firait pour nous empecher de coloniser. Tout ce que la
centralisation laisse entrevoir de defauts, de ridicules et absurdites,
d'oppression, de paperasseries en France, est grossi en Afrique au
centuple. C'est comme un pou vu dans un microscope.'

'J'ai cause,' I answered, 'avec Vialar et avec mon hote aux eaux
ferrugineuses. Mais ils ne se sont pas plaints de la centralisation.'

'Ils ne se sont pas plaints,' he answered, 'du mot que, peut-etre, ils ne
connaissaient pas. Mais si vous les aviez fait entrer dans les details de
l'administration publique, ou meme de leurs affaires privees, vous auriez
vu que le colon est plus gene dans tous ses mouvements, et plus _gouverne
pour son plus grand bien_ que vous ne l'avez ete quand il s'est agi de
votre passeport.

'Violar faisait allusion a cela quand il vous a dit que les chemins
manquaient parce que le Gouvernement ne voulait pas laisser les gouvernes
s'en meler.'[1]

[Footnote 1: 'One whole side, and that a very curious one, of Algeria,
has escaped you, because you could not, or would not, inflict on yourself
the bore of talking frequently with the colonists, and this side cannot
be seen in conversing with officials--it is the abuse of centralisation.
Africa may be considered as the most complete and most extraordinary
picture of the vices of this system. I am convinced that it alone,
without the Arabs, the sun, the desert and the fever, would be enough to
prevent us from colonising. All the defects of centralisation, its
oppressions, its faults, its absurdities, its endless documents, which
are dimly perceived in France, become one hundred times bigger in Africa.
It is like a louse in a microscope.'

'I conversed,' I answered, 'with Violar and with my landlord at the
mineral waters, and they did not complain of centralisation.' 'They did
not complain,' he answered, 'of the word, which perhaps is unknown to
them. But if you had made them enter into the details of the public
administration, or even of their own private affairs, you would have seen
that the colonist is more confined in all his movements, and more
_governed, for his good_, than you were with regard to your passport.

'This is what Violar meant when he told you that roads were wanting,
because the Government would not permit its subjects to interfere in
making them.']

_Monday, May_ 28.--Tocqueville called on me.

I asked him for criticisms on my article on the State of the Continent in
the 'North