422 A TROPICAL DEPENDENCY British government, near Wushishi, was situated, was nominally friendly to Great Britain, but in the beginning of July 1900 information reached the High Commissioner at Jebba that Kontagora and Nupe had planned a combined attack upon the little British garrison at Wushishi, and he hurried there in person with reinforcements under Major O'Neill. The situation became so acute that the population began to desert Wushishi, and in order to obtain supplies for the British troops and to protect the villages which had been friendly, it became necessary to erect some small forts in the neighbourhood, and to order Major O'Neill to patrol the country. This task being admirably performed, and the cavalry of Nupe and Kontagora defeated in a series of brilliant skirmishes, the country was occupied by British troops for some twenty miles south and east of Wushishi. Great loss was inflicted on the slave-raiders in the encounters by which the occupation was effected, and the people, siding as always with the party of success, crowded in thousands to the protected villages for safety. A situation was created in which the British Government already represented in the eyes of the natives a power strong enough to protect them against the scourge of the slave-raider.

But, as a matter of fact, with the body of the troops still absent in Ashantee, the local administration did not feel itself to be in a position to sustain suspended hostilities. A British Resident had been placed at the friendly court of Ilorin, where, while he worked hard at the introduction of domestic reforms, he was made aware that emissaries from Nupe and Kontagora were endeavouring to induce the Emir of Ilorin to join with them in an attempt to overpower the British and drive the white anti-slaver out of the country. The position was dangerous as well as delicate, and while the small force of soldiers at Wushishi held their own, and even on one occasion, somewhat rashly, drove the enemy before them to the walls of the Nupe capital at Bida, the desire of the High Commissioner was to avoid all but strictly necessary fighting. The Resident at Ilorin, Mr. Carnegie,