The Language of the natives is an Arabic dialect, interlarded with Berber and Italian words; many of the officials, however, speak Turkish only. In the European colony Italian predominates. This is largely due to the fact that the Italian state supports several schools, which are attended by Jewish and Maltese children as well as Italian. There are three French schools also.
One Day should be devoted to a walk of 2–3 hrs. through the town and to an excursion to the oasis (p. [410]). One must be very careful not to enter mosques, saints’ tombs, or Moslem cemeteries (comp. p. xxv). It should be observed also that the military authorities, dreading spies, are jealous of visitors near the fortifications (comp. p. [175]). Otherwise the public safety is well provided for in the town and environs. For excursions in the interior the leave of the Sublime Porte must be obtained.
Tripoli in Barbary (Ital. Tripoli di Barbería, Fr. Tripoli de Barbarie or d’Afrique, Arabic Tarabulus el-Gharb, i.e. ‘Tripoli of the West’, to distinguish it from the Syrian Tripoli), the ancient Oëa, is the capital of the Turkish vilayet of Tripolitania, presided over by the Vali or governor-general. The town lies in 32° 54′ N. lat. and 13° 10′ E. long., on a triangular peninsula, which consists of quaternary dune-sandstone resting on tertiary limestone rock. A series of rocky islets and reefs, 1¼ M. long, running out from the peninsula, form a roomy but much silted harbour. The mixture of nationalities converging at Tripoli, as one of the chief portals to inland Africa, is unparallelled except in Egypt. Of the 46,000 inhab. two-thirds are Berbers (p. [94]), Arabs, Moors (p. [171]), and Turks; there are 10,000 Jews, 2000 Maltese, 800 Italians, 150 Greeks (besides many Greek sponge-fishers in summer), 200 other Europeans, and lastly some 2000 negroes, descendants of slaves from the Sudan. Negroes are to be found also among the very numerous officers of the garrison of 6000 men.
The town with its white houses, its slender minarets of the Turkish type, its green gardens and groups of palms, the reddish-yellow dunes of drift-sand from the Sahara, and the deep-blue sea, all bathed in dazzling sunshine, present a most fascinating picture.
History. The three Phœnician seaports between the Syrtis Minor and Major, Leptis Magna (p. [412]), Oëa, and Sabratha, together called Tripolis by the Sicilian Greeks, were even in the Punic age connected by caravan routes with inland Africa and by a coast-road, 512 M. long, with Carthage. After their annexation to the Roman province of Africa on the fall of Jugurtha (p. [321]) the ‘three cities’ flourished anew. To them, as also to Tacape (Gabes), the Garamantes, or Libyan (Berber) inhabitants of Phazania (now Fezzan), brought from the Sudan ostrich-feathers, gold-dust, ivory, ebony, elephants, and black slaves, to be exported thence to Carthage, Rome, and the chief seaports of S. Europe. This region yielded also large supplies of corn, while the productive olive-trees were deemed the most abundant on the Mediterranean. To the Roman emperors Septimius Severus (193–211) and Alexander Severus (222–35), natives of this district, the three towns owed much improvement and embellishment. The Punic language and the Greek, which was that of the educated classes, were then still so prevalent that Alexander Severus, for example, was unacquainted with Latin till his arrival in Rome. Sept. Severus made Oëa the capital of his Provincia Tripolitana, and when the artificial harbours of the two sister towns fell into decay Oëa succeeded to their trade and their joint name.
After the Vandal period (p. [322]) and after the domination of the Byzantines, who succeeded only in 567 in Christianizing the Garamantes, the repeated irruptions of the Arabs (p. [322]) brought ruin and misery to the whole country. 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. From that time down to 1816 the inhabitants took an active part in the depredations of the ‘Algerian pirates’, bringing down upon them the sanguinary reprisals of an English fleet in 1663 and of French fleets in 1685 and 1728, which caused the almost entire destruction of the town. In 1804 Tripoli and in 1805 Derna (p. [414]) were stormed by the Americans. The native dynasty of the Karamanli, founded in 1714, was overthrown by the Turks in 1835, after which Tripoli became a usual place of exile for Turkish civil and military offenders and again lapsed into decay. At length, in 1899, the partition of the inland regions between Great Britain and France stimulated the Turks to renewed activity and defensive measures. In spite, however, of these, and of the very favourable situation of the town, the caravan trade with the interior is on the decline and the local industries are inconsiderable.
The Old Town, a pentagon, is still enclosed on four sides by the mouldering Spanish Town Wall, 40 ft. high at places, built of sandstone from Gergârish (p. [411]), and consists of three different quarters. Near the harbour, and behind the Marina (Pl. B, 1, 2) skirting it from the Dogana or Custom House (Pl. B, 1) onwards, lies the quarter of that name, inhabited chiefly by the Christians, and therefore the least Oriental in appearance. To the W. is the Hárra (Kebîr, the great, and Serîr, the little), the Jewish quarter, with its crooked and dirty streets. The purely Mohammedan S.E. Quarter contains the main business streets, which lead to the outer markets and the new town (p. [409]). The principal streets are paved and are lighted at night with petroleum lamps, but many others, especially in the Jewish quarter, being unpaved in Oriental fashion, are almost impassable after rain and pitch-dark at night.
In the narrow Strada della Marina (Arabic Bâb Bahr, sea-gate), leading from the Dogana and the fish-market to the S.W. to the Jews’ quarter, rises on the right the Roman Triumphal Arch (Pl. B, 1), built by the consul C. Orfitus in the reign of Antoninus Pius (138–161) but in 163 rededicated to that emperor’s successors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus.
The arch, 41 ft. broad and 33 ft. deep, has four fronts (‘quadrifrons’; comp. pp. [315], 316), showing that it stood over cross-streets. Among the sadly mutilated sculptures are still seen statues of Victory, figures of animals, and trophies. The back, with the inscription, is half covered, and the fourth side is almost entirely built over. The lower half is buried in the ground. The interior is used as a shop. The vaulting of the passages is lacunar. The central space is covered with a flat dome, rising from an octagonal cornice.