ct, we may recognise that the
control of that river by Egypt is a vital necessity, and that the
nation which helped the Khedive to regain that control thereby
established one more claim to a close partnership in the administration
at Cairo. The reasonableness of that claim was finally admitted by
France in the Anglo-French agreement of the year 1904.

That treaty set the seal, apparently, on a series of efforts of a
strangely mixed character. The control of bondholders, the ill-advised
strivings of Arabi, the armed intervention undertaken by Sir Beauchamp
Seymour and Sir Garnet Wolseley, the forlorn hope of Gordon's Mission to
Khartum, the fanaticism of the Mahdists, the diplomatic skill of Lord
Cromer, the covert opposition of France and the Sultan, and the
organising genius of Lord Kitchener--such is the medley of influences,
ranging from the basest up to the noblest of which human nature is
capable, that served to draw the Government of Great Britain deeper and
deeper into the meshes of the Egyptian Question, until the heroism,
skill, and stubbornness of a few of her sons brought about results which
would now astonish those who early in the eighties tardily put forth the
first timid efforts at intervention.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE PARTITION OF AFRICA

In the opening up of new lands by European peoples the order of events
is generally somewhat as follows:--First come explorers, pioneers, or
missionaries. These having thrown some light on the character of a land
or of its people, traders follow in their wake; and in due course
factories are formed and settlements arise. The ideas of the new-comers
as to the rights of property and landholding differ so widely from those
of the natives, that quarrels and strifes frequently ensue. Warships and
soldiers then appear on the scene; and the end of the old order of
things is marked by the hoisting of the Union Jack, or the French or
German tricolour. In the case of the expansion of Russia as we have
seen, the procedure is far otherwise. But Africa has been for the most
part explored, exploited, and annexed by agencies working from the sea
and proceeding in the way just outlined.

The period since the year 1870 has for the most part witnessed the
operation of the last and the least romantic of these so-called
civilising efforts. The great age of African exploration was then
drawing to a close. In the year 1870 that devoted missionary explorer,
David Livingstone, was lo