ot white is a "nigger." _Nigger_ comes, of
course, from _negro_.

The Moors inhabited a part of North-west Africa. It was also a North
African people, the Algerians, who gave us the word _Zouave_. Every
one has seen since the Great War began pictures of the handsome and
quaintly-dressed French soldiers called "Zouaves." Perhaps some
children wondered why they wore such a strange Eastern dress. It is
because the Zouave regiments, which are now chiefly composed of
Frenchmen, were originally formed from an Algerian mountain tribe
called the Zouaves--Algeria being a French possession. The name is
almost forgotten as that of a foreign tribe, but has become instead
the name of these light infantry French regiments.

The name of the most famous of Eastern nations now spread all over the
world, the Jews, has become a term of reproach. For hundreds of years
after the spread of Christianity over Europe the Jews were looked upon
as a wicked and hateful people. In many countries they were not
allowed to live at all; in others a portion of the towns was set apart
for them, and they were allowed to live there because they were useful
as money-lenders.

Naturally the Jews, persecuted and distrusted, made as much profit as
they could out of the people who treated them in this way. Perhaps
with the growth of their wealth they grew to love money for its own
sake. In any case, before long the Jews were looked upon as people who
were decidedly ungenerous in the matter of money. Everybody knows the
story of the Jew Shylock in Shakespeare's great play "The Merchant of
Venice." Nowadays a person who is not really a Jew is often described
contemptuously as a "Jew" if he shows himself mean in money matters;
and some people even use a slang expression, "to jew," meaning to
cheat or be very mean over a money affair.

Another name of a nation which stands for dishonesty of another sort
(and much more excusable) is _Gascon_. The Gascons are the natives of
Gascony, a province in the south of France. It is proverbial among
other Frenchmen that the Gascons are always boasting, and even in
English we sometimes use the word _Gascon_ to describe a great
boaster, while _gasconade_ is now a common term for a boastful story.

Another word which we use to describe this sort of thing is _romance_.
We often hear the expression, "Oh, he is only romancing," by which we
mean that a person is saying what is not true, inventing harmless
details to improve his