“Got no smell,” remarked the tar, as he put the bottle to his mouth—“wather!” he added contemptuously, as he put it down and resumed the pipe.
“The best of drink for man and beast,” said Lucien, laughing.
“May be so,” returned Flaggan 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.”