§ MR. BUCHANAN (Edinburgh, W.)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it was a fact that Senor Castilloes had been sent by the Portuguese Government to the Zambesi, and is charged by them to make a survey for a railway past the cataracts of the Shiré; whether the territory through which such a railway would pass was beyond the Ruo River, and is in the exclusive occupation of British settlements; whether the Ruo had been previously recognized in communications between Her Majesty's Government and Portugal as the extreme boundary of Portuguese territory in the direction of the interior; and, whether the Government would decline to recognize any claim to territorial sovereignty on the part of Portugal in the district between the Ruo and Lake Nyassa?
§ *THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON,) Manchester, N.E.We have no reason to believe that a survey is to be made for a line of railway past the Shiré Cataracts, but if this was so it would be below the confluence of the Ruo and Shiré. The confluence of these rivers was fixed as the boundary of Portuguese territory in the Agreement of 1884 between this country and Portugal; but that Agreement was not ratified, and, therefore, is not in force. Portugal has hitherto exercised no functions of sovereignty or protectorate in the region mentioned.