Somaliland British ] DIVISION BETWEEN THE POWERS 21 a protection , and on July 20, 1887, the Powers were officially notified , in accordance with the terms of the General Act of the Berlin Conference, that a British Protectorate had been established on this Somali coast, from Ras Jibuti on the southern coast of the Bay of Tajura to Bandar Ziada .

The French, in March 1862, had bought Obok in the Bay of Tajura from the Danakil chiefs ; but they took no steps in the direction of occupation and exercise of sovereignty before 1883. In September1884, the Sultan of Tajura ceded his country to France ; and Great Britain , when officially notified by the French Govern ment in February 1885, took no exception. The old treaty of 1840 was thus allowed to become obsolete ; and by an exchange of notes on February 2-9, 1888, the French and British Governments agreed upon a boundary line between their Protectorates . By this agreement, which remains in force, the western frontier of the British Protectorate, as defined in 1887 , was withdrawn from Ras Jibuti to Loyi Ada.

In 1889 the Italian Somaliland Protectorate or Pro tectorates came into existence, and were duly notified to the British Government. The boundary between the Italian and the British spheres of influence was drawn by an agreement of May 5, 1894, the Horn of Africa being included in the Italian Protectorate. Finally , the boundary between Abyssinia and British Somali land was settled by treaty of May 14, 1897 , with annexe of June 4, 1897.

About the end of the century a local Mahdi, known as the Mullah, appeared in the interior of the Protectorate and began to preach a Holy War, directed as much against the Abyssinians as against the British . In 1901 he was attacked both by the Abyssinians and by Somali levies under the British Consul-General or Commissioner, Col. Swayne, and was driven out of the