The idea of the Romans in garrison at Ceuta was incessantly returning on me, and prompting pictures of the consequences. The Romans to-day at Ceuta would be masters of Africa, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, as rapidly as the Saracens were of Spain, after showing themselves at Gibraltar. When the French first attacked Algiers, the Moors, having heard that Europe was governed by justice (the justice that every one understands), were ready to invite them; but the French were soon found not to be Romans: they had not the bath, not the toga, not the salutation of the Roman or Eastern; they could in their persons command no respect. In ablutions, tone of voice, gesture, manner of eating, disregard of religious observances,[51] they could only excite the disgust of a Mussulman. Very subordinate matters are principles of administration, and forms of government, compared to the cleanliness of the bath, dignity of deportment, ceremony and etiquette. But to the elegance of costume the Roman did, however, add forms of administration equally adapted, as his warlike discipline and personal habits, to enable him to gain and secure ground as a conqueror,--he would have left the Moor or the Algerine to the jurisdiction of his own code--he would have left in their hands the administration of their own laws: he would have given to _their_ senate the power of impeaching a Bugeaud or a Vallée before the Senate of Rome. When the Romans possessed that country, it was four or five times as populous and not less warlike or stubborn in spirit. For four hundred years their dominion endured with almost unbroken tranquillity. During that period it was the granary of the world. It replenished, not exhausted, the Roman treasures--it supplied and did not drain her armies. During all that, time there was neither parliamentary law, nor Royal ordinances for its good government; there were no scientific commissions to inquire into its state; there were no quartos of statistical information published for the enlightenment of its rulers; there was no system of colonization, no project of enlightenment, Christianity, or civilization; there was no _flamen_ of Chalons,[52] sacrificing to Mars and Bellona for successful raids and butcheries. Rome held Africa with two legions; France began[53] with a half more than that number; she has now ten times as many: it costs her as much in outlay as the Imperial expenses of the whole _empire under Augustus_; and notwithstanding all the unfortunate French can do, the people will not be civilized[54]--and run away.[55] In fourteen years a European government has reduced the population to one-half. With ten thousand men the Turks managed to hold Algiers, and to govern it in tranquillity. Instead of the public debt of a “civilized” government, they left behind a large treasure;[56] yet their troops would have raised the contempt of any European _officer_, and their government that of every European _politician_.