358 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY to Include the territories of Sokoto, is deflected to the western shore of Chad. With the frontiers fixed by the Anglo-German agreement of 1893 it determined in principle the boundaries of British territories to the north and east. In addition to the agreements referring to these frontiers, there were some other minor agreements with France and Germany, by which various details relating chiefly to the inland development of other West Coast colonies were determined.

The five years from 1893 to 1898 were marked by a tension on both sides of the then undetermined frontier on the west, which threatened at times to break out into open hostility. National interests, as well as personal honour, were held by local representatives to be involved in the maintenance of a forward movement which was, perhaps, to be excused if It sometimes disregarded lines of latitude and longitude too pedantically laid down by the distant Foreign Offices of London, Paris, and Berlin. In 1893 France formally assumed the Protectorate of Dahomey, a native kingdom bordering upon the English colony of Lagos upon the coast, and carried her inland frontier to the parallel of 9° N. latitude. Numerous French expeditions were then pushed into the territory extending towards the Niger, directly south of the point which had been chosen at Say for the terminus of the northern frontier line of British Nigeria.

The contention of the Royal Niger Company was that the effect of the Anglo-French agreement of 1890, which drew the Say-Barrua line, was to give to France everything which lay north of that line, and to give to Great Britain everything which lay south of it, with the exception of the French territory of Dahomey, for which special arrangement had been made. Under this contention the meridian of Say became automatically the western frontier of British Nigeria, and gave the native kingdom of Borgu and part of Gurma, lying on the western bank of the river Niger, to Great Britain. It