RECENT CAMPAIGNS IN WEST AFRICA. 770 was hunted down andcaptured. Thus fell the kingdom of Dahomey. The burning of its capital was a fitting end for this centre of savagery that year after year, at the annual festivals, was a huge slaughterhouse of human beings.

the enemysuffered severelosses. They marched nearly560 miles, crossed 172 creeks with steep banks and full of water, thirteenlarge rivers,and re-entered the post of Kerouane on thethirtythird day,March 10th,1893, without havinglost a single European. Theyhad two men of the ForeignLegion wounded,four (native)Tirailleurs and Spahis killed,and fifteen natives wounded. It was a notable exploit."

General Dodds had successfully accomplished a very difficult task. But his victory was only the prelude to further enterprises. Abomeywas rebuilt. A new city, Carnotville, was founded to the north of it, andbecamethe starting-point of small expeditions thatbrought tlaehill country under French rule and supplied a base of operations for a second line of advance towards the Niger. Expeditions from Senegal to its upper, and from Dahomey to its middle course, secured for France in the next few years the controlof the greaterportion of theNigercountries.

To takeup again the narrative of the French operations in the Western Soudan :during the summer of 1892 anative rising in thedistrict ol Segu was suppressed. Towardsthe end of the year Colonel Combes took the place of Colonel Humbert as director of the military operations. Combes's plan of campaign was to cut Samory off from tlae hill region of the Fouta Djallon betweenthe upper watersof the Niger and the Senegal Valleyand then to break in on his communications with Sierra Leone, through which, it was believed,he received his supplies of rifles and cartridges. Tlae three months' campaign which began in December, 1892, and closed in March, 1893, was a brilliant success. The posts along the River Milo from Kankan to Kerouane were strengthened to prevent the enemy's bands escaping to the eastward; then a flying column, under Captain Briquelot, moved by the upper course of the Niger, and after establishing fortified posts to hold tlae line of the river,reached tlae borders of the Sierra Leone colony ; then, turning to the south-eastward, drove back the bands of Samory's lieutenants towardstheMilo, routingthem in several engagements,capturing large quantities of cattle and setting free more than 10,000 of their slaves. At the sametime another column marched south-eastward from Kerouane to attack Samory's main army. Combes was here in personal command. The enemy fell back skirmishing, abandoning in his retreat large quantities of arms, stores, and cattle. Colonel Combes returned to Kerouane after this successful expedition. "During this arduousmarch," says Captain Pasfield Oliver,in his narrative of these operations," the French fought fourteen actions,on all of which occasions The result ofColonel Combes's operationswas that all the country west of theMilo,up to the bordersof Sierra Leone andLiberia,wascleared of Samory's adherents,and the main army of the enemy had been driven to the south-eastward towardsthe hinterlandof theFrench settlements on the Ivory coast. In April another column, under Colonel Achinard, was sent down the Niger from Segu to invade the district of Macina, whose chiefs had just accepted the fugitive Ahmadu as their ruler. The town of Djenne, an important centre of trade, was besieged and taken by storm on April 12th.

Two French officers and thirty of the native troops were killedin the assault. Then advancing against the army that Ahmadu had collected, Achinard defeated and dispersed his forces, captured his harem,and nearly took the Emir himself prisoner. French posts were established at Djenne,Mopti, and Biandagara to secure the conquered country. The nearest of these posts was onlyabout 180 miles fromTimbuctoo, and a deputation from the great city waitedon Colonel Achinard and assured him of their desire to be at peace withFranee,andtheir readiness to accept aFrench protectorate. The Niger flotillahad now its headquartersat Mopti, and the presence of the gunboats there must have made the headmenof Timbuctoo anxious about the future.

We have seen how during the campaign of 1893 the French, under Captain Briquelot,had reached the Sierra Leone frontier from the Upper Niger. Though they had headed off most of Samory's adherents and driven them eastward, some hundreds of these escaped into the hinterland of tlae British colony, and lived by plundering and raiding the native villagers, camping nowin French,nowinBritish territory. In order to put an end to this state of things Sir F.Fleming, the Governor of Sierra Leone,established a number of posts heldby black police and detachments of the West India Regiment near the border, and towardsthe end of the year he sent a column of 400 menof the First Battalion West India Regiment and the native