Some statements published by Lieutenants Gwynne and Morley make it
perfectly clear that the fight at Weeima, in Sierra Leone, in which the French Lieutenant Maritz was frilled, arose from a blunder on both sides. The British troops, 400 strong, all belonging to the West India Regi- ments, were marching against the Sofas, a marauding tribe subsequently wiped out, when they were mistaken by the French, who were only 30 strong, for native raiders led by Illussulma,ns, who wear white dresses, which, as it chanced, the English officers who were roused from sleep were also wearing. The British losses were due to the terrible effect of the magazine-rifle, the bullets from which poured like hail for the ;first two minutes, and the only pleasant feature in the affair was the steadiness of the men from the West Indian Regi- ments, who formed up at once and " returned every individual shot." The moral of the whole business is of course that in Africa, as in Europe, two Powers whose territories march must either find or create a visible line of demarcation. Or- dinary officers cannot recognise frontiers drawn only on maps and defined by degrees of latitude and longitude. There must be something to see, and the difficulty is to settle on something which can be as easily fixed as telegraph-posts. That should not be beyond the competence of the engineers or the resources of the colony.
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