Zambezi and Shiré for the ships of all nations, and stipula- | tions as to the making of railways, roads and telegraphs. The territorial readjustment effected was slightly more favourable to Portugal than that agreed upon by the 1890 convention, Portugal was given both banks of the Zambezi to a point ten miles west of Zumbo-the farthest settlement of the Portuguese on the river. South of the Zambezi the frontier takes a south and then an east course till it reaches the edge of the continental plateau, thence running, roughly, along the line of 33° E. southward to the north-eastern frontier of the Transvaal. Thus by this treaty Portugal was left in the possession of the coast-lands, while Great Britain maintained her right to Matabele and Mashona lands. The boundary between the Portuguese sphere of influence on the west coast and the British sphere of influence north of the Zambezi was only vaguely indicated; but it was to be drawn in such a manner as to leave the Barotse country within the British sphere, Lewanika, the paramount chief of the Marotse, claiming that his territory extended much farther to the west than was admitted by the Portuguese. In August 1903 the question what were the limits of the Barotse kingdom was referred to the arbitration of the king of Italy. By his award, delivered in June 1905, the western limit of the British sphere runs from the northern frontier of German South-West Africa up the Kwando river to 22° E., follows that meridian north to 13° S., then runs due east to 24° E., and then north again to the frontier of the Congo State.

Before the conclusion of the treaty of June 1891 with Portugal, the British government had made certain arrangements for the administration of the large area north of the Zambezi reserved to British influence. On the 1st of February Sir Harry Johnston was appointed imperial commissioner in Nyasaland, and a fortnight later the British South Africa Company intimated a desire to extend its operations north of the Zambezi. Negotiations followed, and the field of operations of the Chartered Company was, on the 2nd of April 1891, extended so as to cover (with the exception of Nyasaland) the whole of the British sphere of influence north of the Zambezi (now known as Northern Rhodesia). On the 14th of May a formal protectorate was declared over Nyasaland, including the Shiré highlands and a belt of territory extending along the whole of the western shore of Lake Nyasa. The name was changed in 1893 to that of the British Central Africa Protectorate, for which designation was substituted in 1907 the more appropriate title of Nyasaland Protectorate.

South
Africa.

near its northern termination was to give Germany access by her own territory to the upper waters of the Zambezi, and it was declared that this strip of territory was at no part to be less than 20 English miles in width.

Fate of the Dutch

To complete the survey of the political partition of Africa south of the Zambezi, it is necessary briefly to refer to the events connected with the South African Republic and the Orange Free State. In October 1886 the British government made an agreement with the New Republic, a small Republics. community of Boer farmers who had in 1884-85 seized part of Zululand and set up a government of their own, defining the frontier between the New Republic and Zululand; but in July 1888 the New Republic was incorporated in the South African Republic. In a convention of July-August 1890 the British government and the government of the South African Republic confirmed the independence of Swaziland, and on the 8th of November 1893 another convention was signed with the same object; but on the 19th of December 1894 the British government agreed to the South African Republic exercising "all rights and powers of protection, legislation, jurisdiction and administration over Swaziland and the inhabitants thereof," subject to certain conditions and provisions, and to the nonincorporation of Swaziland in the Republic. In the previous September Pondoland had been annexed to Cape Colony; on the 23rd of April 1895 Tongaland was declared by proclamation to be added to the dominions of Queen Victoria, and in December 1897 Zululand and Tongaland, or Amatongaland, were incorporated with the colony of Natal. The history of the events that led up to the Boer War of 1899-1902 cannot be recounted here (see TRANSVAAL, History), but in October 1899 the South African Republic and the Orange Free State addressed an ultimatum to Great Britain and invaded Natal and Cape Colony. As a result of the military operations that followed, the Orange Free State was, on the 28th of May 1900, proclaimed by Lord Roberts a British colony under the name " Orange River Colony," and the South African Republic was on the 25th of October 1900 incorporated in the British empire as the "Transvaal Colony." In January 1903 the districts of Vryheid (formerly the New Republic), Utrecht and part of the Wakkerstroom district, a tract of territory comprising in all about 7000 sq. m., were transferred from the Transvaal colony to Natal. In 1907 both the Transvaal and Orange River Colony were granted responsible government. On the east coast the two great rivals were Germany and Great Britain. Germany on the 30th of December 1886, and Great Britain on the 11th of June 1891, formally recognized the Rovuma river as the northern boundary of the Portuguese sphere of influence on that coast; but it was to the north of that river, over the vast area of East or East Central Africa in which the sultan of Zanzibar claimed to exercise suzerainty, that the struggle between the two rival powers was most acute. The independence of the sultans of Zanzibar had been recognized by the governments of Great Britain and France in 1862, and the sultan's authority extended almost uninterruptedly along the coast of the mainland, from Cape Delgado in the south to Warsheik on the north-a stretch of coast more than a thousand miles longthough to the north the sultan's authority was confined to certain ports. In Zanzibar itself, where Sir John Kirk, Livingstone's companion in his second expedition, was British consul-general, British influence was, when the Berlin conference met, practically supreme, though German traders had established themselves on the island and created considerable commercial interests. Away from the coasts the limits and extent of the sultan's authority were far from being clearly defined. The sultan himself claimed that it extended as far as Lake Tanganyika, but the claim did not

AngloGerman rivalry in

East Africa.

At the date of the assembling of the Berlin conference the German government had notified that the coast-line on the south-west of the continent, from the Orange river to Germany's share of Cape Frio, had been placed under German protection. On the 13th of April 1885 the German South-West Africa Company was constituted under an order of the imperial cabinet with the rights of state sovereignty, including mining royalties and rights, and a railway and telegraph monopoly. In that and the following years the Germans vigorously pursued the business of treaty-making with the native chiefs in the interior; and when, in July 1890, the British and German governments came to an agreement as to the limits of their respective spheres of influence in various parts of Africa, the boundaries of German South-West Africa were fixed in their present position. By Article III. of this agreement the north bank of the Orange river up to the point of its intersection by the 20th degree of east longitude was made the southern boundary of the German sphere of influence. The eastern boundary followed the 20th degree of east longitude to its intersection by the 22nd parallel of south latitude, then ran eastwards along that parallel to the point of its intersection by the 21st degree of east longitude. From that point it ran northwards along the last-rest on any very solid ground of effective occupation. The littlenamed meridian to the point of its intersection by the 18th parallel of south latitude, thence eastwards along that parallel to the river Chobe or Kwando, and along the main channel of that river to its junction with the Zambezi, where it terminated. The northern frontier marched with the southern boundary of Portuguese West Africa. The object of deflecting the eastern boundary

known region of the Great Lakes had for some time attracted the attention of the men who were directing the colonial movement in Germany; and, as has been stated, a small band of pioneers actually landed on the mainland opposite Zanzibar in November 1884, and made their first "treaty" with the chief of Mbuzini on the 19th of that month. Pushing up the Wami river the three

I have to request your Excellency to state that the supposition that Her Majesty's Government have no intention of opposing the German scheme of colonization in the neighbourhood of Zanzibar is absolutely correct. Her Majesty's Government, on the contrary, view with favour these schemes, the realization of which will entail the civilization of large tracts over which hitherto no European influence has been exercised, the co-operation of Germany with Great Britain in the work of the suppression of the slave gangs, and the encouragement of the efforts of the Sultan both in the extinc-north by a line which, starting from the mouth of the Tana river, tion of the slave trade and in the commercial development of his

East
Africa.

a concession of the 10-miles strip of coast from the Umba river | Africa. In return for the cession of Heligoland, Lord Salisbury in the south to Kipini in the north. The British association obtained from Germany the recognition of a British protectorate further sought to extend its rights in the sphere reserved to over the dominions of the sultan of Zanzibar, including the British influence by making treaties with the native chiefs be- islands of Zanzibar and Pemba, but excluding the strip leased to hind the coast strip, and for this purpose various expeditions Germany, which was subsequently ceded absolutely to Germany. were sent into the interior. When they had obtained conces- Germany further agreed to withdraw the protectorate declared sions over the country for some 200 m. inland the associated over Witu and the adjoining coast up to Kismayu in favour of Formation capitalists applied to the British government for a Great Britain, and to recognize as within the British sphere of of British charter, which was granted on the 3rd of September influence the vast area bounded, on the south by the frontier 1888, and the association became the Imperial British line laid down in the agreement of 1886, which was to be extended East Africa Company (see BRITISH EAST AFRICA). along the first parallel of south latitude across Victoria Nyanza The example set by the British company in obtaining a lease to the frontiers of the Congo Free State, on the west by the of the coast strip between the British sphere of influence and the Congo Free State and the western watershed of the Nile, and on sea was quickly followed by the German association, which, on the north by a line commencing on the coast at the north bank of the 28th of April 1888, concluded an agreement with the sultan the mouth of the river Juba, then ascending that bank of the Khalifa, who had succeeded his brother Bargash, by which the river until it reached the territory at that time regarded as association leased the strip of Zanzibar territory between the reserved to the influence of Italy' in Gallaland and Abyssinia, German sphere and the sea. It was not, however, until August when it followed the frontier of the Italian sphere to the confines that the German officials took over the administration, and their of Egypt. To the south-west of the German sphere in East want of tact and ignorance of native administration almost Africa the boundary was formed by the eastern and northern immediately provoked a rebellion of so serious a character that shore of Lake Nyasa, and round the western shore to the mouth it was not suppressed until the imperial authorities had taken of the Songwe river, from which point it crossed the Nyasathe matter in hand. Shortly after its suppression the administra- Tanganyika plateau to the southern end of the last-named lake, tion was entrusted to an imperial officer, and the sultan's rights leaving the Stevenson Road on the British side of the on the mainland strip were bought outright by Germany for boundary. The effect of this treaty was to remove four millions of marks (£200,000). all serious causes of dispute about territory between Germany and Great Britain in East Africa. It rendered quite valueless Peters's treaty with Mwanga and his promenade along the Tana; it freed Great Britain from any fear of German competition to the northwards, and recognized that her influence extended to the western limits of the Nile valley. But, on the other hand, Great Britain had to relinquish the ambition of connecting her sphere of influence in the Nile valley with her possessions in Central and South Africa. On this point Germany was quite obdurate; and, as already stated, an attempt subsequently made (May 1894) to secure this object by the lease of a strip of territory from the Congo Free State was frustrated by German opposition.

Events of great importance had been happening, meanwhile, in the country to the west and north of the British sphere of influence. The British company had sent caravans into the interior to survey the country, to make treaties with the native chiefs and to report on the commercial and agricultural possibilities. One of these had gone up the Tana river. But another and a rival expedition was proceeding along the northern bank of this same river. Karl Peters, whose energy cannot be denied, whatever may be thought of his methods, set out with an armed caravan up the Tana on the pretext of leading an expedition to the relief of Emin Pasha, the governor of the equatorial province of the Egyptian Sudan, then reported to be hemmed in by the dervishes at Wadelai. His expedition was not sanctioned by the German government, and the British naval commander had orders to prevent his landing. But Peters succeeded in evading the British vessels and proceeded up the river, planting German flags and fighting the natives who opposed his progress. Early in 1890 he reached Kavirondo, and there found letters from Mwanga, king of Uganda, addressed to F. J. Jackson, the leader of an expedition sent out by the British East Africa Uganda Company, imploring the company's representative secured by to come to his assistance and offering to accept the British flag. To previous letters, less plainly couched, from the king, Jackson had returned the answer that his instructions were not to enter Uganda, but that he would do so in case of need. The letters that fell into Peters's hands were in reply to those from Jackson. Peters did not hesitate to open the letters, and on reading them he at once proceeded to Uganda, where, with the assistance of the French Roman Catholic priests, he succeeded in inducing Mwanga to sign a loosely worded treaty intended to place him under German protection. On hearing of this Jackson at once set out for Uganda, but Peters did not wait for his arrival, leaving for the south of Victoria Nyanza some days before Jackson arrived at Mengo, Mwanga's capital. As Mwanga would not agree to Jackson's proposals, Jackson returned to the coast, leaving a representative at Mengo to protect the company's interests. Captain (afterwards Sir) F. D. Lugard, who had recently entered the company's employment, was at once ordered to proceed to Uganda. But in the meantime an event of great importance had taken place, the conclusion of the agreement between Great Britain and Germany with reference to their different spheres of influence in various parts of Africa.

Great
Britain.

The Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 has already been referred to and its importance insisted upon. Here we have to deal with the provisions in reference to East

Limits of
German

East

Africa defined.

Uganda having thus been assigned to the British sphere of influence by the only European power in a position to contest its possession with her, the subsequent history of that region, and of the country between the Victoria Nyanza and the coast, must be traced in the articles on BRITISH EAST AFRICA and UGANDA, but it may be well briefly to record here the following facts:-The Imperial British East Africa Company, finding the burden of administration too heavy for its financial resources, and not receiving the assistance it felt itself entitled to receive from the imperial authorities, intimated that it would be compelled to withdraw at the end of the year 1892. Funds were raised to enable the company to continue its administration until the end of March 1893, and a strong public protest against evacuation compelled the government to determine in favour of the retention of the country. In January 1893 Sir Gerald Portal left the coast as a special commissioner to inquire into the "best means of dealing with the country, whether through Zanzibar or otherwise." On the 31st of March the union jack was raised, and on the 29th of May a fresh treaty was concluded with King Mwanga placing his country under British protection. A formal protectorate was declared over Uganda proper on the 19th of June 1894, which was subsequently extended so as to include the countries westwards towards the Congo Free State, eastwards to the British East Africa protectorate and Abyssinia, and northwards to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The British East Africa protectorate was constituted in June 1895, when the Imperial British East Africa Company relinquished all its rights in exchange for a money payment, and the administration was assumed by the imperial authorities. On the 1st of April 1902 the eastern province of the Uganda protectorate was transferred to the British East Africa protectorate, which thus secured control of the whole length of the so-called Uganda At this period negotiations between Great Britain and Italy had begun but were not concluded.

railway, and at the same time obtained access to the Victoria | defeated. By the subsequent treaty of Adis Ababa, concluded Nyanza.

Early in the 'eighties, as already seen, Italy had obtained her first formal footing on the African coast at the Bay of Assab (Aussa) on the Red Sea. In 1885 the troubles in Italy in which Egypt found herself involved compelled the East Africa. khedive and his advisers to loosen their hold on the Red Sea littoral, and, with the tacit approval of Great Britain, Italy took possession of Massawa and other ports on that coast. By 1888 Italian influence had been extended from Ras Kasar on the north to the northern frontier of the French colony of Obok on the south, a distance of some 650 m. The interior limits of Italian influence were but ill defined, and the negus Johannes (King John) of Abyssinia viewed with anything but a favourable eye the approach of the Italians towards the Abyssinian highlands. In January 1887 an Italian force was almost annihilated at Dogali, but the check only served to spur on the Italian government to fresh efforts. The Italians occupied Keren and Asmara in the highlands, and eventually, in May 1889, concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the negus Menelek, who had seized the throne on the death of Johannes, killed in battle with the dervishes in March of the same year. This agreement, known as the treaty of Uccialli, settled the frontiers between Abyssinia and the Italian sphere, and contained the following article:

XVII. His Majesty the King of Kings of Ethiopia consents to avail himself of the Italian government for any negotiations which he may enter into with the other powers or governments.

nized.

on the 26th of October 1896, the whole of the country to the
south of the Mareb, Belesa and Muna rivers was The inde-
restored to Abyssinia, and Italy acknowledged the pendence
absolute independence of Abyssinia. The effect of of
this was practically to destroy the value of the Abyssinia
Anglo-Italian agreement as to the boundaries to the recog
south and west of Abyssinia; and negotiations were
afterwards set on foot between the emperor Menelek and his
European neighbours with the object of determining the
Abyssinian frontiers. Italian Somaliland, bordering on the
south-eastern frontier of Abyssinia, became limited to a
belt of territory with a depth inland from the Indian
Ocean of from 180 to 250 m. The negotiations concerning
the frontier lasted until 1908, being protracted over the
question as to the possession of Lugh, a town on the Juba,
which eventually fell to Italy. After the battle of Adowa the
Italian government handed over the administration of the
southern part of the country to the Benadir Company, but in
January 1905 the government resumed control and at the same
time transformed the leasehold rights it held from the sultan of
Zanzibar into sovereign rights by the payment to the sultan of
£144,000. To facilitate her communications with the interior,
Italy also secured from the British government the lease of a
small area of land immediately to the north of Kismayu. In
British Somaliland the frontier fixed by agreement with Italy in
1894 was modified, in so far as it marched with Abyssinian terri-
tory, by an agreement which Sir Rennell Rodd concluded with
the emperor Menelek in 1897. The effect of this agreement was
to reduce the area of British Somaliland from 75,000 to 68,000
sq. m. In the same year France concluded an agreement
with the emperor, which is known to have fixed the frontier of
the French Somali Coast protectorate at a distance of 90
kilometres (56 m.) from the coast. The determination of the
northern, western and southern limits of Abyssinia proved a
more difficult matter. A treaty of July 1900 followed by an
agreement of November 1901 defined the boundaries of Eritrea
on the side of Abyssinia and the Sudan respectively. In certain
details the boundaries thus laid down were modified by an Anglo-
Italian-Abyssinian treaty signed at Adis Ababa on the 15th of
May 1902. On the same day another treaty was signed at the
Abyssinian capital by Sir John Harrington, the British minister
plenipotentiary, and the emperor Menelek, whereby the western,
Sudan-Abyssinian, frontier was defined as far south as the
intersection of 6° N. and 35° E. Within the British sphere
were left the Atbara up to Gallabat, the Blue Nile up to Famaka
and the Sobat up to the junction of the Baro and Pibor. While
not satisfying Abyssinian claims to their full extent, the frontier
laid down was on the whole more favourable to Abyssinia than
was the line fixed in the Anglo-Italian agreement of 1891. On
the other hand, Menelek gave important economic guarantees
and concessions to the Sudan government.

or

In Italy and by other European governments this article was generally regarded as establishing an Italian protectorate over Abyssinia; but this interpretation was never accepted by the emperor Menelek, and at no time did Italy succeed in establishing any very effective control over Abyssinian affairs. North of the Italian coast sphere the Red Sea littoral was still under Egyptian rule, while immediately to the south a small stretch of coast on the Gulf of Tajura constituted the sole French possession on the East African mainland (see SOMALILAND). Moreover, when Egyptian claims to the Somali coast were withdrawn, Great Britain took the opportunity to establish her influence on the northern Somali coast, opposite Aden. Between the 1st of May 1884 and the 15th of March 1886 ten treaties were concluded, placing under British influence the northern Somali coast from Ras Jibuti on the west to Bandar Ziada on the east. In the meantime Italy, not content with her acquisitions on the Red Sea, had been concluding treaties with the Somali chiefs on the east coast. The first treaty was made with the sultan of Obbia on the 8th of February 1889. Later in the same year the British East Africa Company transferred to Italy the transference being subsequently approved by the sultan of Zanzibar-the ports of Brava, Marka, Mukdishu and Warsheik, leased from Zanzibar. On the 24th of March 1891 an agreement between Italy and Great Britain fixed the northern bank of the Juba up to latitude 6o N. as the southern boundary In Egypt the result of the abolition of the Dual Control was of Italian influence in Somaliland, the boundary being provision- to make British influence virtually predominant, though theoally prolonged along lines of latitude and longitude to the inter-retically Turkey remained the suzerain power; and after the section of the Blue Nile with 35° E. longitude. On the 15th of April 1891 a further agreement fixed the northern limit of the Italian sphere from Ras Kasar on the Red Sea to the point on the Blue Nile just mentioned. By this agreement Italy was to have the right temporarily to occupy Kassala, which was left in the Anglo-Egyptian sphere, in trust for Egypt-a right of which she availed herself in 1894. To complete the work of delimitation the British and Italian governments, on the 5th of May 1894, fixed the boundary of the British sphere of influence in Somaliland from the Anglo-French boundary, which had been settled in February 1888.

But while Great Britain was thus lending her sanction to Italy's ambitious schemes, the Abyssinian emperor was becoming more and more incensed at Italy's pretensions to exercise a protectorate over Ethiopia. In 1893 Menelek denounced the treaty of Uccialli, and eventually, in a great battle, fought at Adowa on the 1st of March 1896, the Italians were disastrously

reconquest of the Sudan by the Anglo-Egyptian army a con-
vention between the British and Egyptian governments was
signed at Cairo on the 19th of January 1899, which, inter alia,
provided for the joint use of the British and Egyptian flags in
the territories south of the 22nd parallel of north latitude.
From the international point of view the British position in
Egypt was strengthened by the Anglo-French declaration of
the 8th of April 1904. For some time previously there had been
a movement on both sides of the Channel in favour of
the settlement of a number of important questions Anglo-
in which British and French interests were involved. French
The movement was no doubt strengthened by the agree
desire to reduce to their least dimensions the possible
causes of trouble between the two countries at a time
when the outbreak of hostilities between Russia (the ally of
France) and Japan (the ally of Great Britain) rendered the
European situation peculiarly delicate. On the 8th of April

The

ments of

April 1904.

1904 there was signed in London by the British foreign secretary, | Mediterranean. In regard to these interests the French governthe marquess of Lansdowne, and the French ambassador, M. Paul Cambon, a series of agreements relating to several parts of the globe. Here we are concerned only with the joint declaration respecting Egypt and Morocco and a convention relating, in part, to British and French frontiers in West Africa. The latter we shall have occasion to refer to later. The former, notwithstanding the declarations embodied in it that there was no intention of altering the political status" either of Egypt or of Morocco, cannot be ignored in any account of the partition in Africa. With regard to Egypt the French government declared "that they will not obstruct the action of Great Britain in that country by asking that a limit of time be fixed for the British occupation or in any other manner." France also assented-as did subsequently the other powers interested-to a khedivial decree simplifying the international control exercised by the Caisse de la Dette over the finances of Egypt.