exploring expeditions, practically resolved itself into the organ of King Leopold himself, and aimed at creating a neutral state in Central Africa under his protection.  In 1878 H. M. Stanley returned from the exploration of the Congo.  He was at once invited by King Leopold to undertake the organisation of the Congo basin for his Association, and set out again for that purpose in 1879.  But he soon found himself in conflict with the active French agents under de Brazza, who had made their way into the Congo valley from the north-west.  And at the same time Portugal, reviving ancient and dormant claims, asserted that the Congo belonged to her.  It was primarily to find a solution for these disputes that the Berlin Conference was summoned in December 1884.  Meanwhile the rush for territory was going on furiously in other regions of Africa.  Not only on the Congo, but on the Guinea Coast and its hinterland, France was showing an immense activity, and was threatening to reduce to small coastal enclaves the old British settlements on this coast.  Only the energy shown by a group of British merchants, who formed themselves into a National African Company in 1881, and the vigorous action of their leader, Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Taubman Goldie, prevented the extrusion of British interests from the greater part of the Niger valley, where they had hitherto been supreme.  In Madagascar, too, the ancient ambitions of France had revived.  Though British trading and missionary activities in the island were at this date probably greater than French, France claimed large rights, especially in the north-east of the island.  These claims drew her into a war with the native power of the Hovas, which began in 1883, and ended in 1885 with a vague recognition of French suzerainty.  Again, Italy had, in 1883, obtained her first foothold in Eritrea, on the shore of the Red Sea.  And Germany, also, had suddenly made up her mind to embark upon the career of empire.  In 1883 the Bremen merchant, Luderitz, appeared in South-west Africa, where there were a few German mission stations and trading-centres, and annexed a large area which Bismarck was persuaded to take under the formal protection of Germany.  This region had hitherto been vaguely regarded as within the British sphere, but though native princes, missionaries, and in 1868 even the Prussian government, had requested Britain to establish a formal protectorate, she had always declined to do so.  In the next year another German agent, Dr. Nachtigal, was commissioned by the German government to report on German trade interests on the West Coast, and the British government was formally acquainted with his mission and requested to instruct its agents to assist him.  The real purpose of the mission was shown when Nachtigal made a treaty with the King of Togoland, on the Guinea Coast, whereby he accepted German suzerainty.  A week later a similar treaty was made with some of the native chiefs in the Cameroons.  In this region