WEST AFRICA. 



767 



pendent on Senegal and the eastern one on the 

 French Congo. The area is roughly estimated at 

 300,000 square miles, with 2,500,000 inhabitants. 

 Timbuktu, the chief town of the western section, 

 has about 12,000 inhabitants, and is a trading 

 center for all this part of Africa. There were 

 3,408 troops in 1900, of whom 2,750 were natives. 

 The expenditure of France for the Soudan in 1900 

 was 6,833,000 francs. The local budget of income 

 and expenditure was 3,238,500 francs. The chief 

 imports are cotton goods, and the largest export 

 is caoutchouc. The agricultural products are 

 millet, rice, wheat, and earthnuts. 



The Sultan Rabah, who defeated the Bretonnet 

 party in 1899 and compelled M. Gentil to return 

 toward the French Congo with the other half of 

 the expedition, and who was himself defeated by 

 the larger force, under Capt. Robillot, that the 

 Commissary General of the French Congo sent 

 with M. Gentil, fled northward to Dikao, the cap- 

 ital of Cobalo, with the remnant of his army of 

 12,000 men that remained faithful after the dis- 

 astrous battle in which nearly a quarter of that 

 army fell. The French could not reap the full 

 fruits of their victory because half their own men 

 were disabled. Their march to Lake Chad was 

 postponed, and they remained near Kuna, await- 

 ing re-enforcements, while their steamer was sent 

 down the Shari to meet the mission of M. Foureau 

 which had come across the Sahara, but halted in 

 the desert on learning that Rabah dominated the 

 shores of Lake Chad. The Sultan of Bagirmi, who 

 had taken refuge at Lai when Rabah defeated his 

 army and usurped his throne, joined Capt. Robil- 

 lot at Tunia, and the Sultan of Goaurang and 

 other Soudanese chieftains whose power had been 

 shattered by Rabah joined hands with the French, 

 who with .a small detachment had beaten their 

 former conqueror and destroyed his strong place, 

 although his artillery was served by trained gun- 

 ners and his soldiers were armed with repeating 

 rifles and were experienced shots. 



In April the three missions that were sent to 

 Lake Chad in 1899 the Gentil-Bretonnet mission 

 from the French Congo, re-enforced anew from its 

 base; the Central Africa or Voulet mission, whose 

 leader went mad and killed Col. Klobb, who was 

 sent to supersede him, led afterward by Capt. 

 Joallancl, next in command to Capt. Voulet, in 

 conjunction with Lieut. Meynier, who succeeded 

 to the command of Col. Klobb's party; and the 

 Foureau-Lamy mission from Algeria effected a 

 junction at Kussuri, and by direction of M. Gentil 

 the combined force marched on April 22, under 

 Major Lamy, against Rabah, who had reassembled 

 an army and was preparing to attack the French. 

 Rabah's troops were concentrated near the French 

 fort, numbering 5,000 men, 2,000 of them armed 

 with modern rifles, with (500 horses and 3 guns. 

 The French column consisted of 700 men armed 

 with rifles, 30 horsemen, 1.500 Bagirmi auxiliaries, 

 and 4 guns. After an exchange of artillery fire 

 the French stormed Rabah's fort of palisades and 

 earthworks, and when his men scattered tried to 

 cut off their retreat, which the Sofas endeavored 

 to cover by resuming the offensive. Major Lamy 

 and Capt. de Cointel were killed, and 18 men, and 

 3 officers and 5 men were wounded. Rabah's army 

 was utterly routed, and he himself, helpless from 

 wounds, was decapitated by a black soldier. The 

 French placed Omar Ibn Ibrahim, of the former 

 dynasty, on the throne of Bornu, the last one 

 that Rabah, the former slave of Zobehr Pasha, 

 had usurped. The shores of Lake Chad were 

 found to be desolate because they had been rav- 

 aged and depopulated by Rabah's bands, but the 

 valleys were found to be fertile. After the victory 



the French column, under the command of Capt. 

 Reibell, marched on Dikoa, where Fadifallah, son 

 of Rabah, had rallied an army even stronger nu- 

 merically than the one with which Rabah had 

 marched against the French, consisting of 5,000 

 men armed with rifles and a large number of 

 irregulars. This army fled, however, at the ;i|> 

 proach of the French column of 700 rifles, 100 

 Bagirmi horsemen, 3 Soudanese spahis, and 3 guns. 

 Capt. Robillot occupied Dikoa, while Capt. Reibell 

 with 160 men and 1 gun gave chase, and on May 2 

 captured Fadifallah's camp, together with stores, 

 treasure, and ammunition after a sharp engage- 

 ment. Another fortified camp was taken on May 

 7, and, Fadifallah's power having been broken, this 

 column returned and was disbanded. During the 

 rule of Rabah the trade between Bornu and Trip- 

 oli practically ceased, and that with the Central 

 Soudan became precarious and intermittent. But 

 the trade with Wadai, under the new Sultan Ibra- 

 him, became active once more. 



British West Africa. The colonies of the 

 Gold Coast, Lagos, Gambia, and Sierra Leone have 

 their boundaries inland defined in the recent con- 

 ventions, and Nigeria also has its limits fixed, 

 though it extends inland to Lake Chad and in- 

 cludes extensive productive and populous territo- 

 ries and the navigable water ways of the lower 

 Niger and the Benue. 



The Gold Coast has an area of 40,000 square 

 miles and a population estimated at 1,473,882, ex- 

 clusive of Ashanti and Adansi. Accra has 16,267 

 inhabitants, and Cape Coast Castle 11,614. The 

 principal products are palm oil and kernels, rub- 

 ber, and gold, which is found in numerous places 

 and is being mined with European capital. A 

 railroad from Sekondi to Tarkwa is being built 

 and has been surveyed to Kumassi, the capital of 

 the Ashanti kingdom subjugated in 1896. By the 

 convention concluded with Germany on Nov. 14, 

 1899, the disputed zone between the Gold Coast 

 and German Togoland, which was held neutral 

 pending a settlement, has been divided by a line 

 following the course of the river Daka up to 9 

 of north latitude and then running northward 

 with deflections that leave Maraprusi on the Eng- 

 lish and Yendi and Chakosi on the German side. 

 There are 688 miles of telegraph. The Governor 

 of the Gold Coast colony is Sir F. M. Hodgson, 

 and the administrator of the northern territories 

 is Lieut.-Col. H. P. Northcott. ' The revenue, 

 224,718 of it from customs, amounted in 1898 

 to 258,851, the expenditure to 377,976. An 

 advance of 578,000 for railroads and 98,000 

 for harbor improvements was authorized in the 

 colonial loans act of 1899. Previous to this none 

 of the West African colonies had any debt. The 

 value of imports in 1898 was 1,101,546, cotton 

 cloth amounting to 230.641, spirits to ,86,837, 

 and tobacco to 21,725. The value of exports \\:i< 

 992.998, of which 551,667 stand for rubber, 

 114.288 for palm oil, 66,378 for kernels, and 

 63,838 for gold dust. The vessels entered and 

 cleared during 1898 were in the aggregate of 

 1,122,016 tons. 



The golden stool, which was the symbol of sov- 

 ereignty in the kingdom of Ashanti, has never 

 been seen since the downfall and imprisonment of 

 King Prempeh in 1896. Prempeh before surrender- 

 ing had two faithful servants bury it in the 

 ground, probably also the royal treasure, which 

 is supposed to be immense, and none besides them 

 know the spot. When Sir Frederic Hodgson vis- 

 ited Kumassi city at the end of March, 1900, he 

 found the people greatly excited, and learned that 

 the cause was the discovery that some of the 

 Kumassi chiefs had made or pretended to have 



