Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 149, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1913 — ON RIM OF THE DESERT [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ON RIM OF THE DESERT

EDWIN ASA DIX recently wrote for the New York Evening Post an entertaining letter of travel along Barbary’s coasts. From his descirption of Tripoli the following paragraphs are taken, though it will be seen that he wrote before the ancient city had become the center of a military movement: Tripoli in Barbary, the Turkish city, stands up wonderfully behind its *ong walls, as viewed from the deck in the early morning. Its distant buildings show every tint of buff and amber and creamy white, with here and there a dash of pink or soft blue. Seven minarets, each with tip or spire of emerald green, point the way of heaven to the faithful, and two frowning gray fortresses threaten the way in other direction to infidel assailants. The view is distant, because there is no harbor and the wide bay is shallow. Ships must lie well out in the offing. Here is a city little known to the world, though so alluringly in the currents of the world’s travel and trade. Few traders and fewer tourists visit Tripoli. Probably not many persons could even ,tell you exactly where this Turkish desert colony is. Must Have Escort. The landing is made in small boats, and passports or passes consulaires must-be shown at the little landing stage before permission to land is granted. It is wetl to repair at once to the British, French, or Italian consulate, to obtain the escort and* protection of a kavass, for the native Tripolitans are none too' well disposed toward casual foreigners. Under the guidance, then, of the kavass or janissary, a resplendent ebony individual in a gorgeous Uniform and bearing the baton or big stick of office, we explore the city. One realizes at once that one has left European soil and the methods of European municipal governments. The streets are dirty, narrow, and illpaved; everywhere are evidences that the city is left largely to govern itself in tht approved Turkish fashion. But it is full of novelty and varied interest. Here is a great market square, with arcades at the sides, and with a rude but massive stone fountain in the center. Vendors squat on the ground behind strips of matting, on which are little piles of orangeß, lemons. Ago, vegetables, grains, nutß, fish, dried locusts and other unedlblelooking edibles. Cooks fry fritters in oil over basins of glowing charcoal. Laden donkeys push their way through the throng, camels strut sullenly by, children shout and play, and all the dally life of a busy Oriental mart unrolls itself. Farther on are the long, covered alleys of the chief bazaar, the Souk el Turc. Here are iyory and ostrich feathers and quaint native Jewelry. In another direction lies the Hara or Jewish quarter, giving glimpses into queer little shops and Into the patios or interior courts of the private houses. Roman Arch. In the very center of the city we are reminded that Rome, the Universal, has been in Tripoli. Here standß a solid ornate triumphal arch, built in the comparatively rare form styled quadroons, of marble once white, now darkened and defaced by time. An inscription still legible records that it was erected by a quaestor under the joint reign of Lucius Aellus Veras and Marcus Aurelius. It stands low, for it is half-buried In the accumulated soil, and one of its portyls is debased to the purpose of a native cooper’s shop. But its carvings still preserve something of their ancient beauty, and the structure standing there in the tyeart of an alien city and civilization during all these centuries speaks of the power and prestige of the days of the Cacfsara. The desert comes close up to Tripoli on all sides. There 1b no hinterland, as there is with Tangier and Algiers and Tunis. There are rich resources

in the sands behind it, but in the Trl* politaine there is no attempt at development. The city carries on a limited caravan trade with the interior, as it has done from time immemorial, but the trade is attended with difficulties. The desert tribes are fierce and savage, and they rob and kill. No European, no Tripolitan even, can possibly venture into this part of the ■Sahara unprotected. When the caravans go, it is in vast numbers, comprising two hundred, five hundred, or even a thousand camels, with armed attendants forming a private army, and their return, months or even two or three years later, is a matter of excited interest and gratulation for the whole city, just as the return of the East India merchantmen used to be for Salem. Tripoli, the city, has between thirtyfive and forty thousand inhabitants; the indigenous races, Berbers, Arabs, and negroes, of course, making up the bulk of the population. There are eight thousand Maltese. The Europeans are almost negligible; the Italians (chiefly Sicilians), who are most numerous, tallying about six hundred. The Turks consist only of the few troops and the governing officials, at whose head is the governor-general and commander-in-chief, now one Regeb Pasha. He is, of course, the personal representative of the sultan. The desert population of the entire vilayet or province is very difficult to estimate, but in the most recent local and official reports it is given as about 900,000. Tripoli has thirty mosques and thirteen synagogues, but until within a few years it had no schools whatever; the children receiving a smatttering of letters and Koran texts in the mosques. It is better now; their are eight public schools of various grades, elementary, normal, technical, and military, whose good effects are already to be seen on the younger generations. |

STREET SCENE IN TRIPOLI