One of the young officers with Suetonius had taken a great fancy to Beric, and frequently invited him to spend the evening with him at their halting places. When they approached Massilia he said, "I have some relations in the city, and I will obtain leave for you to stay with me at their house while we remain in the town, which may be for some little time, as we must wait for shipping. My uncle is a magistrate, and a very learned man. He is engaged in writing a book upon the religions of the world, and he seldom remains long at any post. He has very powerful friends in Rome, and so is able to get transferred from one post to another. He has been in almost every province of the empire in order to learn from the people themselves their religions and beliefs. I stayed with him for a month here two years since on my way to Britain, and he was talking of getting himself transferred there, after he had been among the Gauls for a year or two; but his wife was averse to the idea, protesting that she had been dragged nearly all over the world by him, and was determined not to go to its furthest boundaries. But I should think that after the events of the last year he has given up that idea. I know it will give him the greatest possible pleasure to converse with one who can tell him all about the religions and customs of the Britons in his own language." Massilia was by far the largest city that the Britons had entered, and they were greatly surprised at its magnitude, and at the varieties of people who crowded its streets. Even Boduoc, who professed a profound indifference for everything Roman, was stupefied when he saw a negro walking in the train of a Roman lady of rank. "Is it a human being, think you," he murmured in Beric's ear, "or a wild creature they have tamed? He has not hair, but his head is covered with wool like a black sheep." "He is a man," Beric replied. "Across the sea to the south there are brown men many shades darker than the people here, and beyond these like lands inhabited by black men. Look at him showing his teeth and the whites of his eyes. He is as much surprised at our appearance, Boduoc, as we are at his. We shall see many like him in Rome, for Pollio tells me that they are held in high estimation as slaves, being good tempered and obedient." "He is hideous, Beric; look at his thick lips. But the creature looks good tempered. I wonder that any woman could have such an one about the house. Can they talk?" "Oh, yes, they talk. They are men just the same as we are, except for their colour." "But what makes them so black, Beric?" "That is unknown; but it is supposed that the heat of the sun, for the country they inhabit is terribly hot, has in time darkened them. You see, as we have gone south, the people have got darker and darker." "But are they born that colour, Beric?" "Certainly they are."