After eight centuries of rule, the Arabs being expelled from Spain, took refuge in Barbary, but instead of finding the hospitality and protection of their brethren, the greater part of them were pillaged or massacred.  The remnant of these wretched fugitives settled along the coast; and it is to their industry and intelligence that we owe the increase, or the foundation of many of the maritime cities.  Here, considered as strangers and enemies by the natives, whom they detested, the new colonists sought for, and formed relations with Turks and renegades of all nations, whilst they kept themselves separate from the Arabs and Berbers.  This, then, is the bona-fide origin of the people whom we now generally call Moors.  History furnishes us with a striking example of how the expelled Arabs of Spain united with various adventurers against the Berber and North African Arabs.  In the year 1500, a thousand Andalusian cavaliers, who had emigrated to Algiers, formed an alliance with the Barbarossas and their fleet of pirates; and, after expelling the native prince, built the modern city of Algiers.  And such was the origin of the Algerine Corsairs.

The general result of these observations would, therefore, lead us to consider the Moors of the Romans, as the Berbers or aborigines of North Africa, and the Moors of the Spaniards, as pure Arabians; and if, indeed, these Arabian cavaliers marshalled with them Berbers, as auxiliaries, for the conquest of Spain, this fact does not militate against the broad assumption.

The so-called Moors of Senegal and the Sahara, as well as those of Morocco, are chiefly a mixture of Berbers, Arabs and Negroes; but the present Moors located in the northern coast of Africa, are rather the descendants from the various conquering nations, and especially from renegades and Christian slaves.

The term Moors is not known to the natives themselves.  The people speak definitely enough of Arabs and of various Berber tribes.  The population of the towns and cities are called generally after the names of these towns and cities, whilst Tuniseen and Tripoline is applied to all the inhabitants of the great towns of Tunis and Tripoli.  Europeans resident in Barbary, as a general rule, call all the inhabitants of towns—­Moors, and the peasants or people residents in tents—­Arabs.  But, in Tripoli, I found whole villages inhabited by Arabs, and these I thought might be distinguished as town Arabs.  Then the mountains of Tripoli are covered with Arab villages, and some few considerable towns are inhabited by people who are bona-fide Arabs.  Finally, the capitals of North Africa are filled with every class of people found in the country.