zes this people. Where others only see sand and reefs, not
worth the trouble of cultivation, the Englishman discovers some
productive germ that with his indefatigable energy brings forth a
thousand fold. Nor is Colonial work, industrial activity and commercial
thrift disturbed by bureaucratic sophistry or immoderate fiscal
pretentions, that so frequently suffocate the most promising and
audacious undertakings in other places.

Colonial success very often depends upon the ability of its
administrative body in directing all available force to this one end:
the increase of its wealth. Bureaucracy is a cancer which paralyzes all
life and motion that it finds within reach of its tentacles.

Old England has understood this for a long time, ever since, from the
island once fruitless and barren, she spread her wings and flew to the
conquest of the World's markets.

When will certain other nations comprehend that antiquity and past
glory, instead of offering the precious fruit of experience, has
brought upon them a palsied decrepitude?

When wilt thou understand this, my Italy, risen as thou art to the third
maturity of thy civilization and glory?

* * * * *

I set myself at once, with a good will, to the extraction of gold, and
engaged the services of a few Malays and Chinese coolies, who were
expert enough, to assist me in my work.

The method we followed was a very primitive one. We filled some round
wooden bowls with the water and sand, then by gently stirring the mass,
particles of tin and gold were separated from the sand and went to the
bottom. This deposit carefully gathered up was passed into other bowls
full of water, into which we threw a well-pounded leaf of the _sla
piu_.

The juice of these leaves possesses a chemical property which I cannot
explain but it draws up to the surface the sand still sticking to the
metals, leaving them quite pure.

But the yellow tempter was not at all profuse in his favours and the
golden metal came in very small quantities. I did not lose courage,
however, and persevered for a long time without any change of luck. I
even tried to trace out the auriferous bed from whence the waters of the
stream transported the metals. I made innumerable attempts to find it,
but in vain, and the day came when I was constrained to confess to
myself that alluvial mining for me was a failure.

After all my hopes and dreams it was a melancholy confession to make b