Tripoli, Libya

“ Deprived of banks, deprived of paper-money easy to handle, subject to the arbitrary will of avaricious governors, living in the midst of perpetual wars and troubles—in twenty years Tripoli had been besieged five times and five times sacked—they have only one resource: a good and mysterious hiding-place, unknown to all and particularly to their women. ”

“ I find that in the important coast towns the favourite idea of the Italian residents is that Tripoli should be seized, in order to counterbalance the French acquisition of Tunis. But at Tripoli itself that idea finds no favour, even among the Italians; and the reason for this it is not difficult to discover. Neither from a financial, a military, nor a political point of view is Italy strong enough to secure Tripoli. Those who are on the spot are well aware of this, and they are most anxious to counteract the Chauvinist ideas of their fellow-countrymen at a distance. ”

“ On the outskirts of Tripoli town is a fertile oasis. It goes by the name of the Mechiya and is several square miles in extent. It consists, or rather consisted, of a wide and scattered belt of palm trees, among which nestled many a beautiful Arab home, where the wealthier inhabitants of the town resided, embowered in gardens, luxuriating in myrtles, oleanders, and oranges. The Italian troops, marching through this oasis on October 23, were attacked in front by the Turks and in the rear by a force of Arabs. They lost heavily. ”

“ There is no one else in Tripoli so suitable for my purpose. He is a handsome, dark-featured fellow, and when in his bright-blue gown, white burnoose, and elegant fez, makes a really respectable figure. ”

“ Tripoli from its ditch and rampart has the appearance of a place of strength, but it is not so. The entrance of the port is naturally so bad, and the sands from the desert falling into it have made it so shallow, as to disqualify it from being a place either of trade or of war. The country about it is very barren, and necessaries consequently very dear. Bad government has checked population or caused emigration elsewhere. ”

“ It is probably greatest in the vicinity of the Atlantic and in Tunis, where it may be one hundred and fifty miles; in Algiers, Shaler considers it generally to be about sixty miles; but Tripoli is merely a narrow strip of soil, on the Mediterranean, in many places traversed by rocky spurs from the mountains, and tracts of sand from the desert.
The materials for the early history of this country are very imperfect; we possess no works of ancient native writers, and the accounts from which all our information must be drawn, appear in the form of episode, in those of Greek and Roman historians. ”

“ The first appearance of Tripoli may disappoint, by its meanness, the expectations of the traveller; but if he reflects on the nature of a despotic government, ever incompatible with permanent prosperity, he will not be surprized when he finds, on a nearer view, that the city, though the capital of an empire, exhibits through all its extent, the marks of a rapid decay; that its scanty limits, though scarcely four miles in circumference, are too great for its present population ”

“ Leaving Gharian, we proceeded towards Tripoli, when the first thing we saw was a man hanging over the gateway. I did not long remain there. It is a city not nearly so great as its reputation. There are two gates, one towards the market-place; the other towards the sea. The houses remind me of those of Alexandria, before it was embellished by Mohammed Ali. All the merchants nearly are natives of the island of Jirbeh. At Tripoli I sold all my slaves, except one from Bagirmeh, named Zeitoun, whom I loved. ”

“ Modern Tripoli is the head of a pashalik, extending north and south from Nahr Ibrahim to Bylán, and bounded on the east by the highest chain of the mountains which run parallel to the coast. Ali, a pasha of two tails, held it, but resided at St. Jean d’Acre as kekhyah of Sulimán Pasha, whilst Mustafa Aga governed in his stead. It is the best built and cleanest town along the coast of Syria; perhaps, too, the largest, certainly, at the time we are speaking of, the most commercial; although now superseded by Beyrout. ”

“ Amongst those who call themselves Arabs, or even Shorfa, there are thousands who betray their black descent in the colour of their skin and hair, the form of their features alone attesting mixture with the white Semites. Commercial relations are so frequent and regular between Tripoli and the interior of the continent, that there is nothing surprising in the presence of numerous Nigritians on the Mediterranean coastlands. The great majority, however, of those now living in Tripolitana have been forcibly brought thither as slaves. ”

“ They meet no forces gathered by their foe,
No towers defenced with rampire, moat, or wall,
No stream, no wood, no mountain could forslow
Their hasty pace, or stop their march at all;
So when his banks the prince of rivers, Po,
Doth overswell, he breaks with hideous fall
The mossy rocks and trees o’ergrown with age,
Nor aught withstands his fury and his rage.
LXXVI
The King of Tripoli in every hold
Shut up his men, munition and his treasure,
The straggling troops sometimes assail he would,
Save that he durst not move them to displeasure ”

“ Tripoli, October 24, 1821.
“It is with the sincerest joy I communicate to you my safe arrival here. Every thing smiles and promises complete success to our enterprise. Accounts arrived here a few days ago, that the pasha’s army had penetrated to fifty-seven days’ journey beyond Bornou—a circumstance exceedingly favourable to us, as no danger need be apprehended the greater part of the way we design to take. This town has a very indifferent appearance. ”

“ When the siege was pressed hard against them, the inhabitants of Tripoli met in one of the three fortifications and wrote to the king of the Greeks asking for relief through reinforcement or ships on which they might escape and flee to him. Accordingly, the king sent them many ships which they boarded in the night time and fled away. When Sufyṣn arose in the morning—he having been accustomed to sleep every night in his fort, and fortify the Moslems in it, and to rise up in the morning against the enemy—he discovered that the fortification in which the people of Tripoli were was vacant. ”

“ Nor is their anxiety groundless. Advices from Tripoli show that the excitement among the Mussulman population there is intense, and is being fomented by the action of fanatical preachers, who are passing from place to place, stirring up popular [299] hatred against the infidel. Many hundreds of Tripolitans, including a large number of Turkish soldiers, have crossed the frontier, and are joining the Tunisian Arabs in these mountain fastnesses, in which they are preparing for the guerilla operations they evidently contemplate. ”

“ Tripoli has been so often described, that I shall pass it over in silence. Its Jews, its Arabs, its Moors, and Maraboots; the slave population, and the bashaw’s family; are all so well painted to the life in “Tully’s Letters,” as to require no further notice from me as a casual visitor. Neither is it my intention to enter into a minute description of the country between Tripoli and Mourzuk; the surface of which is not essentially different from that between Mourzuk and Bornou, and has already been noticed by Captain Lyon, and in the communications to the African Association. ”

“ Many, many times have they been persuaded and pressed by the coast merchants, but they have always set their faces against the journey. Perhaps they think (as some, indeed, hinted to me) the Pasha would keep them prisoners, and not let them return until they had delivered up some of their districts to his authority. Whatever the motive, it is strange that men, who wander through all parts of Central Africa, cannot be prevailed upon to visit Tripoli. ”

“ Under the Sultan’s rule Tripoli has remained the capital of a truly barbaric state, virgin of improvements, with just enough dilapidated abandon, dirt and picturesqueness to make the delight of the artist. Arabs were everywhere; veiled women looked at the Christians with melting eyes above their wrappings. Mohammedanism, already twelve centuries old, has, after a period of inactivity, awakened anew in Africa, and is rapidly spreading. Very unlike the Christians, the faithful of today are the same fervid Faithful of Omar and Mohammed. ”

“ Let me add, that France herself would be worsted in any attack upon Tripoli. She may have the money and the men, but she lacks the power necessary to enable her to defy, not merely the Tripolitan Arabs, but the forces of united Europe. For the Italians to thrust themselves into the wasp’s nest from which the insurrectionary movement in Tunis originated, would be an act of supreme folly. ”

“ Tripoli (1,000) , a province (since 1835) of Turkey, in North Africa, most easterly of the Barbary States; stretches northwards from the Libyan Desert, lies between Tunis (W.) and Fezzan (E.) , with which latter, as also with Barca, it is politically united; carries on a brisk caravan trade with Central Africa; capital, Tripoli (20) , situated on a spit of rocky land jutting into the Mediterranean; surrounded by high walls, and Moorish in appearance.
Triptolemus, in the Greek mythology the favourite of Demeter (q. v.) , the inventor of the plough, and of the civilisation therewith connected ”

“ In other words, the Tripolitanians much preferred to be ill-treated by the Turks, who are their coreligionists, than to be well-treated by the Italians, who are despised unbelievers. The Italians, having had no previous experience with Moslem peoples, landed at Tripoli with every expectation of being welcomed as saviours by the native population. It is quite true that the natives gave the Italians an exceedingly warm reception—with rifles and machine guns. ”

“ There is little chance, therefore, that amongst such men, any struggles for liberty should be made; and it never enters their heads to take advantage of the power they possess from their situation in the desert to render themselves independent of Tripoli. The Arabs, and particularly those of the tribe Waled Suliman, of whom I have already spoken, were once dangerous, lawless freebooters, but are now at an end. When the Sultan goes to Tripoli, which he generally does once a year, he leaves his eldest son to command in his absence, under charge of whoever may, at the moment, be most in favour ”

“ From 670 onwards, apart from the short periods of occupation by the Normans (1140–59) , the Spaniards (1510–30) , and the Maltese Knights (1530–51) , Tripolitania remained for centuries under Arab or Berber sway, sharing the fortunes of Tunisia (comp. p. 322) , while from 1216 onwards the Genoese had a monopoly of the coast-trade of Tripolitania and Barca. In 1551 the corsair Dragut (p. 370) , driven out of Mehdia, founded a new Turkish tributary state at Tripoli. ”

“ I am filled with wonder and surprise to notice what interest and excitement has been aroused throughout the whole country on account of the death of twenty people, while they remain cold and indifferent to the fact that thousands of Italians, Turks, and Arabs are killed in Tripoli! The horror of this wholesale slaughter has not disturbed the Government at all! Yet these unfortunate people are human beings too. ”

“ A solitary being, who thinks himself unobserved, is sometimes pointed out to you as having been one; but his misery protects him. So complete an overthrow of the most numerous tribe that inhabited the regency of Tripoli, and one whose riches and influence were so well known, has had the effect of humbling the turbulent spirit of the Arabs to a wonderful degree: the bashaw rules them literally with a rod of iron, and for the slightest cause he has the heads of their sheikhs over the gates of his palace in a few hours. ”

“ Mr Abbot, British consul for Tripoli in Syria, kindly invited me, and lii after him Mr Vernon, his successor, a very excellent man, to take up my residence there. From Tripoli there is a trade in kelp carried on to the salt marshes near Palmyra. The Shekh of Cariateen, a town just upon the edge of the desert, had a contract with the basha of Tripoli for a quantity of this herb for the use of the soap-works. ”

“ Tripoli, see p. 406. Skirting the flat, sandy coast, with its numerous oases, including that of Tajûra (p. 411) , we pass the small Râs Sotara, Râs el-Hamra (‘red cape’) , and Râs Ligata.
In the fertile undulating plain to the E. of the small port of Ligata (lighthouse; sailing-boat from Tripoli in about 7 hrs. if the wind is favourable) lies Lebida, Lebda, or Khoms (pop. 3500; Brit. vice-cons.) , in its oasis, a poor little seaport (for alfa) with open roads, relics of old fortifications, and an Italian school. ”

“ While Egypt was brought under British control and Tunisia became a French protectorate, Tripoli remained a province of the Turkish empire with undefined frontiers in the hinterland, a state of affairs which more than once threatened to lead to trouble with France during the expansion of the latter’s influence in the Sahara. ”

“ At this period the followers of Mahomet every where successful in the East, turned their arms towards the setting sun, and traversing the Desert which separated the Roman province from Egypt, appeared before the frontier cities, presenting to their astounded inhabitants the alternative of the Koran or the sword.
Tripoli was the first country in the African province invaded by the Saracens,1 and in order that its subsequent history may be better understood, it will be necessary to make a few observations on its ancient condition, which could not well have been introduced before. ”