Sunday, I hastened on shore for mass at | considerably lightened for the cow by her the Franciscan Church. Father Angelo, having to walk down hill in a tunnel, so the prefect apostolic, was exceedingly that she could throw all her weight into kind. He had been there thirty years, the collar, and was sheltered from the and looked like a venerable Arab, bearded sun. Nevertheless, she looked meagre and sunburnt. With Arab hospitality he enough. told me I must remain with him while the ship went to Tabia, some seventy miles up the coast. "This house is yours," he said, and he afterwards did all he could to prove to me that it really was so. A friend took me for a drive to the edge of the desert of Maseri. On the road an Arab offered us some "Pharaoh's hens," called habber, or habara, from the desert of Sahara. Two were bought for me to take to England, but as I was assured it was almost impossible to keep them at all in captivity, and that they would certainly die before we got home, I sent them to Malta. Another Arab offered us legb, or legby, the sap of the palm-tree, which he carried in a stone jar, with a pale green tumbler to drink out of. Legb is sweetish, and is said to be cool in the early morning. It is got by cutting off all the branches of the palm, leaving nothing but the central germ, or heart of the tree. The external coat of this heart is then sliced off, which causes it to bleed, and the sap is caught in a jar hung underneath. The bleeding continues for six weeks or two months, in sufficient quantity to fill two large jars every twenty-four hours, and the tree takes four years to recover from its exhaustion.

We passed clusters of dome-shaped huts, made of mats supported on upright sticks. The roads were at first as sandy as the sea-beach. They were bad always; dusty, uneven, and sometimes intersected by trenches a foot wide and deep, over which the carriage had to bump. On either side were high, thick walls of yellow clay, out of repair, inclosing gardens or orchards, for the arid land needs only irrigation to turn it into a paradise. A wretched little cow was lifting water out of a well by an ingeniously constructed machine. It consisted of a large bucket, or rather bag, made of skin, which was lowered and raised by a cord passing over a high pulley. The bag had a kind of open sleeve in the bottom, which was kept bent while the bag was coming up, so that the water could not run out. But the string which kept it bent was so adjusted with the lifting-rope that, as soon as the bag was lifted high enough, the sleeve was unbent, and drawn forward over a trough, into which the contents of the bag were discharged. The labor was

Sore eyes seemed very prevalent. A baby in its mother's arms, or rather astride upon her hip, in the genuine Eastern style, had about half-a-dozen flies in each eye, and no attempt was made to keep them away, as we noticed more than once. Flies going from child to child carry disease about. In Egypt mothers sometimes blind their male children of one eye, in order to unfit them for military service. Formerly the custom was to chop off the forefinger, but as this became very common, the government had to remove the impediment, and men who had lost the forefinger had to pull trigger with the second, that was all. At the foot of a tall tree, in an orange grove, we came upon a miserable-looking woman and a girl, paying their homage to some Mahometan saint. They were squatting in front of a little grotto, about eighteen inches high, formed of two upright stones, with a third across the top, and inside the grotto was burning a diminutive lamp, set upon a little pillar. We were assured that in the Mahometan calendar idiots filled every place that was not occupied by a knave. There is a country nearer home where they are called not uncommonly "innocents."

In Tripoli there are about three thousand five hundred Catholics, mostly Maltese. Of Jews there are said to be ten thousand, and of Mahometans twelve thousand. The Catholic Church is poor and small, only large enough to hold from one hundred to two hundred people. There is a girls' school, managed by Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, a French congregation. They have on the books about two hundred children, the greater part of whom belong to the poor school. The boys' school is at the Franciscan monastery. Attached to the convent is an hospital and a dispensary, where medicine is given gratis to all comers. Among other patients in the hospital we found a Welsh sailor, suffering from dysentery, and an old Italian, who was with Napoleon the First in Russia. He escaped down between the Black Sea and Caspian into Syria, thence to Egypt, and finally to Tripoli. Years had made him childish, almost an imbecile. When asked his age, he replied, "One year." I said I thought he must be older. "Due,"

said he.

"Cento," said I; a joke which he seemed to enjoy intensely.

We learned from the prefect apostolic that no progress is made in converting either Mahometan or Jewish adults. The only thing the missionary can do is to inculcate such great moral truths as honesty, truthfulness, and sobriety, and to give medical help to all who ask it. Then he can get hold of foundlings and friendless children, whom he may bring up as Christians. A priest whom we met, dressed in fez and white woollen burnous, and mounted on a handsome horse, has a station at Gadames. The inhabitants of this place are fanatical Mahometans, but he holds it as a stepping-stone for a further advance into the interior. In Tebu, or Tibesti, there are many idolaters, and these are more easily converted. Bornu, too, is a Mahometan kingdom, but the sultan is friendly to Europeans. Arabic is the key to the languages of the interior, where many dialects of it are spoken.

not to eat or drink for forty-eight hours. If the treatment is not begun within twelve hours the consequences are serious, and sometimes end in death.

As the streets in Tripoli are not named, few people have any particular address. Letters coming from a distance are kept at the post-office, and all such persons as indulge in the luxury of correspondence, have to send for them if they expect any. At night the main thoroughfares are lit with oil-lamps. Pieces of marble and granite, shafts and capitals of pillars, relics of a magnificence long since passed. away, are to be met with in all directions, utilized as steps, or door-sills. A marble coffin-lid, chiselled to look like scalearmor, lay against one of the public offices. In an out-of-the-way corner, amalgamated with, and nearly hidden by an overgrowth of modern buildings, we found the ruins of what had once been a handsome Roman triumphal arch. The Mahometans had defaced and mutilated all the figures, While passing through the Jewish quar- exactly as the statues of saints, which ter of the town, we entered a Jewish once adorned the Catholic churches in school. It was clean and airy, and filled England, were treated by the enlightened with cane-bottomed settles, on which the children of the glorious Reformation. At children sat cross-legged and read He- the end of the town we found ourselves brew. As we came out a loud, shrill upon the shore. The sea had encroached screaming of women, coming over the on the land, and laid bare numerous cinehousetops, announced that the death-rary urns, but nobody seemed to take any struggle of some Jew was ended-plora-interest in them. They get broken actus et ululatus multus. The Jews seemed cording as the tide unearths them, and to have the same indifference to filth as the Sanitary Board of Naples, as illustrated by the state of the sea-wall and stairs by the Chiaja. The streets were very full of holes and very dirty. A dustman goes about Tripoli every day, but apparently despoils the Jews of nothing. A grimy-looking fellow was he, with a dirty handkerchief round his head, and a dirtier blanket round his body. He raked together the offal with his tawny claws, and threw it on his donkey-cart. Another dustman, who seemed to have a particular line of his own, was provided with a bastmat, such as joiners carry their tools in, and a two-pronged hook, with which he gathered in his peculiar booty. The climate must be particularly salubrious, for, notwithstanding the imperfection of the sanitary arrangements, fever seems to be almost unknown, and although, until quite lately, no precautions were taken against small-pox, and people suffering from it were allowed to walk about the streets, yet it did but little harm. Scorpions are numerous. The remedy for their sting is five or six drops of ammonia taken internally, the same applied externally, and

the contents are scattered. Wishing to see something of the government offices and the palace of the pasha, we passed under an archway, where stood some Turkish soldiers. No one challenged us, but we had not gone far before a sentinel called us back, and the guard turned out. I could not help smiling at all this fuss about our entering such a tumble-down place. They, however, did not seem to look upon it as a joke, and, being unable to settle the matter themselves, they sent for the colonel, who presently appeared on the opposite side of the archway, a very fat fellow, surrounded by lesser dignitaries. After hearing all, he looked ferociously at us, and pointing majestically to the street, dismissed us ignominiously. We went round then another way, and climbed first up a worn-out, rickety pair of wooden stairs, and then up a second staircase of marble, which landed us on a gallery, running round a court, in the ordinary style of a Moorish house. The marble pavement was cracked and broken, and the battered marble pillars badly whitewashed. In the court were the government printing-press, and other offices,

fortified and rather important place; on closer acquaintance this is found to be a gross deception.

A large fair is held on Tuesdays, so we started to see it at half past seven A.M., thousands of men, and hundreds of camels, all crowded together on a sandy plain near the sea. Of women we did not see more than a dozen, and they were all negresses. There were cows, sheep, grain, hides, leather, capsicums, wool, baskets, mats; but the chief traffic was in alf, or esparto grass, samples of which may be seen in the "Zulu hats" that have lately become so popular. It grows at fortyeight hours' distance from the town, and is brought in on camels. A tax of three halfpence a hundredweight is laid on it by the Turkish government. It is worth about four shillings a hundredweight, and is used for making ropes, harness, baskets, and other furniture, and camels will eat it. While we were sitting in a little office, an Arab came to ask how long he was going to be kept waiting to have his grass weighed. He was told to wait till his turn. This only made him still more impatient, so the clerk, with the imperturbable calmness of the East, took a piece of paper, and having scribbled all over it, handed it to the man, who carried it off in high spirits, thinking he had got an order to have his grass weighed soon. When he had gone we discovered that there was nothing written on it-only a meaningless scrawl, just to get rid of him. A great many of the camels had been fired. This seems to be a favorite remedy here, for even children are fired, with a hot nail, for sore eyes. To make the hair grow on their camels when the skin has been injured, the Arabs apply petroleum, a suggestion of which we make a present to the fraternity of the pole. A block of marble, almost buried in the sand, attracted our attention at a little distance from the town. It was the headsman's block, on which he used to hack off the heads of criminals. This is not done now, but the culprit, when condemned to death, is taken about two o'clock, A.M., on Tuesday, to the open space where the fair is held, and there forthwith hanged on a gibbet, so that when the people arrive they have him before their eyes, and the sight is supposed to afford them an impressive and salutary lesson on the folly of walking in evil ways.

including the treasury, at the door of which was a good-humored sentinel, sitting down on the ground, and chatting with our guide, Said, while we looked about us. As we came down we saw a few companies of soldiers, who had been out for drill, marching into barracks: fine fellows, with shabby accoutrements, and their boots in holes. They stepped pretty well, while the band discoursed a plaintive Turkish quickstep. Coming to a mound of stones and mortar, which suggested the idea of a number of houses having fallen down all of a heap, I thought I would get on the top, to catch, if possible, a mouthful of fresh air from the sea, after plodding so long in the deep, hot dust, and being baked by the July sun, and blinded by the fierce glare of his rays, reflected from the whitewashed walls. When near the top we were challenged by a shabbylooking soldier, who forbade us to advance. It was a fort! There were, indeed, some old guns there, but to think of calling it a fort seemed too ridiculous to be true. I stood for a minute to survey the scene, and the soldier stood with his hand on his sword surveying me. What were his thoughts? Did the poor fellow feel humiliated? As for us, the sight stimulated our curiosity, and we proceeded to visit several other parts of the fortifications, and found them all in pretty much the same state, partly in ruins, and partly honeycombed by the weather, with brushwood growing on the parapets, and old guns lying about, sometimes without carriages, and soldiers mounting guard quite seriously. A few years ago a party of soldiers were employed in removing powder from one of these forts. The officer in charge carelessly threw down the stump of his cigar, and blew it all up, along with a neighboring café, and several houses. A good many people were killed, and a sentinel is said to have been blown into the air on a large fragment of wall, with which he came down again, and dropped into the sea, quite safe and sound. A number of such fragments are still lying around, bearing partial testimony to the truth of the story. The ravages in the walls have never been repaired, but a neighboring fort has lately been made to assume a truly imposing appearance; the side which faces the sea has been stuccoplastered all over. We could not have believed it if we had not other evidence of the utterly rotten state into which every- Trade is not confined to the fair. Some thing belonging to the government has of the bazaars in Tripoli are remarkably been allowed to fall. From the sea Trip-good, and those which are built of stone oli presents the appearance of a strongly and arched over with brick are deliciously

cool. One of them was roofed over with | broad-bladed knife, the edge of which wood, except a space of about four feet he was trying with his thumb. He apwide, like a skylight, running from end to proached, and stooped over the prostrate end, which was covered by a luxuriant animal, which seemed to divine his intenvine, laden with fruit. Here there were tions, for it flung out its legs with great hand-looms at work, producing those mag- vigor, and sent the boys tumbling in three nificent scarves, striped in purple, green, directions. They shouted, gesticulated, yellow, and red, which are used as shawls blamed each other for a minute or two, by the Jewesses. They are a yard and two- and then pinned the calf down again. thirds wide, and from three to four yards Again the rabbi stooped, it seemed but long, and they cost from two to three for a moment, and a wide gash appeared, pounds, which can hardly be considered through which the poor victim quickly exorbitant, seeing they are of pure silk, gurgled out its life. and strongly woven. Although the greater part of the trade with central Africa is now diverted to the River Niger, still caravans arrive periodically from Tim buctoo and Bornu, bringing the riches of the Soudan, ivory, gold-dust, and ostrich feathers. In this part of Africa the art of ostrich farming seems to be still in its infancy, for the ostrich is skinned, and the feathers are not plucked until they arrive in Tripoli, where a good one will fetch about twenty francs. We were presented with some baskets, made of grass, ingeniously interwoven with thongs of red and black leather, wrought into a pattern. They came from Fezzan. Another, which was covered with cowry shells, came from Bornu, a journey of five or six months across the desert, where cowry shells are used for money.

We took a walk outside the walls towards the Jewish cemetery. On the way we found the ice-plant growing abundantly. It is a spreading, herbaceous, fleshy plant, the leaves and stem of which are covered with bright, transparent vesicles, like beads of ice, containing a watery fluid, most acceptable to the camel on the desert. The flower, too, is thickly sprinkled with similar beads, but in the corolla they are set on a ground of magenta instead of green, as in the rest of the plant. Where it finds moisture on these arid hillocks, still more how it keeps it under the eyes of this thirsty sun, are questions to think about. Coming home we passed by the place where cattle are slaughtered for the Jews, a veritable Haceldama. Several big calves were standing there tethered. Three strip lings got hold of one, and dexterously threw it on its side. One boy then passed the tail between the hind legs, and pulled it tight, another lay on the body, while the third held the head with the muzzle upwards, so as to bring the throat into a convenient position for being cut. The rabbi then made his appearance at the door of a little hut, holding in his hand a

One Wednesday afternoon the ship hove in sight. She had been detained at Tabia longer than was expected, for a strong north breeze blows on the coast every day, beginning at ten A.M., and increasing until midday, when communication with the shore becomes almost impossible. Provisions were scarce at Tabia, so we had to procure some in Tripoli. As soon as this fact became known, sheep that had been selling at ten shillings a piece during the day, ran up in price to two pounds ten. Night had fallen before all was ready. We met in a courtyard, into which we groped our way under an arch and over some broken steps. There we found half-a-dozen Arabs awaiting us, with a quantity of vegetables, several large bundles of fowls tied feet together, and four sheep. The next thing was to send for the officer to unlock the city gates, for it was already after nine o'clock. "He will be asleep," said some one. "No," replied a surly Jew, “drunk." In about half an hour he turned up, and led us down to the marina, sheep, fowls, vegetables, infidels, and Christians, stumbling along in confusion. The portal was under a venerable tower of massive stonework, with a lumbering, heavy door, cov ered over with plates of iron. The official who actually held the keys happened to be on the outside, and it took a considerable time to attract his attention, and make him understand what we wanted. Then he fumbled ever so long, and was chaffed, by Arabs and Europeans alike, for not being able to find the keyhole. At last we got out, and found our boat waiting at the tumble-down landing-stage. scrambled on board in the dark safely, except that as I was settling down in the stern-sheets, the captain sang out to me, "Look out! all the tomatoes are under you." After a long pull, through an intri. cate passage among the rocks, we were glad to find ourselves again on board, and shortly afterwards under weigh. It was just a lunar month from the fast of Rama

All

dan, so all the manarats* of the mosques | bear-garden. Either the underling actors were brilliantly illuminated, and Tripoli were dignified with the principal characbade us farewell with a display of beauty as false as the display of strength with which she had greeted our arrival. J. F. SPLAINE.