TRANSFER OF TERRITORIES 367 ways which irrigate the forest area of the coast. It was with these tribes that the main trade of the Company was done, and for the protection of this trade that its treaties were in the first instance negotiated.

Coincidently with the growth of trade it was found necessary to establish some form of political control, and as the operations of Mohammedan slave-raiders from the north, year by year, extended the circle of their devastation, and destroyed flourishing markets by the wholesale depopulation of areas in which they were situated, the further necessity was forced upon the Company of giving some form of military protection to threatened districts. For this purpose a constabulary was formed, and military outposts were advanced to Lokoja, at the confluence of the Niger and the Benue. Trading stations under the protection of Lokoja were subsequently established upon the Lower Benu6 and upon the Niger between the Boussa Rapids and Lokoja.

The ninth parallel of latitude may be taken as the farthest northerly extension reached by the outposts of the Company, and the Company's stations upon the rivers east and west from the confluence marked the meeting ground of the pagan states they desired to protect, and the militant Mohammedan civilisation of the north.

The great difference which existed between this civilisation and the primitive condition of the peoples of the lower river will have been gathered from what has been already written in the earlier sections of this book. The difference from the point of view of European trade was no less marked than from the more general point of view of political history. The Governors of the Company had always expressed the opinion that ultimately their most valuable trade would be done with the northern territories. In a speech made by the Governor at the annual meeting of 1889 he informed the shareholders that, after long and persistent research, palm oil and kernels appeared to form the only considerable resources