132 EUROPE AND AFRICA 
both countries. And now France and England, declining an 
appeal to arms, reached a similar agreement in West Africa. 
This conciliatory policy and willingness to make reasonable 
concessions and adjustments when great issues and problems 
affecting the future of a whole continent were at stake, 
is a striking example of the new spirit which has played a 
dominant part in European diplomacy in recent years. It 
is a long step toward the establishment of a genuine world 
peace and the creation of an international comity and com- 
petition of the right sort. 
In 1880, Great Britain and France had been convinced 
by the increasing border difficulties that some understanding 
must be reached with regard to the boundaries of their 
respective spheres of influence in West Africa. The frontier 
of all the West Coast colonies was open and undetermined 
at the rear, exact geographical knowledge of the region was 
lacking, and no attempt had been made to delimit accurately 
the lines of division between the settlements. No scientific 
surveys of the “hinterland” had been made anywhere; and 
conflicting claims and overlapping jurisdictions were every- 
where in evidence. In the agreement of June 28, 1882,1 
the watershed between the Mellicouri and Great Scarcies 
Rivers was fixed as the dividing line between French Guinea 
and Sierra Leone; and on August 10, 1889,2 and June 26, 
1891,% the boundaries between the British colonies of Gam- 
bia, Sierra Leone, Gold Coast, and Lagos and the adjoining 
French possessions were carefully outlined. The Gambia 
colony was to include all the land within ten kilometers of 
both sides of the river and to extend as far into the interior 
as Yarbatenda. Sierra Leone was to end at lat. 10° N.; 
Gold Coast, Lagos, and Dahomey at 9°; but the two latter 
1 Brit. and For. St. Papers, vol. 77, pp. 1007-12. 
2 Brit. Parl. Papers, 1892, Africa No. 7, cd. 6701, pp. 8-15. 
3 [bid., pp. 16-17,