We next come to the Gurji Mosque (Pl. B, 1), with an octagonal minaret, and to the main street of the Hárra Kebîr (see above), with its numerous workshops, where curious gold and silver trinkets are sold by weight.
From the British Consulate (Pl. 5; B, 1) we follow the Church Street to the S.E. to the Italian Gothic church of Santa Maria degli Angeli (Pl. B, 2), completed in 1846, belonging to an Italian Franciscan monastery. By leave of the superior we may ascend the tower, whose gallery (141 ft.) is a fine point of view.
From the Piazza (Pl. B, 2; Arabic Mussâiya) near the church the Strada del Consolato Italiano leads to the S. to the Sûk el-Harrâra (Pl. B, A, 2, 3), the chief thoroughfare between the Marina (p. [408]) and the W. gate, Bâb el-Jedîd (Pl. A, 3; ‘new gate’), opened in 1860. This sûk contains the shops of the cloth and silk weavers and several curious antiquated Bakeries, with millstones turned by camels.
A road from the W. gate leads to the W., past several wells (p. [410]), to the (8 min.) extensive Jewish Cemetery; another, to the N., to the ancient Necropolis (Pl. A, 2), on the abrupt coast (82 ft.), not far from the town-wall, containing many rock-tombs and cisterns.—The Greek and the Catholic Cemeteries (Pl. A, B, 1) lie between the Lazaretto and the lighthouse.
The busiest streets in the S.E. quarter are the Zanga Sûk et-Turk (Pl. B, 2, 3) and, diverging from it at the Piazza dell’Orologio, the Sûk el-Khadra or Sûk Urba (Pl. B, C, 3). The tasteless three-storied Torre dell’ Orologio, Arabic Sâa (Pl. B, 3), which tells Turkish time, was built in 1870. In front of the Arab cafés here auctions are held on Friday forenoons.
The Sûks (p. [335]) consist here in part only of vaulted passages; many have wooden roofs with vine-trellises. The wares are mostly Tunisian or European, and therefore seldom worth buying here. A side-entrance adjoins the Jâma el-Bâsha (Pl. C, 3), the chief mosque.
The massive pile of buildings by the sea, a few paces to the E. of the clock-tower, is the Serai (Pl. C, 2, 3; Arabic Kasba), originally the Spanish citadel. It now contains barracks, many courts, several prisons (habbês), partly underground, and the government offices. The terrace next the sea affords a fine view of the harbour and towards the oasis.
Outside the S. gates, Bâb el-Khandek and Bâb el-Menshia or el-Mnshîa (Pl. C, 3; oasis gate), rises the Fontana Maggiore, an elegant well-house in the Turkish rococo style. Near it is the Circolo Militare (Pl. C, 3; p. [406]), a fashionable resort, especially when the military band plays (Sun. and Frid., 5 or 8 p.m.). The pretty little garden, whence we survey the Moslem cemetery (p. [411]), contains four fine antique statues in marble, all of them torsos from Leptis Magna (p. [412]).
Outside the S. gates lies the featureless New Town (Città Nuova), in which among other buildings are situated the Town Hall (Beledîa; Pl. C, 3), the Azizia (Pl. C, D, 3, 4), erected under Abdul Aziz as a residence for the commandant, the new Vali’s Residence (Pl. C, 4), and the Technical School (Pl. D, 4). The Sûk el-Khobsa or bread-market (Pl. C, 3), with its fondouks (inns), is worth seeing in the early morning.
The sandy beach, nearly ¾ M. long, is the scene, early on Tuesday mornings, of a great *Weekly Market (Sûk et-Tlett; Pl. D, E, 3, 4), attended also by camel caravans from the interior. Among the many products of the country offered for sale here are fruit and cereals from the oases (see below), olive-oil (Arabic zeit), henna (see below), alfa or esparto, reed-mats, pottery, leather goods (such as the girbas, water-skins in goat-leather for journeys in the desert, made at Ghadâmes). It is a market also for pack-camels (Arabic jemél), donkeys (hmâr), sheep, and goats.