THE TURK IX TRIPOLI.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14193, 6 November 1911, Page 9

THE TURK IX TRIPOLI.

BY I>R. KARL KUMM

Dr. Karl Kumrn, tho African missionary and traveller, addressed a lnrgo meeting of men in His Majesty's Theatre yesterday afternoon. Tho subject of tho address was "The Turk in Tripoli.' , but Dr. Kumm dealt, moro with the Mnhomedan menace in the Dark Continent than with the titlo subject. Hishop Julius presided. Ono rcruld not but ">•-* impressed with tho fonv of t.111•=? anti-Chrisiian religion, Kiid Dr. Kuinin. who in opening his lecture took his hearers with him into the back pages cf history; how tho Mahometans had penetrated "Western Europe only to be checked by Charles Martcl and his Teutonic men in tho eighth century; bow for seven hundred < years they had hung like a. black cloud j over the Mediterranean, their taking ; of Constantinople, and their advanco I lat<? in tin; seventeenth century even to the gat-rn of Vienna, only with tlie trroatfst 'it efforts to be repelled in the end. Such history was not ancient, said i>r. Ktuirn, but compara- | tivt'ly modern. How different would i the "history of Europe have been hud ! they succeeded. The .second continent I attacked was Asia. They got as far as China and the East Indian islands, but tho neurotic climate ihero checked them. Africa war. the ' last continent attacked. Tho population of Egypt before they invaded that ! country was twenty-five, millions; it j sunk to five. Tripoli, next door, con- j tamed ton million people. The j Mahoniedans swept away ninc-tepn-twentieths ol them. Towns | disappeared from the faco of ] the earth, ami now there r.as prac- I tically nothing there but a dssert with I the town of Tripoli on an oasis. Some j seven or eight year.* ago. when he was | in the country* he had boon informed j the population was oOO.(KX), and that , ho thought was a liberal estimate. Ho i had travelled in Tripoli a lot. Hohind < tho capital were steep mountains cf j "rock, which the Turks would easily be i able to hold. There was an ancient | rn.stle hero, and beyond the oastlβ wero mountain valleys, which once ujkhi a < time must have, contained tho most : beautiful gardens in the world; now! they were practically a desert. Very old olives of marvellous size still exiUed. Further south ono encountered ruined Roman cities built of marble. A .people that dwelt in ma.rhlo palaces now lived underground, whole villages of them. Tripoli to-day was not only deponulated and deserted, but was'the habitation of savages. Dr. Kumm described how he had seen a s'.ring of thirty slave girls, each between 10 and 12 years of age, nothing !>•■'■ bundle- o r fkin and bnni?> h.nrd'v able to walk alo.ig, on their 2000-mile jnurnov. M'.w liiuny lisiu dropped duwn and died on tho way he could not say. In reply to his horrified enquiries bo had been informed that they won? smuggled at night-tinio into the houses of rich Arabs just outside the town of Tripoli and then sent by boat to, the harems of Turkey and Asia Minor. What he saw recurred eight years ago, but ii friend of his had informed him ihat he had just recently seen Mich a. Caravan. T>r. Kumm went south or' Tripoli as far vr- the Unknown, when he- was compelled to turn back.

The remainder of an interesting address was on tho lines of Dr. Kumin's previous addresses dealing with tho rapid spread of Mahomcdanism in Africa, tho possibilities of a Ifoiv War, .nnd an apponl for missionaries in the fight against the forces of Islam.