Norwich bulletin., 1916-08-22
THE WAR PRIMER By National Geographic Society

Tripoi Of Barbary-The reported recent successes of the Turks over the Italians focuses the war-neWs search light on TripoH of BaThary, a section of northern Africa which is described as a a land of little promise in @ war geography bulletin issued by the Ma tionaI Geographic Society from Wash ingtOn today.
 "TripoIitania occupies the land along the Mediterranean sea. from the TUnisian frontier to the Gulf of Sidra. From the coast sOuthward, with an av- craze width of 40 miles, runs a plain called Jefara. At it's southern border rises with a steep ascent a chain of mountains commonly called Jebel, of which the most famous part of Jebel GhaTian. These mountains form a sort. of tableIand which slopes slight ly sonthward till it reaches Hamada- el-HOma, fiat rocky plateau of about 10000 square miles, covered with little red stones. absolutely dry and arid Tn the south of the Hama da is the land of Fezzan, a collection of cases in Q country of dunes and desert. Fezzan forms a wedge of sparsely inhabited land into the great Sahara.
 s'The coast of TripoH. which extends over a length of | 100 miles. offers few natural hCrbOrs. The harbOr of TripOl itself is dangerous, because of the many rocks which lie at the en- trance. It is only on the eastern coast of CvrenaiCa. which is some times called the Marmarica that we find two harbOrs of the very best quaI- ity: BomDa and TObruk: but as neith- CT has a hinterland, their value is more strategical than commercial To- brlliz is less than Q hundred miles dis tant from the Egyptian frontier.
 "What is the pOpulatfO now inhab- iting TripOIitania, that immense arear of 100000 square miles (more than half the size of the republic of Mex ico)? No exact census exists. but all competent observers agree that it hardly exceeds 8O0,0OO. That means about two inhabitants to the square mile The stttled population inhabits an area of 19000 square miles-about ne-twenty- first part of the whole land
 Tn TripoH every native calls him. self with pride an Arab. As mat ter of fact 9 certain number of Arabs came into the CNuntry with the Mo- haumedan conquest of North Afri- ca in the sixth ceRtury A. D. But the penisuIa of Arabia was never so denseIy populated that it could send away many emigrants. The Arabs conuuered North Africa and convert ed It's population to their religion. A few of the conquerors remained in tho country and these are still fairly pure representatives of their race; thev live as nomads, or Bedoufns in tents. and move with the season from one camping ground to another. Their number is difficult to estimate. but it is about 50 O0O0 The rest of the pop ulation, the settled part. ahe Berbers; their blood is mixed with that of Arabs, and also of negroes. The ne- gro element. which we find everywhere in Tripoli, has it's origin in the slave trafFc of former days, which brought thousands of Sudanese to the coast of the Mediterranean.
 Agriculture and catt1e-raising are the chief resources of TripoIi, but they flourish only in small patches; fertile land we find on narrow strip along the coast, in the region of Jebel C4harian and in Cyrenaica The pro- duct is barley which in the last few