Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/82

 large European seaports. Even the architecture of the Niger regions is represented in this Mediterranean city, in several of whose ruins are grouped huts roofed with branches, like those of Western Sudan. The Bedouins of Tripolitana have learnt this style of building from their Negro slaves.

Although still a very dirty place, muddy and dusty in turn, or both simultaneously, Tripoli has been much embellished since the middle of the present century. The hara, or Jewish quarter, still remains a labyrinth of filthy lanes and alleys; but a central boulevard now intersects the old town from end to end; the bazaar, occupied by Maltese and Jerâba dealers, has been enlarged, and new suburbs

developed amid the surrounding gardens. Artesian wells have even been sunk to supply the deficiency of good drinking water, the contents of the cisterns being usually insufficient for more than six or seven months in the year. But hitherto the borings have yielded nothing but a brackish fluid. The urban population has considerably increased, now numbering about thirty thousand souls, amongst whom are comprised four thousand or five thousand Europeans, mostly Italians and Maltese. The natives of both sexes wear nearly the same costume, the only difference being the different arrangement of their hauli or toga. Three of these togas-gauze, silk, and wool-are commonly worn by the women one over the other.