after this event the first German factory was established in the estuary
by Messrs Woermann of Hamburg. In 1870 the station at Bimbia was given
up by the missionaries, but that at Akwa town continued to flourish, the
Dualla showing themselves eager to acquire education, while Saker
reduced their language to writing. He left Cameroon in 1876, the year
before George Grenfell, afterwards famous for his work on the Congo,
came to the country, where he remained three years. Like the earlier
missionaries he explored the adjacent districts, discovering the Sanaga
in its lower course. Although British influence was powerful and the
British consul for the Oil Rivers during this period exercised
considerable authority over the native chiefs, requests made by them--in
particular by the Dualla chiefs in 1882--for annexation by Great
Britain, were refused or neglected, with the result that when Germany
started on her quest to pick up unappropriated parts of the African
coast she was enabled to secure Cameroon. A treaty with King Bell was
negotiated by Dr Gustav Nachtigal, the signature of the king and the
other chiefs being obtained at midnight on the 15th of July 1884. Five
days later Mr E.H. Hewett, British consul, arrived with a mission to
annex the country to Great Britain.[2] Though too late to secure King
Bell's territory, Mr Hewett concluded treaties with all the neighbouring
chiefs, but the British government decided to recognize the German claim
not only to Bell town, but to the whole Cameroon region. Some of the
tribes, disappointed at not being taken over by Great Britain, refused
to acknowledge German sovereignty. Their villages were bombarded and
they were reduced to submission. The settlement of the English Baptists
at Victoria, Ambas Bay, was at first excluded from the German
protectorate, but in March 1887 an arrangement was made by which, while
the private rights of the missionaries were maintained, the sovereignty
of the settlement passed to Germany. The Baptist Society thereafter made
over its missions, both at Ambas Bay and in the estuary, to the Basel
Society.

The extension of German influence in the interior was gradually
accomplished, though not without considerable bloodshed. That part of
Adamawa recognized as outside the British frontier was occupied in 1901
after somewhat severe fighting. In 1902 the imperial troops first
penetrated into that part of Bornu reserved to Germany by agreements
with Great Bri