it is because they have no strength to move. In the plain of the Metidja, the misery and desolation are greater still. At Fondouck, in the last five months, 120 persons have died, out of a population of 280." The reporter to the Commission of the French budget of 1837 (Monsieur Bignon) admitted that "the results of the colonisation are almost negative." He could not obtain, he said, an estimate of the agricultural population. At the same period, an Algiers newspaper (_La France Algérienne_) estimated the European agriculturists at 7000, two-thirds of whom were mere market-gardeners. [12] "General Lamoricière habitually carries a stick. This has procured him, from the Arabs, the name of the _Père-au-bâton_, (the father with the stick:) _Bour-à-boi_. One of his orderly officers, my friend and comrade Captain Bentzman, gives _Araouah_ as the proper orthography of _Bour-à-boi_. We have followed Escoffier's pronunciation."--_Captivité d'Escoffier_, vol. i. p. 30. It is unnecessary to multiply proofs; and we will here conclude this imperfect sketch of Franco-African colonisation, of its crimes, its errors, and its cost, by extracting a rather remarkable passage from a writer we have more than once referred to, and who, although perhaps disposed to view things in Algeria upon the black side, is yet deserving of credit, as well by his position as by reason of his painstaking research and, so far as we have verified them, accurate statistics. "The colonists cannot deny," says Monsieur Desjobert in his _Algérie en_ 1846, "and they admit: "1º. That Europe alone maintains the 200,000 Europeans in Algeria. In 1846 we are compelled to repeat what General Bernard, minister of war, said in 1838: 'Algeria resembles a naked rock, which it is necessary to supply with everything, except air and water.' "2º. That so long as we remain in this precarious situation, a naval war, by interrupting the communications, would compromise the safety of our army. In 1846 we repeat M. Thiers' words, uttered in 1837: 'If war surprises you in the state of indecision in which you are, I say that the disgraceful evacuation of Africa will be inevitable.' "M. Thiers did not speak the whole truth when he talked of evacuation. In such an extremity, evacuation would be impossible. Our army would perish of misery, and its remnant would fall into the hands of the enemy." Another enemy than the Arabs is here evidently pointed at; that possible foe is now a friend to France, and we trust will long remain so. But on many accounts the sentences we have just quoted are significant, as proceeding from the pen of a French deputy. They need no comment, and we shall offer none. We wait with interest to see if France's African colony prospers better under the Republic of 1848 than it did under the Monarchy of 1830. THE CAXTONS. PART IX.--CHAPTER XXXIX. And my father pushed aside his books.