34 
JOURNEY FROM 
After passing through the Messeah, or cultivated district in the 
neighbourhood of Tripoly, and along the large Salt Marsh, men- 
tioned in Tully’s Memoirs, which was now completely covered with 
water, we entered the scattered villages of Tagiura. They are sur- 
rounded by gardens, yielding abundant crops of corn, fruit and vege- 
tables, and shaded by thickly-planted date and olive-trees, which are 
equally valuable to the inhabitants. We find Tagiura described by 
Leo Africanus as a country containing a good many villages, or ham- 
lets, and many gardens of date and other fruit trees ; and its present 
general appearance is probably little different from that which it pre- 
sented in the time of this geographer. 
In consequence of a considerable emigration from Tripoly, this 
country (he adds) became “ assai nobile e civile but we must con- 
fess that there are at present very little remains of its importance, 
or extraordinary civilization ; unless a large mosque, of some appa- 
rent antiquity (highly reverenced by its Mahometan population) and 
the good-humoured hospitality with which we were received by the 
natives, may be considered as examples of both. 
The people, however, appeared to be contented and happy, and 
greeted us ^^Itli many friendly salutations as we passed through their 
highly-cultivated country. Some Koman columns, which are said to 
be in the interior of the mosque, would seem to point out its vicinity 
to an ancient site * ; and if we must necessarily consider I'agiura to 
* This circumstance is however by no means conclusive, even supposing the columns 
to be as stated; for Leo Africanus informs us that modern Tidpoly was built from the 
ruins of Leptis Magna, after the final destruction of that city : and the columns in 
