Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/51

 exhalations from the surrounding lagoons, and the savage character of the local tribes.

The scanty population of Tripolitana, its slight share in the general commercial movement of the Mediterranean, the trifling revenue yielded to its political rulers, show that during the last two thousand years the country has remained in a more or less stagnant state. Its importance has in fact diminished on the seaboard, where great cities formerly flourished, and in the regions traversed by the main highways to the interior.

The exploration, one might almost say the discovery, of Tripolitana, remains still to be achieved. Although since the journey of Hornemann in the lust century, the country has been visited by such men as Lyon and Ritchie, Denham, Oudney

and Clopperton, Laing, Richardson, Barth, Vogel, Beurmann, Duveyrier, Mercher and Vattone, Rohlfs, Nachtigal, Von Bary and Krafft, these explorers, starting mostly from Tripoli, have neglected many interesting districts in the interior; while little has yet been done for the geology, meteorology, ethnology, and archæology of the land.

In our days the earth has already become too small for the restless spirit of modern enterprise, and certain geographical conditions, with which the ancients, confined to the marine highways, had no need to occupy themselves, have acquired quite a new significance. The very break in the coastline which serves to cut off the plains of Tripoli from European influence, has become an advantage for the communications with the interior. However otherwise inconvenient, the harbours of Tripolitana are the natural points of departure for the caravans proceeding to