After a considerable amount of friction owing to the encroachments of Major Serpa Pinto, the limits of Portuguese Angola on the west coast were then determined, being bounded on the east by the Congo Free State and British Central Africa; and at the same time Portuguese East Africa was settled in its relation both to British Central Africa on the west and German East Africa on the north.

Meanwhile Italy had put in its claims for a share in the spoil, and the eastern horn of Africa, together with Abyssinia, fell to its share, though it soon had to drop it, owing to the unexpected vitality shown by the Abyssinians.

In the same year (1890) agreements between Germany and England settled the line of demarcation between the Cameroons and Togoland, with the adjoining British territories; while in August of the same year an attempt was made to limit the abnormal pretensions of the French along the Niger, and as far as Lake Chad.

Here the British interests were represented by another Chartered Company, the Royal Niger Company.

Unfortunately the delimitation was not very definite, not being by river courses or meridians as in other cases, but merely by territories ruled over by native chiefs, whose boundaries were not then particularly distinct.