Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/18

 a NORTH-WEST AFRICA. 18 entirely distinct from the rest of Tripolitana, and contemporary events have shown how unstable is the present political equilibrium. It may well happen that in the near future the partition of Africa, already begun by the European Powers, may cause both Cyrene and Tripolitana to be transferred from their present Ottoman rulers probably to the Italians. Even now the de facto masters of the land are not those appointed by Stambul. The religious order of the Sendsiya, which was first established in Algeria, and whose capital is at JarabClb, in the Faredgha oasis, ir. the true ruling power throughout the whole region comprised between the Egyptian frontier and the Gulf of Cubes. Here the Turkish officials are tolerated only on the condition of conforming themselves to the mandates addressed to them by the agents of the head of the order, and all persons invested with magisterial or municipal offices belong to this community. The summons to arms issued by the " Mahdi " of Jarabub would even now be instantly obeyed by a regular army of infantry and cavalry, already organised independently of the Turkish Government. The region of the African seaboard comprised between Egypt and Tripoli, properly so called, is at present of all Mediterranean lands the least frequented by European traders, and the most thinly peopled country in the basin of the great inland sea. Three hundred thousand persons at most, possibly even not more than two hundred and fifty thousand, are scattered over the space limited eastwards by the Egyptian frontier, westwards by the depression stretching from the Faredgha oasis towards the Great Syrtis, or Gulf of Sidra ; that is, a proportion of less than ten to the square mile. The steamers navigating the Mediterranean in all direc- tions seldom call at the ports on the Barka seaboard ; hence this strip of coast, which extends for about 1,200 miles, from Alexandria to Tripoli, maintains scarcely any commercial relations with the outer world. But on the other hand, the expansive power of the European nations is every- where followed by inevitable consequences ; nor can there be any doubt that Cyrenaica will again become a flourishing colony, attracting, as it did some twenty- five centuries ago, industrious settlers from Greece and Italy. The projecting coastline of Barka approaches to within 240 miles of Cape Matapan ; in these waters, forming the zone of separation between the eastern and central Mediter- ranean basins, Africa seems, as it were, to meet Europe half-way, and it would be strange if the throbbing life of Western civilisation failed to make itself ultimately felt in this neighbouring region of the " Dark Continent." Hitherto, however, European influence— which, following the great maritime highways of the globe, has beconio dominant at the Antipodes themselves— has been almost imperceptible in this Libyan land, which, nevertheless, for a period of over a thousand years, formed an integral part of the Hellenic world, the centre of ancient science and art. During the Roman period, Cyrenaica was still regarded as forming a dependency of Greece, and it even constituted, with the island of Crete, a single administrative province.