sitting of the Senate on April 5, 1895, to make, in the name of
the Government, declarations to which I consider that I am all the
more justified in referring from the fact that they have called
forth no reply from the British Government."

The speech to which M. Hanotaux refers is published at length in an
appendix, and, so far from being a reply to Sir Edward Grey, it gives
the French position completely away.

"I now come, gentlemen," he said, "to the question of the Upper
Nile. I will explain the situation to the Senate in a few words;
for I think it will be useful to complete the explanations which
M. de Lamarzelle has already given on this subject. Between the
country of the lakes and the point of Wady Halfa, on the Nile,
extends a vast region, measuring twenty degrees of latitude, or
2000 kilometres, that is, more than the breadth of Western Europe
from Gibraltar to Dunkirk. In this region there is at this moment,
perhaps, not a single European; in any case, there does not exist
any power derived, by any title, from a European authority. It is
the country of the Mahdi! Now, gentlemen, it is the future of this
country which fills with an uneasiness, which we may describe as
at least premature, the minds of a certain number of persons
interested in Africa. The Egyptians who occupied this vast domain
for a considerable time have moved to the north. Emin Pasha
himself was compelled to withdraw. The rights of the Sultan and
the Khedive alone continue to exist over the regions of the Soudan
and of Equatorial Africa."

That is to say, after the Mahdi, who was the _de facto_ ruler, the
authority over the whole basin of the Upper Nile reverted to the
Khedive and the Sultan as his suzerain, which is exactly the position
taken up by Lord Salisbury in his despatch of September 9, 1898.

Major Marchand has had various titles conferred upon him, and in the
penultimate despatch contained in the papers he is described by Lord
Salisbury as "a French explorer who is on the Upper Nile in a
difficult position." To M. Delcasse, however, is reserved the honour
of giving him an official designation. On September 7 the French
Foreign Minister, in an interview with Sir E. Monson, after handsomely
complimenting the British Government on the victory of Omdurman,
expressed his anxiety about a possible meeting of the Sirdar and M.
Marchand.

"Sho