The Press.
London, England, 1854-09-30 00:00:00

SIMPTtMBER 30, 1854.

This is very interesting. The water rushing
down the gulleys of a mountain has furnished
Homer with one of his favourite similes for
describing the noise of a battle ; and we may
remark that in ascending even our British
mountains the most rapid way of reaching the
peak is to take the water-channels, generally
dry in summer.
On the permanence of the French occupa-
tion of Algiers Professor Ansted remarks :

Whether the French, the present masters of the country,
will so far adapt themselves to its peculiarities of soil anti
climate as to form the permanent inhabitants, and introduce
an element of European civilisation and habits into Northern
Africa, is perhaps more than doubtful. The Romans tried
it, and failed; although they formed settlements, con•
atructed roads, cultivated the land, worked the mines, built
numerous towns, and impressed upon the face of the
country an image of their power and magnificence which
will probably never be effaced. At the present day no doubt
much is possible that was formerly impossible ; but the
French are not perhaps more likely to be successful than
sly of their predecessors.
It is indeed quite certain that the French are not a
colonising people. Unlike the Saxon emigrant, who gene-
rally strikes off at once to establish himself alone in some
spot beyond any traces of civilisation, and who often leaves
his partially cleared or cultivated tract as boon as neigh-
bours approach, to go yet further into the wilderness, the
' Gaul appears to prefer always some town occupation, and
the people accumulate in villages in moderate numbers,
but always in groups, and rarely on the extreme limit of
the land open to them. There are in Algeria many more
persons engaged in petty commerce of all kinds than in
agriculture, and this, while it renders the country easy and
pleasant to travel through, as ensuring comfortable accom-
modation at the villages, will long prevent that complete
occupation of the land that can alone repay the great ex-
pense of life and treasure incurred in the conquest of the
country.
In strong contrast with this population we find the native
tribes, like the waves of a mighty ocean, ready at any
obstacle to recede for the moment, but equally certain to
rash back again into their forme': position whenever the
obstacle is for an instant removed or weakened. It is
comparatively easy to conquer them and occupy their land,
but by no means easy to alter their habits and change their
nature. They cannot well he got rid of, as they retreat
into the interior of the country, whither they can hardly
be followed ; and they disappear and reappear as if by magic,
and when least expected. They are now rapidly earning
money by the sale of grain, which they cultivate very easily,
and bring towards the coast in large quantities; but it is
difficult to trace what becomes of the money they receive.
Most likely it is hidden, and thus withdrawn from circula-
tion ; and this is the more to be regretted as the greater
part is silver—a metal much wanted at present. Perhaps some
day this money will find its way into the European markets
to purchase arms and ammunition, by which, when the
moment arrives, an effort will be made to reoccupy the
country.
Collective colonisation is more suitable to
the Gaelic than to the Teutonic races. The
former require society, sympathy, and inter-
communion of ideas ; and the ancient plan of
colonisation is therefore more suitable to
those than the modern one in which the
Anglo-Saxons have obtained such success by
their self-dependence.
Professor Ansted's work is illustrated with
some coloured lithographs of considerable
merit, anti the volume may be recommended
to general renders for its agreeable style and
variety of instructive matter.
•

A Gazetteer of the Territories under the East
India Company, and of the Native States, on the:
Continent of India. By Edward Thornton.'
London : Allen and Co.
THE work now before us is a great improve-
ment on the old Gazetteer of Hamilton. It
gives much and varied information nowhere
else accessible to the general reader, and
which the author's connection with the East
India Company—by whose authority the work
has been compiled—has placed within his
reach. We may fairly hail it, therefore, as an
itnportant and valuable addition to the list of
works illustrative of the topography and his-
tory of our Eastern empire. It is not, to be
sure, without its defects—defects which it re-
quires all the ability and industry exhibited by
the author to compensate for—but these moy
be considered necessarily incident to a work
put forth under the patronage, and, of course,
intended to illustrate and enforce the political
-Hews, of the East India Company.
Of that body, we are prepared honestly to
confess, we are no admirers. In their whole
history, from first to last, we can see nothing
on which the eye of virtue and of genius can
alight with pleasure. Their entire career has
been one of grasping ambition, not regulated
by any noble instincts, hut influenced solely
by the consideration of the profit their aggres-