File:The gateway to the Sahara; observations and experiences in Tripoli (1909) (14761868186).jpg

Identifier: gatewaytosaharao00furl (find matches)
Title: The gateway to the Sahara; observations and experiences in Tripoli
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Furlong, Charles Wellington, 1874-
Subjects: Tripoli (Libya) -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : C. Scribner's sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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gray silver sea. A stripof shore streaked between; in gray stencilledsilhouette a Moorish castle broke the centre ofits sky-line; slender minarets, flat housetops, andheavy battlements flanked in a crescent west-ward, and the delicate palm fringe of the oasisdimmed away east. The adan—call to prayer—drifted away over the sleeping city and harbor.The gilded crescents of the green-topped min-arets in glints of orange-gold heliographed thecoming of the rising sun: the shadows of nightseemed to sink below the ground-line, and thewhite-walled city lay shimmering through atransparent screen of wriggling heat-waves. The coast of North Africa from Tunis east-ward does not meet the converging water routesshort of its eastern extremity at Suez. Alongthe seaboard of this territory the Mediterraneanlaps the desert sand and over the unboundedsun-scorched reaches of Tripoli and Barca, to the border-land of Egypt, wild tribes control thevast wastes. The great territory of Tripolitania embraces(2)
Text Appearing After Image:
s -^ ri S THE GATEWAY TO THE SAHARA what is known as the vilayet of Tripoli, theFezzan to the south, and the province of Barcaon the east, governed as an integral part of Tur-key. The Pashalic of Tripoli includes that por-tion of the vilayet extending from Tunisia to thesouthernmost point of the Gulf of Sidra. Of allBarbary,^ Tripolitania is most truly African. It is situated equally distant from the threeentrances of the Mediterranean and is the focusof the three great caravan routes from the South.Tripolis freedom from European occupationmay be attributed to three causes: her isolationfrom the main highways of commerce, the ap-parent sterility of her desert plateaus as com-pared with the more fertile Atlas regions of theother Barbary states, and the fact that she is avilayet of the Turkish Empire. The anchor chain rattled through the hawse-pipe of the S. S. Adria. Her nose swung slowlyinto the wind, a soft south wind laden with allthose subtle and mysterious influences of thatstrang

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