population at 50,000. 

 The settlement proper has an area of only 69 square 

 miles, with 14.97* inhabitants in 1894. of whom 62 

 were Europeans. There are *61 pupils in the mis- 

 sionary schools, and the number of native Chris- 

 tians, both Protestants and Koman Catholi' 

 2.385. Bathurst. the capital, has 6.000 inhabitants. 

 The Administrator is K. B. Llewellyn. The chief 

 exports are groundnuts, hides, beeswax, rice, cotton, 

 corn, and India rubber. The revenue of the colony 

 in 1894 was 23.798: expenditure, 31,640. The 

 imports amounted to 130.349: exports. 149.143. 



Sierra Leone, including the island of Sherbro and 

 the adjacent coast extending to the Scan-ies river, 

 on the border of Liberia, has an area estimated at 

 15.000 square miles and about 180,000 inhabitants. 

 The colony proper, 4,000 square miles in extent, had 

 in 1891 a population of 74,835. of whom 224 were 

 whites. There were 40.790 Protestants and 571 

 Catholics. In 85 elementary and 6 high schools 

 there were 10.500 pupils taught in 1893. Freetown, 

 the finest port in West Africa, has a population of 

 30.033. Here is the headquarters of the British 

 military forces in West Africa, consisting in 1895 of 

 the West India regiment, composed of 800 black 

 troops from Jamaica, and European engineers and 

 artillery. There is besides an armed constabulary 

 of 570 men for frontier defense. The port is an 

 imperial coaling station, and is fortified and has 

 several batteries of heavy guns. The trade, formerly 

 large, has been diverted to the neighboring French 

 colonies. The chief exports are palm oil and ker- 

 nels, beniic seed, kola nuts, groundnuts. India rubber, 

 gum copal, and hides. The native artisans are 

 skilled in working gold and silver. The revenue of 

 the colony in 1894 amounted to 98.838 : expendi- 

 ture. 98,100. There is a public debt of 50.000. 

 which was contracted in 1 S 94. The imports were 

 valued at 47s.n25: exports. 426.499. The tonnage 

 entered and cleared in all four colonies in 1894 was 

 2.9*3.374 tons, of which 2.2H7.534 tons were British 

 ships. For the individual colonies the total tonnage 

 was: 35,573; Gold Coa<t. 1.006.053 : Sierra 



Leone. 962.046: Gambia. 229.702. 



Boundary commissioners have been engaged for 

 years in delimiting the frontier between Sierra 



