MYSTERIOUS TRIPOLI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 78, 14 November 1911, Page 8

MYSTERIOUS TRIPOLI.

ATTEMPTS TO PENETRATE THE HINTERLAND. VIEWS OK RETI RED BRITISH OFFICIAL. While the po:ico of Europe is gravely disturbed by Italy's threat to lay violent hands on Tripoli some light ou tin; cause of her aggression is thrown by the recent experience of Mr H. Searie, one of three white men who have attempted to pierce the forbidden hinterland of Tripoli (says an Finnish paper). The first attempt was made by Dr Barth half a century ago, and a little more than twelve months hack Bans V ichor, a naturalised Swiss and an official in Northern Nigeria, disguised himself as a nomad Arab and succeeded in getting past the Turkish forts that .dot the desert wastes outside Tripoli. The third ami unsuccessful attempt was made by Mr Herbert Searie, a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a retired British .Government official in Southern Nigeria.

Mr Searie has visited Tripoli twice. The first time ho resided there for some months as a student of languages anxious to learn the Haussa tongue. r ! he second time ho equipped a little expedition of his own, and with camels and Arab boys he set out one day from Tripoli in the hope of reaching the mountains in the hinterland, although permission to prospect has always been refused by the Ottoman Government. Mr Searie, who lias felt the fascination of Llie hinterland, believes that it is the natural craving in man to explore the unknown, which is one of the reasons for Italy’s desire to occupy Tripoli. These mountains arc virginal, uuprospeeted, and untouched by the axe or pick of the white man. It is believed they arc rich in minerals.

“When 1 first visited Tripoli seven years ago it was a closed book,” Mr Searie told a member of our staff yesterday. “I visited it again in May last year, when .! saw the news of King Edward’s death posted up in the British Consulate, and it was still a closed book. Until the rival claims of Turkey and Italy arc settled the whole country is impossible far tne white man. The sandy and stony wastes of the desert begin about two miles from the town, and, so far as 1 could see, it was a desert dotted with Turkish military forts. “I had been four or live days in the desert when I was stopped by the Kamakhan, or governor of a fort, who demanded to know my business. I told him that 1 was riding through the desert merely for pleasure. That, lie said, was impossible, and he sent

an escort of an officer and six cavalrymen to take me safely back to tne Biitish Consulate. “1 mention this incident to show that the chief trouble in Tripoli is, in my belief, the 'Turk’s anxiety to keep all strangers from the hinterland. Italy has complained of this for years, and I feel sure she is gravitating to a spot from which sue will never recede unless she is compelled to do so by force. She has tried to coax the Turk pacifically, but all her persuasions have failed. A country which would completely change under the colonising iniiucnco of the Italians is undeveloped, overrun with nomad Arabs, and the caravan tracks are at the mercy of the ‘Taureg,’ a species of desert highwaymen. ’ A river runs down from the hinterland, so that irrigation and agriculture are not impossible. ‘.‘l sec it has been stated ,that Italy’s aggression is the outcome of tiie animosity of Christianity towards Islam, but 1 think that the few Europeans who have lived in Tripoli will agree that pnrejy economic considerations are ac the bottom of the present trouble. If the link of Mohammedanism, which stretches through Northern and Central Africa were to be snapped at Tripoli, I do not .think any serious trouble would follow. Certainly there would he no ‘jehad,’ or holy war.

“Tripoli is one of the most cosmopolitan places in the world. No town I have visited boasts such a curious mixture of European moneys. Many commercial interests are represented there, and 1 think the nomad Arabs who steal one another’s horses and cattle are too busily engaged in internecine strike to trouble about a holy war.”

Drawing a mental picture of Tii])!)li as it exists to-day, Mr Scarle described the town as typically Oriental—filthy, insanitary, without hotels, railways or carriage drives. “You can walk round half the town on the fiat roofs, so closely built are the houses,” he said. Nearly the whole of the business seems to bo in the hands of the indigenous Jews. Paris and Vienna get many of their ostrich feathers from Tripoli, and there is a good trade, principally to America, in goatskins, which take five or six months to travel by caravan from Kano, a British possession in Northern Nigeria..

Arabs predominate in the town, and the rest of the population is made up of Maltese, of whom there are between three and four thousand, the Turkish Government officials, and a military garrison. Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany have Consulates, and there is one English mission there. Mr Scarle recalls the name of a Mr Venables as being connected with this mission. There are a few Greeks, who have captured a fairly good trade 'in diving for sponges. The Tripnlian Arab, according to Mr Soarlo, is -a different typo of man from the Moroccan. Some of thorn are quite fair, have blue eyes, and may easily be mistaken for Western

Europeans. One of the principal industries is tlio cultivation of esparto grass, which grows luxuriantly near the coast, and is shipped in large quantities to Italy and (treat Uritain. A Customs duty of 1I per cent ad valorem is charged, hut .Mr Searle declares that tiio 'Customs officials are very corrupt, and that a few shillings will blind their eyes. Italy and Franco have established large free schools in the town, and the young Arabian idea is being taught the good things that might resr.lt from a foreign administration of the country. “Tripoli has a. very poor military defence,” says Mr Searle. “The immediate coast-line on either side of the town in lined with nothing more formidable than field-guns. A modern battleship would rare the town to the ground in half an hour. The Turkish

soldiers are badly drilled and housed, and they go through no musketry nr gun practice at all. Should Italy not stay her hand, hut decide to bombard the unfortunate town, there will bo terrible scenes of pillage and probably massacre. The nomad tribes may (Mine in from the desert and start looting and then, I fear, the life of every white man would be in jeopardy.”