The sensation of the week has been a statement, circulated
on Wednesday, that the commander of a German gunboat had cut down the British flag at a place called Bageida, not very far from the Congo region, on the West Coast of Africa, and had hoisted the German flag in its place. It appears, however, that the insult to the British flag is quite imaginary ; and it is by no means certain that the German flag was hoisted at any place which is claimed by England, or has ever been under English protection. There is no doubt that a German gunboat, the- Mosve,' has been sailing along the West Coast of Africa, with a view of finding places suitable for German colonisation, and it is believed by some that to Bageida. and Popo, where German sovereignty has been proclaimed, England has laid formal claim. Even that, however, is uncertain ; so that the whole story of the German insult to our flag is of the nature of a myth,—a crystallisation into imaginary fact of the consciousness that Germany is in no very amiable frame of mind towards England.
