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].”