THE ADVANCE ON DONGOLA. 475 ivere under the absolute control of one single ruler. Negotiations were entered into between the Negus md the French Republic, and there seems no reason 0 doubt that an arrangement was concluded by which France was to send an expedition from her possessions n the West Soudan to raise the French flag on the )anks of the White Nile. It was arranged that an \byssinian army should meet the French expedition n the neighbourhood of Fashoda; and the joint brces were then to establish themselves on Soudanese erritory, so as to bar any claim on the part of England o the territory in question. It is not clear what part he Khalifa and the Dervishes were intended to play n this anti-English project. Communications of some :ind certainly did pass between Adis Adeba and Chartoum at this period, and a French flag was, I .m told, found in Omdurman upon its capture by our roops. The only facts, however, which can be now tated with any certainty, are that Major Marchand iras despatched from the French Soudan with orders o establish himself at Fashoda under the protection f the French flag, and that he and the French uthorities, with whose sanction the expedition was mdertaken, thought they had reason to expect he irould be met there by an Abyssinian army. These icts are stated very clearly in an article by M. Rene Mnon, published in the Revue des deux Mofides in •"ebruary last, under the title of " La Resurrection d un Ltat Africain"; and it is difficult to avoid the admision that if any considerable number of Abyssinian