198 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



One might say a good deal about the prisons and the punish- 

 ment of criminals, and the general conduct of the government 

 itself. Probably, you remember in the history of our own 

 revolution that about 1784, just after the close of the revolu- 

 tion, we had a very short but vigorous war with Tripoli. A 

 good many of our vessels cruised in the waters of the Mediter- 

 ranean adjoining Tripoli, and some Americans were taken 

 prisoners, and some years elapsed before many of them re- 

 gained their liberty and came back to this country. That 

 whole phase of the topic is one of extreme interest. 



One of the most delightful things that I enjoyed during 

 my first visit there was to search through the archives in the 

 old British consulate. The British Empire has had a consulate 

 established there for a great many years. There is no Ameri- 

 can consulate in Tripoli. In fact, the people of Tripoli natur- 

 ally class Englishmen and Americans together. There are 

 certain volumes there wdiich give a very picturesque idea of 

 the life in that region a hundred or more years ago. There is 

 an old book there which I think is out of print, consisting of 

 a series of letters from one of the wives of an early British 

 consul, which are most interesting. She was a charming 

 writer, and gives the story of her life there with the Arabs 

 in a most interesting manner. She touches upon many very 

 curious and interesting phases of the life which she led from 

 1785 for about sixteen years thereafter. I wish I might dwell 

 upon that if there was time. In many respects the country 

 has remained unchanged, and the habits and customs of the 

 people have been very little affected in the past century. Per- 

 haps Tripoli is more subject to outside influences than at that 

 time yet I hardly think it could have been more picturesque 

 then than now. The Americans have had but little to do there. 

 The commerce with the United States is not large. The foot 

 of the American tourist rarely goes there. When we first 

 went there in 1900, we practically made the British consulate 

 our headquarters. Our telescopes were put up on the roof 

 terrace, and our headquarters w^ere practically there, although 

 we were supposed to be in a little inn which there is in Tripoli. 

 Still, most of our time was spent in this consulate, and we 

 found it a most interesting place. It is built in the form of 

 a square surrounding an interior courtyard. In this courtyard 

 was a large tree, one of those peculiar trees native to that 



