ggan shortly, "but I ain't used to it."

"Is it long since you came to this country?" asked Lucien, while he and
Mariano rolled up two of those neat little cigarettes with which the
denizens of Algiers at the present day are wont frequently to solace
themselves.

This question called forth from the seaman the greater part of his
recent history, in return for which Lucien, drawing forward the hood of
his burnous, and resting his elbows on his knees, briefly related that
of himself and his kindred.

"But why are _you_ staying here, since, being a British subject, you are
free to go when you please?" asked Lucien.

"Bekaise," answered Flaggan, "it ain't every day that a British ship
calls in at this piratical nest, and I'd raither go off in a man-o'-war
if I could manage it. There's a merchantman came into port yesterday,
I'm towld, an' the cownsl advised me to go away with it; but it seems
the Turks have made some difficulty about her, so I'll wait. I'm in no
hurry. The Flaggans, as a race, have been noted since the time of
Adam--if not earlier--for takin' life aisy."

"Then the Flaggans must be nearly related to the Arabs, for they take
life easier than any race I ever met with," said Lucien, laughing.

"I shud doubt that, 'cause they're lazy, and _we_ ain't.--Talkin' o'
that, sir," said the seaman, as a sudden thought struck him, "I'm towld
that you are learned in lingos an' histories: could ye tell me who was
the first people that got howld o' this country? 'cause I'm coorious to
know, having had a stiffish argiment on that pint with Rais Ali. He
howlds that it was the Moors, an' I've heerd say it was the Arabs."

"You are both partly right," replied Lucien; "for the Arabs were among
the first conquerors of the land, but you are wrong in supposing Moors
and Arabs to be altogether different races. When the Arabs came into
the land some of them took to the plains inland, and continued their
wild wandering idle style of life--half predatory, half pastoral; others
took up their abode on the coast, became more mingled with the people of
other sea-faring tribes, built towns, and came at last to be known as
Mauri or Moors, from which the part of the land they dwelt in was known
of old by the name of Mauritania."

"But the aborigines," continued Lucien--

"The abor-what? sir," asked Flaggan, removing his pipe.

"The aborigines--the original inhabitants of the land--"

"Ah, I see, sir," returned Ted; "them as w