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