RECENT CAMPAIGNS IN WEST AFRICA. 760 the Upper Niger the distanceis about 300 miles, the way lying through the hilly country that divides the basins of the tworivers. Faidherbe sent an expedition to exploie this hill district and report upon the best- routes to the Niger.

colonial expansion in Africa on the lines laid down by Faidherbe.

Inthe next ten years enterprising soldiers like Gallieni, Achinard, Forey, Desbordes, Montei!, Binger,and Combes,partly by military expedi-Lieutenant Mage, who commanded it, was told to endea= your to reachBammako,on theNiger, where it was reported that the river was navigable for fairly large craft. "Ourobject," wrote Faidherbe," will be to create at thj proper time, whenever orders to that effect maybe given, a line of posts at intervals of some thirty leagues, between Medina and Bammako, or some other neighbourincr locality which mayappear more convenientforestablishing a commercial baseon the Niger." Lieutenant Mage reportedthe scheme to be practicable, but onlythe foundations of the new African empire of France were laidby Faidherbe. He se cured the Upper Senegal against the attacks of a West African Mahdi, El Hadj Omar, who had built up a Mohammedankingdom on the Upper Niger tions, partly by winning over the chiefs by diplomatic means,extendedthe French dominion from the Senegal to theNiger and along the upper course of the great river. A light railway was begun from Kayes through the hill country. Smallgunboats wereconveyed across the watershed in sections and put together and launched on the Niger. In the numerous campaigns of these ten years the French had chiefly to contend with twoMohammedan rulers. The first ofthese wasAhmadu, the son and successor of ElHadj Omar, who ruled the country from the head-waters of the SenegaltoSegu on theNiger. But a still more formidable enemy was Samory, or Samadhu, whoseterritory lay to the south and west of Ahmadu's states, partly on the north side of the Niger, behanzin's son and in the hill country between it and the Senegal; he explored the routes leading to the great river, and solidly established the base of operations for the advance at Kayes and Medina. The general check to French enterprise caused by the war of 1870 prevented anything more being accomplished for a while,but in 1879 there began a new period of French but chiefly between its upper waters and the hinterland of Liberia and the European colonies on the West Coast. Samory was a man of low* birth, who, like the Mahdi in the NileValley,had risen tobe a ruler ofempire by posing first as a prophet and religious reformer. Born about 184b,he had in early manhood begunpreachinga holy war,and proclaim-