360 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY been indifferent to the extension of its own back country, and the condition of affairs in Borgu was described at the time in the French press as a ** veritable steeplechase, to which France, England, and Germany are devoting themselves, in order to gain that part of the * Bend of the Niger' which impinges on the lower river." In this steeplechase the, till then, unknown town of Nikki had become the winning-post. The odds were against Captain Lugard. He had started later than Captain Decoeur. He had to go round through the Niger Company's territories, which involved ascending the river to Jebba, situated in latitude 9.10°, and marching thence some 200 miles westwards through the unsettled territory of Borgu, whence it was the boast of the natives that no white man had ever come out alive. It was essential also that the expedition should be proceeded with at once in the season of the rains, when every natural difficulty was increased. This is not the place in which to recount the adventures of the expedition.

African experience served its leader in good stead. He reached Nikki with his little escort of forty men, and successfully negotiated the required treaty, which was signed on November loth. Five days later, Captain Decoeur arrived with a force of 500 Senegalese, only to hear that Captain Lugard had already left the town, taking with him the British treaty duly signed. Other treaties, securing the northern territory behind Lagos, had been negotiated for Great Britain on the way to Nikki, and passing southwards, the British expedition on the return journey concluded treaties with the frontier chiefs of Northern Yoruba. The British position was thus secured upon the western bank of the Middle Niger.

Captain Decoeur loyally acknowledged his defeat. It was not accepted in the same spirit by other representatives of French interests, and during the two following years there was a further development of semi-responsible expeditionary activity, of which the manifest dangers could not be ignored.