cannot appreciate a useless distinction, but they cannot fathom the theory of prizes. Three years ago, as recently at Bu Farik, premiums were awarded for the best foals; it was necessary to compel the candidates to come forward, or none would have made their appearance. Our chef de bureau says: "It has come to my knowledge that, in one of the principal towns of Algeria, the natives actually refused to accept the money proffered, saying that they did not wish to sell their horses. You have inscribed me,' they said, and my horse certainly belongs to the beylik (the state), and no doubt, some day, it will reclaim it.' All possible explanations were made, and the resistance of some few individuals has been overcome, but the generality still say: What I saw there is not possible; to give money and to take nothing is not natural; there is something hidden beneath such a proceeding. May Heaven defend us! It is the same difficulty," adds the chef, "appearing under all kinds of forms, that requires to be conquered by incessant attention, and the most perfect devotion on the part of our agents."

Notwithstanding the bad points in the character of the native Algerians, such as deceitfulness, lying, and want of confidence in their rulers, all begot by centuries of misrule by the Turks, and their love of predatory expeditions and faction strife inherent in the race, the chef de bureau signalises many good qualities. He asserts that he has always found perfect good faith in their commercial transactions. Gravity and a natural dignity of character are inseparable from the Mussulman. What he does he does at his own time and convenience. The French, with their anxious, excitable, and hurried movements, are compared by them to so many bluebottle flies. Their language is also always dignified, and their sentiments of an elevated character. They are faithful in their friendships, and devoted. Such a race, whether Arab or Berber, or mixed Arab and Berber, as is mostly the case in the Tell, can never be abject or despicable.

"During my functions as 'chef du bureau Arabe,' " M. Hugonnet writes, "it has often happened to me, when it appeared in the case brought before me that an opportunity presented itself of appealing to the feelings, to make such an appeal in favour of friendship or good relations, and to evoke sentiments of peace, affection, or of reciprocal services, and I have scarcely ever done so in vain."

The chef de bureau has, it is to be observed, in reality more power than even a Turkish pasha. He can even control the Mussulman in his religious practices, and he has further to meet all the wants, all the demands, and all attempts made by Europeans to colonise the country, without having a veto upon colonisation. He controls the administration of native chiefs, and acts as judge and magistrate, assisted in most instances by the kadi. He is not guided by any code of laws, so much as by the customs and spirit of the country. He proposes the nomination or deposing of the native chiefs. He heads the native auxiliary forces in time of war, collects the taxes, and exhorts the natives to " progress and civilisation." There is not, in fact, a thing that he is not mixed up with, and his berth is anything but a sinecure. Imagine an extent of territory, never less than that of a French department, ruled by an almost irresponsible chief, and that in all its minutest details of private as well as of public life!

M. Hugonnet, like Napoleon III., believes in the progress of the natives, but he says, very justly, the European colonist has something to learn from them, and not all to teach, as is generally surmised. They (the natives) believe that their conquerors mean well, but many mistakes have been made in the attempts to inoculate them with European customs, which are always confounded with civilisation. Ope of the first was to induce them to live in stone houses, when habit, climate, and old traditions made them prefer the tent. The French actually built a house for a great chief, and he was afterwards asked how he liked it. He was profuse in his acknowledgments of the kindness conferred upon him. Since the house had been built, he said he had not lost a sheep. Every night they were driven into the mansion, and in the morning not one was missing! "And you, where do you live, then?" inquired the discomfited superior officer.

"Oh! myself. Why, you must know that a man like me, a man of noble family, can only dwell in a camel-hair tent."

Apart from the fact that it would be impossible to build houses for the whole Algerian community, M. Hugonnet justly argues that it would be neither desirable nor advantageous to insist upon their giving up the system of tent-life. With people of indolent habits, in such a hot climate, the only approximation to cleanliness is in change of abode. A camelhair tent is, as every traveller in the East knows, cleanlier, more commodious, and more healthy than a hut.

The unfortunate natives are far from being the sole cause of slow progress in Algeria. They were taxed to construct houses for colonists, and, when the emigrants arrived, the site of the intended village had not even been determined upon. They were taxed for all kinds of ameliorations, roads, fountains, bridges, and caravanserais. One of the latter was built

on the banks of a rivulet near a forest, at a spot known to all the natives as fatal. The family placed in it were cut down by fevers, and the caravanserai is now abandoned, and falling into ruin. The impatience of arriving at results, of forcing progress, as it were, instead of allowing it to spring forth by the force of circumstances, is in a similar manner attested by bridges that are tumbling down, fountains without water, roads that are impracticable, and all kinds of constructions that are washed away by the rains. One moment European colonisation is in vogue, another fixed settlements for the natives; one day schools of instruction, another the chevaline race are in favour. Then, cutting down forests and planting others where there are none, and opening strategic and commercial roads, are the topics of the day, and nothing more. The cultivation of cotton has been largely patronised since the American war, but the chef de bureau says no one has ventured to compare the expenses with the receipts. The Mussulman looks upon all these undertakings, carried out by taxation and gratuitous labour, as so much fantasia. If it was wanted to prove that cotton grows in Algeria, the "jardins d'essai" sufficed to prove the fact; if it was wanted to prove that it could be grown remuneratively, the cultivator should have been left to make the experiment.

The forests were occasionally devastated by fires. This was attributed to the negligence of the natives, and they were forbidden to pasture their cattle in them. The consequence was, that a rank vegetation grew up,

which became highly combustible in autumn, and at the next fires the protected forests were destroyed altogether.

Too much zeal, too much meddling and interference, have been one of the frequent causes not only of mistakes and errors, but of discontent. Thus, government insisted upon introducing vaccination among the natives. The latter resisted the innovation; the more they resisted, the more obstinate were the authorities, till the natives, wondering at this persistence, thought that it was intended to mark the people and then to render them powerless, so that the race should be extinguished. The affair nearly ended in a general insurrection. "How many serious troubles have originated in the stupidity, the want of tact, in our agents?"

As much difference of opinion as exists among the native chiefs-one recommending oxen and the plough, the other arms and horses-is to be met with among the French chiefs themselves. Mr. Augustus Sala, who has given a ludicrous view of the idea which he has formed of French "civilisation" in Algeria, says that military critics maintain that all settlements should be under the shelter and shadow of the French

cannon; but he argues that no country was yet colonised without the earlier colonists incurring, and that pretty frequently, the disagreeable risk of decapitation, or some other form of violent death. The fact is, there is as much difference of opinion among the French authorities upon the subject of European colonisation as upon other points. Some will not hear of it; others, again, would drive the natives into the Desert. It is quite certain that in a country where the traditions, feelings, and religion of the natives are totally opposed to those of their conquerors, that colonisation in the interior must be slow and progressive. may be quite true that many of the early colonists in America "had their heads chopped off, or, worse, were gnashed to pieces or tortured at slow fires by the bloody savages;" but this only proves the indomitable self-dependence of the Anglo-Saxon-the colonising race par excellence. It does not by any means follow that the French, who depend more upon their authorities than almost any other Europeans, should adopt the example, any more than we should wish to see the same system pursued in New Zealand. It is sufficient to colonise at first in protected districts, and to venture into the interior gradually.

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According to M. Hugonnet, the spectacle as yet exhibited by the European colonist in Algeria has been anything but exemplar to the natives. With the exception of a few villages which have prospered in the Mitija, or around the great towns, most colonists have failed from malady or misery. Such colonists, even when sober men at home, live in this climate in a manner anything but edifying to the abstemious Mussulman, and scarcely one has been known to remain in the same place and prosper. Successive colonists are continually arriving, often with the pretension of tilling the whole of the land; they become idle and debauched, and disappear somehow or other without having even raked an acre of ground.

The native says, "The Rumi is mad. A poor devil comes here to live by the fruit of his labour; he cannot sleep without a box, which is as large as a house; he puts his clothes into other boxes divided into compartments, Heaven knows why or wherefore; chairs and table are laid out three times a day for meals, monsieur has a black bottle on one hand,

a white bottle on the other, but he likes most to partake of the black bottle; there is a crowd of other small utensils on the table, several dishes are served up, then coffee and liqueurs. By the head of the Prophet, how does he expect to pay for all these things with his corn ?"

"The people are cursed," observes another; "what have they done to be condemned to such hard labour? They are to be pitied; but God is great, he has favoured us because we are his chosen servants."

The colonist, on his side, points to the numerous vestiges of Roman grandeur, causeways, forts, and cities. The native replies, "All that has already disappeared once before the dweller in tents, and it may happen so again."

M. Hugonnet, who estimates the population of the Tell and of the Algerian Sahara at two and a half millions, calculates that there is at the present moment three hundred and thirty-four million of francs buried in the ground-say three hundred millions-which, taken from its hidingplaces and multiplied by labour and credit, would suffice to change the whole aspect of Algeria. How much must there lie buried in India, where taxation is so light?

It would scarcely be conceived in the present day, that, in 1830, at the epoch of the conquest of Algeria, no available information could be obtained as to the character or resources of the enemy, beyond their wellknown haughty pride and piratical slave-holding practices. Its organisation, its mode of fighting, the probable conduct of the populations, were all alike unknown, nor could any reliable information be obtained upon any point that was desirable. The soldiers were warned not to be terrified by charges of infuriated camels and dromedaries! When Algiers was conquered, the manners, property, and religion of the people were to be respected. The tribes who had contented themselves with simply breaking off all intercourse with the littoral, felt at once that they had to do with people who did not understand them-people who, like the English in more distant realms, hesitated to demand that which all Oriental populations are accustomed to concede to their conquerors, whilst they exacted that which was irrelevant, exorbitant, and most obnoxious to their habits and feelings. The inheritance of the Turk, which might have been made to pass into their hands without almost striking a blow, was left to be won by upwards of two hundred and twenty-four expeditions and combats, and the complement of which has by no means as yet been arrived at.

The natives, perceiving at once the hesitation of their invaders, surrounded them with a circle of fire; the outposts were daily destroyed in detail, and it was necessary to make those demonstrations in the interior which first led the French to the Mitija and Blidah; but like our troops in Bhutan, the advances were made with such timidity that the natives themselves, wondered that an army large enough to overrun the whole country should be perpetually kept within the walls of unwholesome enclosures and cantonments. According to the bulletins of the day, the enemy were all Beduins. Similar proceedings were adopted at the two other extreme centres of the country-Oran and Bone; no advances were made save with great guns, and after roads had been opened-a mode of proceeding which enabled the Arabo-Berber natives to rally over and over again after successive but slight discomfitures. The expedition to the

Tafna inaugurated a new system, and followed as it was by the capture of Constantine and the relief of Medea and Miliana, the effect was for the time being decisive. Still neither party understood one another. The French looked upon their antagonists as thieves and savages, with whom it was impossible to come to any understanding; the natives, who had nothing to do with the brutal rule of the Turks, were filled with surprise that a people so successful as soldiers should be so stupid and backward in the way of negotiation. The struggle was continued thus till 1842 to 1845, when the tribes, harassed and worn out, began to submit, without any encouragement being held out to them to take a step which they would gladly have done long previously. They were, however, treated with generosity, their territory, their customs, and their chiefs were ensured to them, the past was to be forgotten, but the taxes they paid before to the Turks were now to go into the treasury of their French conquerors. Domination in Algeria, still ever and anon troubled by the rise of some national hero, like the Emir Abd-el-Kader, the preaching of some fanatics, and local discontents arising from corrupt or bad government, continues the same to the present day. Only while the Tell and the Algerian Sahara are ruled after the patriarchal and paternal system, of an unwritten, extemporised, and almost irresponsible administration, designated by the curious name of "bureaux Arabes;" all the " administratives" for which France is so celebrated-the wheel within wheel governmental clockwork-is at full work in the cities and along the littoral, with a spice of military brevity superadded.

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A splendid country-the brightest jewel in the imperial diadem-has arisen from this stand-point. The population of Algeria comprised, in 1862, 2,720,909 natives-that is to say, 2,692,812 Mussulmans, and 28,097 Jews; and 204,877 Europeans of all nations (not comprising the army); the latter, again, being subdivided into 198,024 Romanists, 5653 Protestants, and 1200 Jews. The army numbered about 62,306 men. Emigration to Algeria proceeds, as before said, at a very slow rate,. but there are some 2,500,000 hectares (an hectare is two and a half acres. English) in cultivation in the Tell, and 100,000 hectares of oasis in the Algerian Sahara. The chief produce is corn, tobacco, cotton, silk, grape-vines, olives, dates, cattle, horses, timber, hides, wax, honey, minerals, and fisheries. Oran has two harbours; Algiers, one; Bougie, two; Philippeville, two; and Bone, one. The principal towns are Algiers, with 45,000 inhabitants; Constantine, 35,000; Oran and Tlemcen, over 17,000; Bone, 12,533; Gardeaia, 10,000 to 12,000; Mostaganem, 10,820; Philippeville, 8137; Maskara and Medeah, with each 7500; Blidah, 6912; Milianah, 5300; Sidi Bel Abbas, 5000; Biskara, Laghuat, Bu Farik, over 4000; Cherchell, Setif, Dellys, Guelma, Bu Saada, Tugurt, and Temacin, over 3000; eight more towns with a population exceeding 2000; and seven, including Orleansville and Nemours, with upwards of 1000. Aumale reckons 2875. It is remarkable that with the exception of Algiers, Constantine, Oran, Tlemcen, and Bone, commercial ports or cities, the native towns, as Gardeiaia, Maskara, and others, are most populated. Laghuat and Biskara (or Biskra) are the great points of connexion between Algeria and Central Africa, and one Kabyle or Berber town of artificers in iron-Ait Lhassen-has a native population of from 4000 to 5000.

July-VOL. CXXXIV, NO. DXXXV.

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