Chapter II

General description of Tripoly; its Castle and Port — The Buildings of Tripoly commended by Leo Africanus — Present condition of the City — Its existing ancient remains — Burial-ground of the ancient City — Sepulchral urns of glass discovered there by Mr. Consul Warrington — Remarks of Leo Africanus on the soil and level of Tripoly, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries — Accumulation of soil since that period — Advance of the sea, mentioned by Leo Africanus, still observable on the coast of Northern Africa — These appearances adduced in confirmation of Major Rennell’s remarks on the Lake Tritonis and the Lesser Syrtis — Historical sketch of Tripoly — Its actual state and improved condition under the present Bashaw — Abolition of Piracy, and partial discontinuance of the Slave Trade.

The town of Tripoly has been built on a foundation of rock, and is washed, to the northward, on two sides, by the sea; while the remaining parts, those to the southward and westward, are bounded by a large sandy plain, which is notwithstanding partially cultivated[1].

The form of the town is very irregular, but it is completely surrounded by high and thick walls, which appear to have been once very strong. They are now falling fast into ruin; yet wherever any part of the old work is seen, through the mud and irregular fragments of stone, with which the ravages of time have been partially concealed, it appears to be solid and good[2]. The walls are besides provided with ramparts, on which are planted a number of guns quite sufficient to make themselves tolerably respected, were it not that the impertinent interference of rust, and the occasional want of carriages for the guns, might contribute to prevent their effect. The castle is built at the south-eastern angle of the city, close to the water’s edge; and may be said to connect the line of ramparts along the beach with that which encloses the town to the southward. The walls of the castle are unusually high, and have been fortunately made to incline a good deal inwards: we say fortunately, for so bad is the state of repair, in which the exterior is kept, that without this convenient inclination to the centre, they would not probably be standing at all. Yet they are certainly of considerable thickness; and it is owing to the very unworkmanlike manner in which the building has been from time to time augmented, for we ought not to call it repaired, that its strength has been materially diminished[3].

Appearances, however, are by no means disregarded; and the surface of His Highness’s castle and residence (for the building is both one and the other) displays a bright coating of plaster and whitewash over the unseemly patchwork beneath it.

The city walls and ramparts are for the most part disguised under a cloak of the same gay material; and the whole together, viewed under an African sun, and contrasted with the deep blue of an African sky, assumes a decent, we may even say, a brilliant appearance. It must, however, be confessed that this is much improved by distance; for a too close inspection will occasionally discover through their veil the defects which we have alluded to above; and large flakes of treacherous plaster will occasionally be found by near observers to have dropt off and left them quite exposed.

Leo Africanus has informed us that the houses and bazars of Tripoly were _handsome_ compared with those of Tunis. How far this epithet might have been applicable at the period here alluded to, we are not ourselves able to judge; but we must confess that the beauty of the existing houses and bazars of Tripoly did not appear to us particularly striking: and if the comparison drawn by Leo may be still supposed to hold, we do not envy the architects of Tunis whatever fame they may have acquired by the erection of the most admired buildings of that city. The mosques and colleges, as well as hospitals, enumerated by our author, must have been very different from those now existing to entitle them to any commendation; and the rude and dilapidated masses of mud and stone, or more frequently, perhaps, of mud only, here dignified by the appellation of houses, do not certainly present very brilliant examples either of taste, execution, or convenience. Indeed, if we consider the actual state of Tripoly, we might be authorized, perhaps, in disputing its claims to be ranked as a city at all; and they who are unaccustomed to Mahometan negligence might imagine that they had wandered to some deserted and ruinous part of the town, when in reality they were traversing the most admired streets of a populous and fashionable quarter. This want of discernment, however, is chiefly confined to Europeans; for the greater part of the Mahometan inhabitants of Tripoly are strongly convinced of its beauty and importance; while the wandering Arab who enters its gates, and looks up to the high and whitewashed walls of the Bashaw’s castle, expresses strongly in his countenance the astonishment which he feels how human hands and ingenuity could have accomplished such a structure.

Of the ancient remains now existing in Tripoly, the Roman arch we have already alluded to, with a few scattered fragments of tesselated pavement, and some partial ruins of columns and entablatures, here and there built into the walls of modern structures, are all that we were able to discover[4].

The harbour is formed by a long reef of rocks running out into the sea in a north-easterly direction, and by other reefs at some distance to the eastward of these, all of which make together a very good shelter. In the deepest part, however, there is very little more than five and six fathoms water.

At the extremity of a rocky projection to the northward, forming part of the first-mentioned reef, are two batteries, called the New, and Spanish, forts; and to the westward of these, on an insulated rock, is a circular one called the French fort. Besides these, there are two others on the beach to the eastward, which, with the New and Spanish forts, would prove of considerable annoyance to hostile vessels entering the harbour. The forts are in better condition than the walls and ramparts, which we have already stated to be very much dilapidated, and the guns very little attended to.

The mosques and baths of Tripoly, with its coffee-houses, bazars, &c., as well as the manners and customs, dresses, prejudices, and other peculiarities, of the people who are in the habit of frequenting them, have been so amply, and so well described in other publications, that we need not here attempt any account of them[5].

We may, however, be allowed a few words on the peculiarities of soil, at present observable in the neighbourhood of Tripoly, as contrasted with those which appear to have existed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

It has been observed by Leo Africanus, (who flourished during the pontificate and under the protection of Leo the Tenth,) that there was at all times a scarcity of grain in Tripoly, and that the country about it was incapable of cultivation; but it will appear from the passages which we have quoted below, as well as from the actual state of the place, that it is merely the want of rain (which is occasionally experienced) that now prevents the soil in question from producing good crops very regularly[6].

When we inquire into the cause of this difference, a more interesting result will be afforded by the inquiry than any which relates to the quantity of corn produced at Tripoly. We find, for instance, that the lands to the southward of Tripoly (we mean those in the immediate neighbourhood of the town) were subject, in the time of the African Geographer, to be overflowed for some extent by the sea; while the same parts are now above the level of the water, which never reaches high enough to cover them[7]. “All the country about Tripoly” (says Leo Africanus) “is sandy like that of Numidia; and the reason of this is, that the sea enters freely towards the southward, (entra assai verso mezzogiorno,) so that the lands which ought to be cultivated are all covered with water. The opinion of the inhabitants,” he continues, “with respect to this _riviera_, is, that there was formerly a considerable tract of land extending to the northward; but that for many thousand years the sea has been advancing and covering it; which is observable,” he adds, “and known to be the case, on the coast of Monasteer, as well as at Mahdia, Sfax, Gabes, and the island of Girbe; with other cities to the eastward, whose shores have but little depth of water; so that one may walk a mile or two into the sea without being up to the waist. Wherever this occurs,” (continues Leo) “such places are said to be considered as parts of the _soil_ overflowed by the sea;” (that is, not within the original bounds of the latter,) “and the inhabitants of Tripoly,” he tells us, “are of opinion, that their city stood formerly more to the northward; but that owing to the continual advance of the sea it has been gradually extended in a southerly direction; they also declare,” says our Author, “that remains of houses and other buildings may still be observed under water[8].”

From this account, contrasted with the actual appearance of the place in question, we must either suppose that the level of the lands here alluded to, which are those in the _immediate_ neighbourhood of Tripoly, is higher, at the present time, than it was in the age of Leo, or that the sea has retired since that period. For although the soil of Tripoly still continues to be sandy, there is now no part of it, as we have stated above, overflowed to the southward of the town[9]. As we cannot suppose that the sea has retired since the time of the author in question—(for we shall hereafter point out several instances on the coast, between this part of Northern Africa and Alexandria, in which it rather appears to have gained)—we must conclude that, since the age of Leo Africanus, the land alluded to has been rising in a greater proportion than the sea.

This elevation of soil is, at the same time, by no means inconsistent with the rise of the waters already mentioned; for, as the coast is here sandy, we may venture to conclude, that the sea, notwithstanding it continued to rise, threw up, from time to time, a sufficient quantity of sand to raise the level of the country above it; and we shall thus have an additional confirmation of what appears to be actually the case on the coasts of the Greater Syrtis, and Cyrenaica, as well as of the ingenious conjectures of Major Rennell with regard to the Lake Tritonis and the Lesser Syrtis.

It is well known that Tripoly, after the destruction of Carthage, became a Roman province; and that on the conquest of a great part of Northern Africa by the Vandals, it passed into the hands of those barbarians, from which it was rescued, in the reign of Justinian, by the valour and abilities of Belisarius. The rapid and extraordinary progress of Mahometanism, soon after the death of its founder, involved Tripoly, together with the whole of Northern Africa, in the general wreck of civilization and Christianity: since that period it has remained, with few exceptions, in the hands of its Moslem conquerors, passing successively from the government of the Caliphs to the tyranny of Morocco, Fez, Tunis, and the Porte. After the erection of the walls of the town, already mentioned as the work of Dragut, Tripoly became the secure resort of most of the Corsairs who roved under Turkish colours; and from that port they continually make attacks and descents on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean.

After the death of Dragut, the Porte continued to send Governors to Tripoly under the titles of Sangiac and Bashaw; and the castle was garrisoned by Turkish troops while the Moors inhabited the city. At length, in the year 1714, it was finally rescued from the oppression of the Turks by the great-grandfather of the reigning Bashaw; who, having contrived to assassinate the whole of the garrison, took the reins of government into his own hands, and obtained the title of Hamet the Great. From that time to the present it has remained under the government of the Moors, although the supremacy of the Grand Signor is still acknowledged, and tribute is paid to the Porte.

We may say, in allusion to the actual state of Tripoly, that it appears to be making some advances towards civilization, and is beginning to feel the good effects which result from a state of security and tranquillity. Indeed, when we reflect upon its deplorable condition at the time of the accession of Sidi Yusuf, and look back upon the horrors of civil discord and contention to which it had been for more than eight years exposed—impoverished at the same time by indiscriminate extortion and plunder, and subjected during the period of these heavy calamities to the dreadful effects of famine and plague—we may venture to assert that the present state of Tripoly is far better than might have been expected. It is now secure under the protection of an established government, property is respected, and commerce is improving; its markets are well supplied, its manufactures are encouraged, and its population appears to be increasing[10].

A considerable portion of the revenue of Tripoly was formerly drawn from the plunder obtained by her corsairs; and a very lucrative branch of her commerce consisted in the traffic of slaves. The humane interference, and the decisive measures, of England, have contributed to check, if not quite to abolish, these execrable sources of profit. Piracy, so far at least as we were able to learn, has been wholly superseded by commerce; and when the Tripolines find that it is more to their interest to give up their traffic in human kind than to continue it, we may hope to see this also relinquished.

It may, however, be added (we fear) that _till then_ such a consummation must not be expected, however devoutly it may be wished. Indeed, we cannot reasonably expect that it should; for the feelings which result from a high state of civilization will never be found to precede civilization itself: and humanity, however strongly we may believe, or may wish to believe, it is implanted in the breasts of all mankind, has not often been found to weigh very heavy against the scale in which interest, or inclination, has been opposed to it.

GEOGRAPHICAL REMARKS ON THE TOWNS AND DISTRICT OF TRIPOLY.

The town of Tripoly has been usually considered to occupy the site of the ancient Oea; one of the cities which, with Sabrata and Leptis Magna, the Tripoli Vecchia and Lebida of modern times, composed the three principal towns of a district which took from them the appellation of Tripolis.

At what precise period this tract of country assumed the title of Tripolis does not appear to be clearly ascertained; but we may probably conclude that it acquired it in the reign, either of Titus, or of his successor Domitian; soon after the building of Sabrata and Oea, which may be supposed to have taken place before the middle of the first century[11].

It seems to be still more uncertain when the name of the _district_ was bestowed upon the _cities_ of Tripoly; for although Tripoli Vecchia (which we have already called Sabrata) has been said to be the first which assumed it, there does not appear to be any other proof in favour of this supposition, (at least we are not ourselves acquainted with it,) than that which may be inferred from the epithet _vecchia_, by which this town has been for centuries distinguished. Both cities appear to have flourished together under the Romans; and were in all probability destroyed at the same time, in the Saracen invasion of the country. As Sabrata, however, continued to remain in ruins, while a new town sprung up on the site of the ancient Oea, the name of Tripoly may have, perhaps, been first assumed by the latter; while Sabrata, from the circumstance of its being in ruins, was distinguished by the epithet which it retains.

We are not aware of any proof that either Sabrata or Oea had changed their names before their destruction by the Saracens; and as no town appears to have been erected on the ruins of the former, there was no necessity for distinguishing it by another. When a new town arose on the ruins of Oea, it is probable that the appellation by which it is at present known to the Moors, and which is merely a corruption of the Roman term for the district[12], was the first name which either town assumed after the loss of those which formerly distinguished them. Tráblis would have been known to the nations of Europe as the same name with that of Tripolis; and they would naturally have written the term like that of the district, whenever there might have been occasion to mention it. Supposing this to be the case, we may fairly assume, that the name of Tripolis was never given by the ancients at all to either of the cities in question; and that it is only, in fact, since the Mahometan conquest that the name of the district has been applied to them.

This appears to be more probable when we consider that the title of—_The district of the three cities_—as Tripolis must be translated, would be a very unappropriate term for a single town, although it might be well applied to a department. Such an objection, however, would by no means appear to the Mahometan invaders of the country, who may certainly be imagined to have been ignorant of the language from which the word in question is compounded; and they would discover no reason why the former name of the district might not be a proper one for their new town.

We have not been at the pains to search minutely into this question, which would probably receive light from the writers of the Lower Empire; and we offer the conjectures which we have hazarded above, in the absence of more decided information. At the same time, however, it may here be remarked, that the propriety of adopting the word Tripolis, which appears in the printed copies of Ptolemy, is questioned on very good authority. In support of this assertion we need only refer our readers to the Fourth Book of Cellarius, (chap. 3,) where the question is amply discussed; and as the adoption of this reading, instead of that of Leptis Magna, which appears to be decidedly the proper one, would create an endless and unnecessary confusion in the geography of that part of the country which lies between Tripoli Vecchia and Lebida, we have thought it not irrelevant to allude to it[13].

It is perhaps the more necessary that we should do so, as Signor Della Cella has availed himself of the reading above mentioned, and of a passage which he has quoted from Pliny, to identify the modern town of Tripoly with Neapolis; which is too evidently the same town with Leptis Magna (or Lebida), to admit of any similar arrangement[14].

We have by no means any wish to detract from the merits of this gentleman, who deserves every credit for the spirit of inquiry which has led him to encounter the fatigues and privations of a journey like that which he has accomplished. He is the first European who has crossed the Greater Syrtis since the occupation of Northern Africa by the Romans; at least he is the only one that we know of, since that period, who has published any account of such a journey; and he is therefore entitled to the merit of having afforded us the only information which has been given for many centuries of an interesting and extensive tract of country. But as we shall frequently have occasion to refer to his work in the course of the present narrative, we trust that we shall not be suspected of undervaluing its merits, because we may sometimes find it necessary to point out what we conceive to be its errors.

In considering the modern town of Tripoly as Oea, one difficulty will however present itself: Oea is no where mentioned as a port, that we have been able to discover; whereas Tripoly must always have been one. But as many cities are mentioned as ports by one writer, while they are merely styled cities by another, this objection may readily be waived. Garapha is by Ptolemy styled λιμην, by Scylax πολις, by Pliny, Oppidum; Abrotonum is by Strabo called πολις, by Scylax πολις και λιμην, by Pliny, Oppidum: Leptis Magna is rarely mentioned as a port, although it is well known to have been one; and many more examples might be adduced by those who would take the trouble to collect them.

What is now called modern Tripoly has been said by some writers to have been built by the early inhabitants of Northern Africa, under the name of Tarabilis or Trebiles; and the same authors have stated that the Roman term of Tripolis is derived from the name which they bestowed upon it. We have already noticed the improbability of this latter supposition; and we may now venture to add, that there appears to be no proof of any town having been built upon the site of modern Tripoly before the erection of the city of Oea. Leptis Magna is known to have been built by the Phœnicians, on the authority of several writers of antiquity; but the other two cities composing the Tripolis have always been considered of Roman origin, and no mention is made of any other having ever been assigned to them in works not comparatively modern.

Leo Africanus, who may be supposed to have compiled his account of Africa from the authority chiefly of Mahometan historians, has given his testimony in favour of the native origin of Tripoly, while he states that Tripoli Vecchia was built by the Romans. “Questa,” (Tripoli Vecchia) says the African geographer, “è una città antica edificata pur da’ Romani;” but of the other town he states, “Tripoli fu edificata da gli Africani, dopo la rovina della Vecchia Tripoli”—without any allusion whatever to the circumstance of its having been originally a Roman city.

Whatever may be the earliest authority for this supposition, it appears to be evidently founded on an imperfect knowledge of the place; for if there were even no reason for supposing Tripoly to be Oea, we must still have allowed it Roman origin; or at least we must have admitted it to have been in existence at the time when the Romans held the country. The Roman arch, which has been given in the work of Captain Lyon, is sufficient to establish this circumstance; and the inscription which it bears, also given in the same publication, and mentioned in the Memoirs of Consul Tully[15], refers this edifice to the time of Marcus Aurelius. In stating that Tripoly was built by the Africans, _after the ruin of Tripoli Vecchia_, we might have imagined that Leo only meant to allude to its re-construction under the Mahometans; but from the circumstance of his having just before mentioned Tripoli Vecchia, as a city which was built by the Romans, it seems to be probable that, had he been aware of them, he would equally have noticed the pretensions of modern Tripoly to a higher antiquity than he has assigned to it.

Tripoli Vecchia was destroyed, under the caliphate of Omar, by the Saracen invaders of the country. The city was pillaged, after a siege of six months, and its inhabitants either slain or carried prisoners to Egypt and Arabia. This is stated by Leo; and here we have a date for the destruction of the city of Sabrata, which appears to have never been rebuilt: but _how long_ after the occurrence of this event Modern Tripoly first appeared on the ruins of Oea we have not been informed by our author. And it seems to be evident that he considered the African town as the first which had been raised upon the spot.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _Three_ sides of the town of Tripoly are said, in Tully’s Memoirs, to be washed by the sea, which is certainly not now the case.]

[Footnote 2: The noted corsair Dragūt is said to have been the author of this defence, and two forts which were situated near the sea are also attributed to this person.

But Leo Africanus, who flourished at the same period with Dragūt, at the beginning of the 16th century, has mentioned the walls of Tripoly as being high and handsome, though not very strong; and as the existing walls of the town, if they be really those of Dragūt, bear all the appearance of having once been very solid, we may perhaps suppose that those mentioned by Leo were standing before the present ones were constructed.

The greatest length of the city, including the walls, may be said to be about 1360 yards, and its extreme breadth about a thousand yards.]

[Footnote 3: The happy confusion of buildings which surmount the walls of the castle, raised at various times for the convenience and accommodation of the royal family, together with the little world which is contained within its limits, have been well, and correctly described in Tully’s Memoirs.]

[Footnote 4: To the eastward of the town, however, on a tract of rocky and elevated ground, is the burial-place of the ancient city; where the researches of Mr. Consul Warrington have brought to light some very interesting objects; particularly several large sepulchral urns of glass, the most perfect we have ever seen.]

[Footnote 5: We allude principally to the works of Consul Tully and Captain Lyon, and to Blaquiere’s Letters from the Mediterranean.]

[Footnote 6: “In our way home” (says the artless and amiable writer of Tully’s Memoirs) “we passed through a street noted for its corn-wells, or rather caverns, dug very deep into the earth. They are situated on each side of the street, at about thirty yards’ distance. They were designed for magazines to lay up corn in, where they say it will keep perfectly good for an hundred years. Happy were it for the inhabitants of this country if these caverns were filled now as they were _formerly_ when the country was _so rich in the produce of corn_, that it was from hence exported to many parts of the world, and prized almost above any other. The barley when sown here yields twice as much as it does in Europe. When it grows properly, they reckon thirty and thirty-five ears for one an ordinary produce; while in Europe fourteen or fifteen is considered as a good return.” In dry seasons, however, which frequently occur, the case appears to be far otherwise. “The times are so much altered now,” (continues the authoress above mentioned,) “that corn is imported at an immense expense. This melancholy change is attributed _to the want of rains_, which have failed for several years past. There have not been more than one or two good harvests for thirty years. If cargoes of wheat do not soon arrive from Tunis, the state of this place will be dreadful beyond description.”—_Tully’s Narrative_, p. 49.—Again, the same writer says, p. 67, “It has been ascertained by the Bashaw to-day, that there is only barley for sale at two bazars, or market-places, left in the place. _A few years since the barley here grew so favourably, that it produced in return three times as much as in any part of Europe. Such quantities of it were exported, that Tripoly was enriched by its sale;_ but the failure of rain has left the country for several years without one good harvest.”

This account is consistent with the above, and we have here some idea of what may be meant by the word _formerly_, in the passage first quoted, which is certainly somewhat indefinite.]

[Footnote 7: Part of the sandy plain to the south-eastward is, however, occasionally flooded during the prevalence of strong northerly gales, and there is a tract of marshy ground, to the westward of the town, between the cultivated parts and the sea.]

[Footnote 8: (Leo Africanus in Ramusio, p. 72.)—With respect to the former extension of Tripoly to the northward, here mentioned by the African geographer, the observation is certainly in some degree correct, and consistent with the present appearance of other parts of the coast of Northern Africa; but we must at the same time observe that the town could scarcely have projected any farther to the northward than the sites of the French and Spanish forts; for beyond these we get into five and eight fathoms water.]

[Footnote 9: We must, however, confess, that we cannot altogether understand, why the loss of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoly, said by Leo Africanus to have been flooded in his days, should have necessarily occasioned to the inhabitants of the town so great a scarcity of grain as that mentioned by this geographer. For the high grounds immediately beyond the parts which were overflowed, must at all times, we should conceive, from their rocky foundation, have been placed above the level of the sea at its greatest height, and might therefore have been cultivated as we find them to be at present; and the Gharian mountains, as well as the country of Tagiura, both of which are still very productive, are mentioned by Leo as places highly cultivated at the period of the overflow alluded to.

We may remark on this subject—that the coincidence of the former with the present state of the last-mentioned places, appears to be the more worthy of notice, from the circumstance of our finding the actual produce of other districts, both in Tunis and Tripoly, very different from what it appears to have been in earlier periods. Among other examples, in proof of this assertion, we may notice the great difference which has taken place in the produce and soil of Byzacium. This district was formerly much renowned for its fertility; and we are informed by Pliny that one grain of corn from the Byzacium was sent to the Emperor Augustus, which yielded four hundred shoots; and that three hundred and forty stems had been afterwards sent to Nero, produced equally from a single grain of corn[a]. But whatever be the cause of the change which has taken place, we find the soil of the Byzacium to have greatly fallen off from its former extraordinary fertility; in proof of which we need only extract the following observations from Shaw’s Travels in Barbary.

“The many parts which I have seen of the ancient Byzacium, or winter circuit, fall vastly short in fertility of the character which has been attributed to them by the ancients. For such as are adjacent to the sea coast are generally of a dry, sandy nature, with no great depth of soil in the very best portion of them. This is called the Sahul, and is planted for the most part with olive-trees, which flourish here in the greatest perfection. Neither is the inland country in a much better condition.”]

[Footnote a: Misit ex eo loco Divo Augusto procurator ejus, ex uno grano, (vix credibile dictu) quadringenta paucis minus germina, extantque de ea re epistolæ. Misit et Neroni similiter CCCXL stipulas ex uno grano.—_Nat. Hist._ l. xviii. c. 10.

Again (lib. v. c. 4.) Ita (Byzacium) appellatur regio CCL. M. P. circuitu, fertilitatis eximiæ, cum centesima fruge agricolis fœnus reddente terra.]

[Footnote 10: Before we take leave of Tripoly it may be proper to recommend, for the information of those who may hereafter visit that country, the useful precaution of not subjecting themselves to the fluctuation which is usual in the exchange of the place. Money, in Tripoly, is in the hands of a few; and its possessors, who are by no means unacquainted with the most profitable methods of laying it out, are not at all times particularly remarkable for a liberal treatment of strangers. We found the exchange get more unfavourable as our demand for money increased; and having been obliged to make some comparatively heavy payments in Spanish dollars, the value of them rose in proportion as it was known we had occasion for them[a]. In order to remedy, or rather to prevent impositions of a similar nature, it would be advisable for travellers to take with them, in Spanish dollars, the amount of the sums they may have occasion for in Tripoly; for even if the exchange should be good on their arrival there, it would most probably lower as they were known to have occasion for money. Should this be inconvenient, bills might be drawn on Malta, and the money in _Spanish dollars_[b] forwarded by the first secure vessel which might be sailing from that port to Tripoly.]

[Footnote a: It must, however, be observed, in justice to the house of Messrs. Beaussier and Co., that we experienced a more liberal treatment from them than from any other house in Tripoly.]

[Footnote b: The _Spanish_ dollar is the coin in most general request in the northern and inland parts of Africa.]

[Footnote 11: We find both these cities mentioned by Pliny; and one of them (Oea) by Pomponius Mela, while nothing is said by Strabo either of the cities or the district. Pliny died A.D. 79; Mela is supposed to have flourished about the middle of the first century, and Strabo in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. We may infer, from the silence of Strabo on the subject, that neither Sabrata nor Oea existed in his time; and as Pliny, though he mentions both cities, appears to have been unacquainted with the name of the district in question, we may also perhaps infer that it was bestowed upon it after his time. What is stated by Cellarius on the subject of Tripolis, appears to confirm this opinion: for he tells us that he knew of no one before the time of Solinus, who made any mention in Africa of the name[a]; and that _he_ only applied the term to the district, and not to any particular city.

Solinus is known to have written after Pliny, towards the close of the first century; and we may therefore, perhaps, conclude, that the district called Tripolis, received that appellation between the times of Pliny and Solinus.]

[Footnote a: Nec qui ante Solinum, non antiquissimum scriptorem, mentionem vocis Tripolis in Africa fecerit succurrit nobis; qui vero, non urbem, sed trium oppidorum regionem intellexit.—(Lib. iv. cap. 3. § 18.)]

[Footnote 12: Tráblis, the Moorish name of the town, is not, however, properly a _corruption_ of Tripolis; it is merely the same word articulated through the medium of Arab pronunciation.

Some authors have imagined an early African name _Tarabilis_, or _Trebilis_, from which the Roman name Tripolis was derived; but this is merely imaginary, since the meaning of Tripolis clearly points out its origin to be Greek.]

[Footnote 13: In hoc tractu autem, post Cinyphum fluvium, prima Ptolemæo est Νεαπολις (Neapolis) de qua, in editis, exstat, ἡ καὶ Τριπολις (quæ etiam Tripolis vocatur): in Palatino autem codice nihil de Tripoli legitur, sed ἡ καὶ Λεπτις μεγαλη (quæ, Neapolis, etiam Leptis Magna dicitur.)—Geog. Antiq. lib. iv. cap. 3.

It may be added, in support of the reading in the Palatine manuscript, that Neapolis is mentioned by Ptolemy immediately after the Cinyphus, which lies to the _eastward_ of Leptis Magna; so that the geographer, in passing, as he does, from east to west, must be supposed to have omitted Leptis Magna altogether, if Neapolis be not intended to denote it.]

[Footnote 14: This reading of Ptolemy, as will appear from the passage which we have quoted above from Cellarius, is contradicted by the Palatine manuscript; and must be rejected on the authority of Scylax and Strabo, and even of Ptolemy himself.—(See the Fourth Book of Cellarius). The passage of Pliny is not so easily disposed of. After mentioning the city of Sabrata, this author observes, in speaking of the country which lies between the Great and Lesser Syrtis, “Ibi civitas Oensis, Cynips fluvius ac regio, oppida, Neapolis, Taphra, Abrotonum, Leptis altera, quæ cognominatur magna.”—(Hist. Nat. lib. v. cap. 5.) Here we find Neapolis mentioned immediately after Oea, and distinguished from Leptis Magna. “Io crederei,” says Signor della Cella, “che sia piu conforme al vero, l’ammettere che Tripoli degli antichi geografi debba riconoscersi nelle rovine che trovansi a ponente de Tripoli tuttora chiamato Tripoli Vecchio. Pare che l’abbandono, qualunque ne fosse la cagione, di questa città, desse luogo alla formazione di quella che attualmente ne porta il nome, e che in quell’ epoca fu chiamata _Tripoli il nuovo_, o la nuova città, e da’ Greci Νεαπολις. In questa opinione consente la vera lezione di Tolommeo, ove leggesi Νεαπολις ἡ καὶ Τριπολις. (Neapoli che dicesi anche Tripoli.) Ho detto la vera lezione di Tolommeo, perchè io ho per apocrifa quella adottata dal Cellario, dove in vece di Τριπολις, avendo sostituito Λεπτις, tutto rimane alterato e confuso. Con Tolommeo concorda Plinio che ha per due città diverse Neapoli e Leptis Magna, e tra queste due tramette Gaffara e Abrotano; e Plinio, per le cognizione che poteva attinger nella città, e ne’ tempi ne’ quali scriveva, merita sopra ogni altro credenza intorna alla geografia di questa parte dell’ Africa.”—(Viaggio da Tripoli, &c. p. 41.)

It will not here be very evident how the modern town of Tripoly can, on the authority of Pliny, be supposed to be the same with Neapolis. For Tripoly is identified by the best authorities with Oea; and Neapolis is mentioned, in the passage alluded to, as situated between Oea and Taphra, (the Graphara and Garapha of Scylax and Ptolemy.) But supposing it to be, as Signor della Cella has stated, that the decay of the “_Tripoli_ degli _antichi_ geografi” had really given occasion to the building of the present one, under the title he has conferred upon it of Neapolis; it follows that the former city must have borne the name of Tripolis in the time of Pliny, who, so far from knowing any town of that name, does not even recognise the district under the title.

It must, however, be confessed, that the introduction of Neapolis, in the situation which Pliny has assigned to it, is by no means very easily accounted for. At the same time it is certain, that the position in question is directly in opposition to the authority of Strabo, as well as to that of Scylax and of Ptolemy; who, all of them, identify Neapolis with Leptis Magna, as will be seen by a reference to Cellarius. This author, who insists very properly upon the authority of Strabo, &c., that Neapolis is Leptis Magna, supposes, with Hardouin, that Pliny has adopted the passage above quoted from Mela, whom he censures for having brought together places so distant from each other. But Mela is evidently speaking of the country to the westward of the _Lesser_ Syrtis; of Leptis Parva, and the Neapolis Colonia of Ptolemy, situated near the extremity of the Mercurii Promontorium, in the vicinity of Clypea; so that, although the towns and cities which he enumerates do not come in the proper succession, they all of them belong to the part of the country which he is describing; and not, as Cellarius imagines, to both sides of the river Triton, which would have made a much more serious confusion. It is therefore less easy to imagine whence Pliny has derived his Neapolis, or what is his authority for the order in which he places the other cities of the district; if indeed he intended them to be in order at all, which from his mention of Oea (the civitas Oeensis) conjointly with the river Cinyphus[a], we might probably be authorized in denying. We find _Abrotonum_ also introduced by Cellarius, instead of _Acholla_, in the passage which he has quoted from Mela: the proper reading is—Hadrumetum, Leptis, Clypea, _Acholla_, Taphrure[b], Neapolis, hinc ad Syrtim adjacent, ut inter ignobilia celeberrimæ.]

[Footnote a: The Taphrure of Mela must not be confounded with Pliny’s Taphra, which is the same with Graphara or Garapha.]

[Footnote b: Mela has however done the same (ultra est Oea oppidum, et Cinypus fluvius, per uberrima arva decidens . . .) and the difficulty is increased by what follows—_tum_ Leptis altera, &c.; both accounts are very confused, and open to much discussion, but this is not the place for it, and we have already perhaps said too much upon the subject.]

[Footnote 15: Or rather of a female relation of Consul Tully, to whom the work in question is attributed.

It is observed in the same work, “When this arch was built, there were few habitations nearer this place than Lebida, the Leptis Magna of the ancients;” and farther on, “the Romans strayed to the spot where Tripoly now stands, to hunt wild beasts; and under this arch they found a welcome retreat from the burning rays of the sun.” But the arch was erected after the middle of the _second_ century; and both Sabrata and Oea were extant in the time of Pliny, who flourished in the middle of the _first_,—the conclusion is obvious.]