been done for their relief. In May, 1889, a deputation, consisting of the archbishop and three members of the assembly, went to England to lay their grievances before the Government. The employment of British officials makes the taxes £75,000 a year heavier than under Turkish rule. The administration of the police is in the hands of incapable persons, and as a consequence crimes and deeds of violence have become much more common than formerly. The island is in pressing need of irrigation canals and of roads. Many of the inhabitants, after losing their farms, have settled on the neighboring mainland. Taxes, which amount to one fifth of the income of the islanders, can only be collected by selling the movable property even of farmers who formerly were prosperous. The Cypriote deputation suggested in the way of remedies that administrative economies should be effected by lowering the salaries of the foreign officials and reducing their number; that the tribute to the Porte should be done away with. by raising a loan guaranteed by the British Government; and that a special agricultural department should be created and an agricultural bank established to make advances to the peasants on easier terms than they can obtain from the usurers. The report of the Chief Justice for 1887-'88 shows an increase of 48 per cent. in crimes of violence over 1886-'87, when the figures showed an advance of 78 per cent. over those of 1885-'86. In the season of 1887-88 there was a severe drought and almost an entire failure of the grain crops, causing much suffering from hunger. Large numbers of animals were sent out of the island to be sold for what they would bring, because there was no fodder. The Government imported a large quantity of food for the people.

Aden, an important coaling station on the Arabian coast, about 100 miles east of Bab-elMandeb, is administered under the direction of the Bombay Government. Exclusive of the island of Perim, the area of the district of Aden, a rocky peninsular, is 75 square miles, and the population is 34,711. The Somali coast protectorate opposite is administered by the political resident of Aden. It extends from 43° 15' east longitude around Cape Guardafui as far south as Ras Hafun. The chief port is Berbera, from which are exported coffee, gums, hides, sheep, and cattle. The Kuria Muria islands, off the Arabian coast, and the island of Socotra, off the coast of Africa, having an area of 3,000 square miles and 4,000 population, are also attached to Aden. The chief product of Socotra is aloes. It was formally annexed in 1886.

British North Borneo is a territory 31,106 square miles in extent, which was acquired by purchase from the Sultans of Brunei and Sulu in 1877, by Alfred Dent and Baron Overbeck. The British North Borneo Company was organized, and in 1881 a royal charter was granted authorizing it to acquire and exercise rights of sovereignty under the supervision of the Imperial Government, which in 1889 extended the protection of the Crown over the territory, which had been increased in 1884 by the province of Dent in the south. The population is about 175,000, consisting of Mohammedan settlers on the coast, Chinese traders, laborers, and artisans, and native

tribes in the interior. The imports for the first half of 1889 amounted to $536,442 and the exports to $198,340, being an increase of 43 and 16 per cent. respectively over the corresponding period of 1888. The export of gutta-percha has decreased, while India-rubber has increased, and rattans, birds' nests, and seed pearls show great improvement. The staple export is timber, which shows an increase notwithstanding a greatly augmented local demand. There were 5,015 immigrants in the first six months of 1889, of whom 2,675 were Chinese and 2,112 Malays. The number of emigrants was 1,125. In 1888 a demand for land arose for tobacco plantations when it was found to be adapted for the cultivation of the commercially valuable Sumatra variety. The North Borneo Company has engaged in this culture, and there are 20 subsidiary companies employing Chinese labor in growing tobacco. Sago is also cultivated. The receipts of the company for 1888 amounted to £63,125, including £37,995 from sales of land. The expenditures were £21,494 less than the total receipts, but if the land sales are reckoned as capital and not as revenue, according to the original purpose of the company, there was a deficit of £16,494 in the year's accounts. The sources of revenue are, besides land sales, opium, liquor, and gambling, farms, birds' nests, stamps, licenses, import duties, royalties, etc. In 1888 and 1889 the expenditure was increased by a warlike expedition, which added much valuable cultivated land to the company's possessions. The Pangeran Shabander, a Malay chief, whose territory was surrounded by that of the British North Borneo Company, claimed that it extended from the Padas Besar to the Padas Kliao, which are two large rivers that flow into the sea in the neighborhood of the island of Labuan. The company asserted that it was only over the basin of the Padas Damit, a smaller stream between the other two, that he had authority. The Sultan of Brunei, the Pangeran's suzerain, acknowledged the justice of the company's claim, for he had granted the part of the Pangeran's dominion that was in controversy to the company in 1884; but he refused to enforce his decision, and the company, rather than go to war with the Pangeran, left him in undisturbed possession of the disputed territory. The Pangeran was considered a bad neighbor who gave asylum to escaped criminals, and it was suspected that the Sarawak authorities, desiring the failure of the North Borneo Company, encouraged him in his insolent and annoying conduct. When one of the company's tax-collectors was killed in 1888, his brother, Si Patek, was accused of the crime. On the refusal of the Pangeran to deliver up the murderer to the company or to the Sultan for trial, the Governor of the North Borneo territory, Charles V. Creagh, sent an expedition up the Padas Damit, consisting of a force of Sikhs that was recruited for the purpose at Singapore. The Pangeran's principal fort at Galela was captured, with a loss of six men, early in February, 1889, and an attack was in preparation on a second fort when Shabander asked the intervention of the Rajah of Sarawak and the British Governor of Labuan, who is consul-general to Brunei. At the intervention of the consul-general an armistice was granted, and Shabander

went to Brunei and thence to Labuan, where he met Governor Creagh, and signed a treaty ceding all his territory to the company and agreeing to go away forever in return for an annuity of $2.130 per annum. The company's flag was hoisted at Padas Damit on March 23, and the new rule was accepted by the natives without any signs of dissatisfaction. The Pangeran, who was present, represented that many of the people were addicted to incantations and exorcisms, and suggested that such practices be suppressed. The governor declined to follow this perfidious counsel, replying that in British colonies it was not usual to interfere with superstitious customs so long as they caused no injury to any part of the community.

Labuan, an island having an area of 30 square miles, about 6 miles from the northwest coast of Borneo, has been British territory since 1846. The population, consisting mostly of Malays from Borneo, is 6,298. It is a depot for the trade in sago, gutta-percha, rubber, wax, and other products of Borneo and other islands, which are forwarded from Labouan to Singapore. The exports in 1887 amounted to £86,990. The revenue was £4,167 and the expenditure £4,201. In 1889 the administration of Labouan was committed to the officials of the North Borneo company.

Sarawak is a native state on the island of Borneo that was established in 1840 by Sir James Brooke, who governed it under the title of Rajah, and was succeeded in 1868 by his nephew Charles Johnson Brooke. It was declared a British protectorate in 1888, at the same time with the sultanate of Brunei. The area is about 35,000 square miles, and the population 300,000. The products are similar to those of North Borneo. Coal is found in abundance, and gold, silver, and other metals are found. The revenue is about $280,000, and the imports and exports $1,500,000 each. In 1889 the Ghee Hin, a Chinese secret society that is very numerous and powerful in Malay countries, threatened to make trouble for the authorities, and Rajah Brooke, fearing an insurrection of Chinese, like that which in 1857 compelled his uncle to flee for a time from the country, arrested and tried the conspirators, and condemned them to severe punishments.

The Straits Settlements, comprising Singapore, Penang, with Province Wellesley, and Malacca, formerly attached to the Government of India, have been administered since 1867 as a Crown colony. The Cocos Islands were annexed to the Straits Settlements in 1886, and Christmas Island in 1888. Province Wellesley is a strip of coast on the western side of the Malayan Peninsula. The small island of Pulau Pangkor, with a small strip on the opposite shore, has been declared British territory, the whole being known as the Dingdingo. The area of the island of Singapore is 206 square miles; of the island of Penang, 107 square miles; of Malacca, extending about 42 miles along the western coast of the peninsula, about 600 square miles. The population of Singapore in 1881 was 139,439, of whom 2,769 were whites; of Penang, 189,923, including 674 whites; of Malacca, 93,539, including 40 whites. Of the total colored population of the Straits Settlements 174,392 were Malays, 174,327 Chinese, and 93,579 natives of India.

The native states of Perak, Selangor, Sungei Ujong, Jelebu, Johore, the Negri Sembilan group of small states in the interior, and since 1888 Pahang, together covering a large part of the peninsula, are under British protection. The area of Perak is 7,950 square miles, population 179,590; the area of Selangor 3,000 square miles, population 120,000; the area of Sungei Ujong 660 square miles, population 14,000; the area of Jelebu and the Negri Sembilan is 2,000; of Johore, 8,000; and of Pahang, 10,000 square miles. The principal wealth of these states lies in their tin mines, which are largely leased and worked by Chinamen. There are also rich gold mines in some of them. The country is very fertile, and well adapted for coffee and cinchona culture on the elevated spots and of rice in the lowlands. In Perak, Selangor, and Sungei Ujong the administration is largely carried on by a British resident and his staff of European officials. Jelebu is under the control of the Sungei Ujong administration. The administration of the small states known as the Sri Menanti Confederacy is under the control of a British superintendent. The sultans of Johore and Pahang, who have only recently accepted a protectorate, have confided their foreign relations to the direction of the British Government, and are reforming their despotic and benighted systems of government under the advice of English political agents. The revenue of the Straits Settlements in 1887 was £689,371, and the expenditure £629,070. Perak in the same year raised a revenue of £327,435, and expended £277,795; the revenue of Selangor was £206,740, and the expenditure £158,730; the revenue of Sungei Ujong, was £25,353, and the expenditure £23,598. The revenue of these states is mainly derived from the export of tin. Selangor has a debt of £57,000, and Sungei Ujong and Negri Sembilan have likewise contracted small debts. The revenue and population of the native states is rapidly increasing, and liberal sums are expended on sewerage, roads, bridges, and other public improvements. The revenue of Perak in 1888 exceeded $2,000,000, and that of Selangor was $1,400,000. The net immigration into Perak in the same year was 29,129, and into Selangor 26,000. There are railroads in profitable operation in both states, and new ones are building. Laws have been made to preserve the forests from destruction. The exhaustive culture of gambier and tapioca is giving way to other products. Agriculture is advancing, notwithstanding the preference of the Chinese for mining, trading, and other more lucrative employments. Exports have decreased in value, owing to the low price of tin, but the quantity has increased. The Chinese secret societies, which often become a menace to good order where they are allowed to develop. have been subjected in the native states to stringent prohibitive measures, such as exist in the Spanish and Dutch colonies, in Siam, and elsewhere. Frequent disturbances have been caused by these societies, and in 1889 the Legislative Council of Singapore was about to pass a bill for the suppression of all Chinese secret societies, but postponed its consideration by order of the Colonial Office. The members of registered secret societies in Singapore number about 70,000 and

in Penang 100,000. The imports into the Straits Settlements in 1887 amounted in value to $142,300,000, and the exports to $120,300,000. The chief articles of import and export for which Singapore is a market are opium, rice, tea, coffee, tobacco, hardware, copper, copra, gambier, pepper, gum, rattans, tin, sago, tapioca, cigars. The trade is largest with Netherlands, India, Great Britain, the Malay Peninsula, and Hong-Kong, after which come Siam, British India, British Burmah, China, French Cochin-China, the United States, and Germany. The number of vessels entered at the ports of the colony in 1887 was 7,075, of 4,312,901 tons, and the number cleared was 6,916, of 4,042,105 tons, exclusive of native craft, numbering 11,664, of 302,427 tons. Batteries for the defense of Singapore harbor were completed in 1888. The British garrison at Singapore, including two companies of infantry at Penang, in 1889 numbered 1,818 men, besides whom there was a small force of Sikh gunners. Ceylon is a colony having a representative form of government, the various races and classes being represented by 6 of the 15 members of the Legislative Council. The area of the island is 25,364 square miles, and the population was in 1881, as determined by the census, 2,759,738, consisting of 1,469,553 males and 1,290,185 females. The population comprised 4,836 Europeans, 17,866 Eurasians and descendants of Dutch colonists, 1,846,614 indigenous Singhalese, 687,248 Tamils, 184,542 Moormen or descendants of Arabs, 8,895 Malays, 2,228 Veddahs, and 7,489 others. Of the Europeans 4,074 were British. The military population was not included in the census. In 1889 the British garrison numbered 1,331 men. The principal religious creeds had the following numbers of adherents in 1881: Buddhist, 1,698,070; Hindus, 493,630: Mohammedans, 197,775; Christians, 147,977. The revenue of the colonial government in 1888 was estimated at 13,784,150 rupees. The imports in 1887 were valued at a total of 50,312,136 rupees, and the exports at 40,018,869 rupees. The principal exports were coffee, tea, cinchona, cacao, plumbago, cocoanut products, cinnamon, and areca nuts. There were at the last returns 628,304 acres planted to cocoa-nut palm, 32,663 acres devoted to Palmyra, areca, and other palms, 743,023 acres under rice and cereals, 104,108 acres under coffee, 199,647 acres under tea, and 3,462 acres under cinchona. The production of coffee has been to a large extent abandoned, owing to the destruction of the plantations by disease. The export has fallen off from 824,509 hundred-weight in 1879 to 178,490 hundred-weight in 1887. The culture of tea, cinchona, cacao, and cocoa-nut palms, on the other hand, has been growing in recent years. There were 181 miles of railroad completed in 1887, and 325 miles were projected or in process of construction.

On the east coast of Africa a strip of the Zanzibar coast, 150 miles long, extending from Wanga, the northern limit of the German sphere of influence, to Tana river, was in 1888 ceded by the Sultan for the period of fifty years to the British East Africa Company. The company claims the interior between the German possessions and Tana river and as far inland as Victoria Nyanza, by virtue of treaties concluded

with native chiefs, the total area being 70,000 square miles. It has received a charter from the British Government (see ZANZIBAR).

The island of Mauritius, 500 miles east of Madagascar, has a Legislative Council in which 10 of the 27 members are elective, in accordance with a change in the Constitution made in 1885. The Governor is Sir John Pope Henessy, who has held the appointment since 1882. Under the same administration are Rodrigues, Diego Garcia, and the Seychelles. Mauritius has an area of 708 square miles. The population on Jan. 1, 1888, was 368,163, comprising 207,481 males and 160,682 females. Of the total 251,342 consisted of Indians, and the remainder included whites, native Africans, Chinese, and mixed races. There were 3,945 Chinese. The immigration in 1887 was 264, and the emigration 1,950. Port Louis, the capital, had a population of 61,963 in 1887. The revenue of the colony in 1887 was 6,858,919 rupees, and the expenditure 7,985,909 rupees. The chief product is sugar, which was represented by 22,969,998 rupees out of the total value of exports in 1887, amounting to 25,998,056 rupees. The minor exports are rum, vanilla, aloe fiber, and cocoa-nut oil. The total value of the imports was 23,434,100 rupees. The trade is chiefly with British South Africa, India, and Australia. The total commerce has contracted nearly 30 per cent. in four years. The Seychelles had in 1880 a population of 15,752, and exported in 1887, cocoa-nut oil, soap, vanilla, tortoise-shell, etc., of the total value of 621,789 rupees. The population of Rodrigues was 1,826.

The British Government has annexed recently several small islands and island groups in the Pacific. The nine islands constituting the Cook group, which includes the Hervey Islands, were proclaimed English territory and formally occupied in November, 1888. The islands of Rurutua, and Rimitara, forming part of the Austral group, were promised a British protectorate at the solicitation of the inhabitants, who are Protestant Christians, their desire having been communicated to the commander of the naval forces by the rulers of the two islands, who visited Raratonga, the chief island of the Cook group, for that purpose. At the protest of the French Government, to which Tubuai and Raivavai, the larger islands of the Austral group belong, England refrained from her purpose, and the islands were occupied by France. On April 22 the British flag was hoisted over the Suwarrow Islands, a small group in the South Pacific lying northwest of the Cook Islands in 13° south latitude and 163° west longitude. The group consists of three wooded islands connected by a reef, and affording an excellent anchoring place. In August Humphrey and Rierson islands, in the Manihiki group, to the north of the Cook Islands, were taken possession of. These annexations were made chiefly with reference to utilization of the islands in connection with a proposed cable between Vancouver and Australia.

On the west coast of Africa England has the colonies of Sierra Leone, Gambia, Lagos, and the Gold Coast. Sierra Leone includes the peninsula of that name, the island Sherbro, and other territory adjoining, its total area being 468 square miles, and the population 60,546, of

whom 60 are whites. Freetown, the capital, with 21,930 inhabitants, is the headquarters of the British military forces in western Africa, which numbered 676 soldiers in 1889. The revenue derived chiefly from customs, was £60,637 in 1887, and the expenditure £58,334. The chief exports are seeds, nuts, palm oil and kernels, hides, and ginger. The total imports in 1887 were valued at £308,039, and the exports at £333,517.

Gambia was constituted into an independent colony in December, 1888. It has an area of 41 square miles and a population of 14,150, of whom 41 are whites. There are 5,300 Mohammedans and 2,385 Christians, mostly Methodists. The export trade is confined chiefly to groundnuts, minor articles being hides, beeswax, and India-rubber. The imports in 1887 amounted to £80,800, and the exports to £86,933. The revenue collected in 1887 was £13,453, and the expenditures of the administration were £23,922. Lagos, an island on the Slave Coast, was detached from the colony of the Gold Coast in 1886. The British protectorate extends along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea from 2° to 6° of east longitude. The area of Lagos is 1,071 square miles. The population was 87,165 in 1883, including 117 whites. The Christians numbered 9,641. The revenue in 1887 was £51,346, and the expenditure £78,610. The principal articles of export are palm oil and palm kernels, with some ivory. The imports in 1887 had a total value of £415,343, and the exports amounted to £491,469. The colony maintains a military force of Houssas and Yorubas at a cost of £12,000 per annum.

more.

The Gold Coast extends along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea about 350 miles and 50 miles inland, the total area claimed being about 15,000 square miles, not including the protectorate, which has an extent of 14,400 square miles The population of the colony is 1,406,450. The revenue in 1887 was £122,351, and the expenditure £139,443. The leading exports are gold, palm oil and kernels, and gum. The imports of all the West African colonies are cotton cloth, rum, gin, tobacco, and provisions. The total value of the imports in 1887 was £363,716, of the exports £372,446. The chief difficulty in the way of the agricultural development of the colonies is the lack of labor. The introduction of Chinese laborers is in contemplation. The natives of the coast will not work more than is necessary to supply them with food. The Kroomen, who are the only industrious race of Africans, have been introduced by Governor Maloney, but they are difficult to obtain in sufficient numbers. The cocoa-nut trees might yield a good trade, but the fruit is wasted through lack of enterprise, and nothing is done with the fiber. The coffee shrub grows luxuriantly, but this product, as well as cocoa, is entirely neglected by the people, who see no necessity for having other exports besides palm oil and kernels. The trade in Calabar beans is dying out, and also that in rubber, which was once very promising, and in ginger, which grows with the greatest luxuriance. Monkey skins and porcupine quills are among the minor exports. The annual export of ivory is about 14,000 pounds, the value about £4,000. The average annual export of

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gold dust for five years has been 20,258 ounces. Attempts are being made to work the gold mines, although of capital and labor it is alike difficult to obtain as much as is required. Quartz mines have at various times been opened under the superintendence of white men; but either the machinery failed to reach the spot or the superintendents died, and the enterprise has been given up. Within a short time, however, shafts have been sunk and stamp mills erected at several places on the Ancobra river, and mining is regularly carried on under European superintendence. The yield of gold per ton is sufficient to pay a profit on the outlay.

The four West African colonies have been stimulated to fresh exertions by the colonial and commercial enterprise of the Germans, and especially by the endeavors of the French to extend their influence over the interior. In order to forestall them and prevent their surrounding the British colonies, shutting them out from the interior and ruining their trade, Governor Alfred Maloney, of Lagos, made every effort to bring under British influence and protection the Yorubas and other tribes. He has succeeded in his purpose, preserving for Lagoș a free route to the interior and the commerce of the native markets, and by treaties with the chiefs has annexed the Yoruba country and obtained free access to and beyond the Kong mountains and up to the sphere of the Royal Niger Company. From their stations on the slave coast a French agent named Viard visited Abeokuta, behind Lagos, and in the name of the French Government made a treaty with the rulers. The French Government, on being interrogated, said that it intended to make no use of the political clauses of the treaty. Although Abeokuta contributes two fifths of the revenue of Lagos, no treaty has been made with that country since 1852 by British officials. The encroachments of the French from behind have destroyed the possibility of the expansion of Gambia and Sierra Leone, and have curtailed their revenues. Warned by this, the Governor of Lagos exerted himself to establish a prior claim over Yoruba, which with its 2,500,000 inhabitants, furnishes nearly all the trade of Lagos. The Governor of Senegal in extending French possessions occupied territories bordering on the river Gambia which the English claimed as a part of their dependencies. In deference to British representations, the French Government checked the progress of their military occupations in order that the question of boundaries and spheres of influence might be discussed diplomatically.

In 1888 a young official named Dalrymple was sent with a force of Houssas to the district of Tavieve to endeavor to put a stop to feuds between the natives. Though cautioned not to use force unless compelled to, he reported on reaching the district that unless he was allowed to punish the people the expedition would result in failure, and on his own responsibility he arrested several natives, one of whom, on his refusal to go, was shot dead, probably by Dalrymple. A fight ensued, in which Dalrymple and some of his soldiers were slain, and many more on the other side. Assistant Inspector Akers with 63 Houssa soldiers was sent to punish the natives, whom they attacked in their villages

and pursued into the bush, shooting down 167, while about 600 more, including women and children, perished from starvation and exposure. The chief and principal men of the tribe were brought to Accra to be tried for the killing of Dalrymple. The judge refused to entertain a charge of conspiracy to murder and the attorneygeneral refused to prosecute them for murder, whereupon the Governor called together the Legislative Council, which passed a special ordinance empowering him to imprison them for life without trial.

Through the medium of the Royal Niger Company the English are endeavoring to outstrip the French in the race for the control of the Western Soudan. From the boundary of Lagos near the river Benin to the German colony of Cameroons that ends at Rio del Rey the entire coast, including the delta of the Niger is under British protection, and is administered by a consular staff in accordance with an order in council issued in 1885. This coast constitutes the protectorate of the Oil rivers, behind which lie the territories of the Royal Niger Company, a limited joint-stock company controlling the trade and navigation of the Niger and Binué rivers under the authority of a charter granted on July 10, 1886, extending the protection of the British Government to the territories of the company. These territories are bounded on the east by the German sphere of influence. The population of the Niger protectorate is believed to be 12,000,000, of whom more than two thirds are Mohammedans. The total trade with Great Britain amounts to about £1,200,000, of which £750,000 comes from the Oil rivers and £450,000 from the upper Niger and the Binué. The principal articles of export are palm oil, palm kernels, India-rubber, shea-butter, ivory, ebony, camwood, indigo, hides, timber, gum, and cocoa. The imports are spirits, gunpowder, cotton prints, firearms, hardware, soap, pottery, fancy articles, tobacco, and rice. There is an export duty on palm oil and kernels in the Oil river territory. The Royal Niger Company collects both import and export duties. British as well as German merchants complain that since it is a trading company the right to impose duties gives it the power of excluding all competition, and that it uses this power in the fullest measure. As soon as the international convention was concluded in Berlin in 1885, securing perfect freedom of trade on the Niger, the National Africa Company, afterward the Royal Niger Company, which in 1881 had bought up the other English companies trading on the Niger, set itself to render the convention a dead letter as far as that river was concerned by shutting out the threatened German competition and securing for itself a monopoly of the trade, An expedition under Joseph Thomson in 1885 visited the Sultans of Sokoto and Gando, and reported the conclusion of treaties with them and the riverine chiefs, securing to the company the exclusive right to trade, acquire land, and work mines in their territories. The British Government then endowed the company with political jurisdiction over the region thus acquired, including the right to levy duties. By those treaties the company's sphere of influence was extended to Sago, on the middle Niger, and

to Yola, on the upper Benué. The line delimiting the German sphere of influence was, on the strength of these treaties, drawn from Rio del Rey to Yola. German traders have been unable to acquire sites for factories on the rivers, and in 1888 one of them who entered into negotiations with the natives was expelled from the Niger protectorate. The complaints were so many that the German Government sent its consul in Lagos, Herr von Puttkamer, to the Niger to investigate the condition of things there. The English Government likewise dispatched an official on a tour of inspection. Herr von Puttkamer is said to have had difficulties thrown in his way, the inhabitants being forbidden to communicate with him or to sell him food. There was a report that he was made a prisoner by the natives at the instigation of an official of the company, and diplomatic representations were resorted to by his Government to secure for him better treatment. Most of the treaties, according to the German report, are fictitious, as the Mohammedan rulers have from the first refused to enter into relations with the company. English as well as German merchants complain that they are subjected to annoying restrictions, that they are allowed to trade only at certain places, that their vessels are stopped and the cargoes confiscated, and that every possible obstacle is placed in the way of free trade, in addition to the imposts that have been raised to such a height as to destroy all profits for outsiders. The natives are heavily taxed, yet they derive no benefit from the jurisdiction of the company, which does not pretend to govern the country. The leader of an expedition sent by the company into the interior in 1889 had a difficulty with some of his native followers, in consequence of which several of them were killed.

King Ja Ja, of Opobo, in the Oil river territory, was accused of breaking a treaty concluded in 1884, by obstructing the English consul who visited the upper river for the purpose of estab lishing freedom of trade. The chief was inveigled on board a steamer and taken away to Accra on the Gold Coast, where he was put through the forms of a trial, and sentenced to be transported for the period of five years. He was taken in May, 1889, to the Windward Islands, and given a residence on the island of St. Vincent, where he was joined by his children and one of his wives. The people of the Opobo river were offended at the removal of their ruler and at the measures taken to abolish their trading privileges, which they resisted by force. Admiral Wells, on the ship Raleigh," blockaded the mouth of the Opobo, and ordered the chiefs to deliver up their arms and war canoes and pay a fine, and to remove the boom that they had placed across one of the branches of the river. Some of the chiefs complied, and the blockade was raised when the obstructions were removed.

In the South Atlantic the island of Ascension, 35 square miles in extent, with 200 inhabitants, is used as a naval station, and is visited by whalers. About 800 miles from Ascension and 1,200 from the coast of Africa is the island of St. Helena, formerly valuable as a port of call on the cape route to India The area of the island is 47 square miles, and its population-which is constantly decreasing-was 5,085 in 1883, of