THE POSITION IN TRIPOLI.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 77, 13 November 1911, Page 4

THE POSITION IN TRIPOLI.

According to press reports the present position in Tripoli was explained at a large representative gathering held last week in Dunedin by Dr. Karl Kumm, who is now visiting the Dominion. The difficulties confronting any complete occupation of Tripoli were very great, he said, owing to the fanaticism of the Mohammedans, whose persecution in the past had been so terrible that a population of 10 millions had been cut down until there were now only 500,000. In the regions surrounding Tripoli, remnants of palaces, temples, gardens, and vast watercourses are being met with frequently, showing that the district had once been peopled by an immensely wealthy community. In fact, the numerous ruins now found over a large tract of country are the remain's of a high civilisation which the Moslems found on their arrival in North Africa. Of these former inhabitants, 95 per cent, had been massacred by the Moslems, and the barrenness of the country was a direct result. Ho (Dr. Kumm) had been told a few days before that Italy would soon occupy Tripoli, but lie had answered that they Would not have much to occupy. Tripoli, ho states, is well known as the last town to traffic in slaves, but, al though eight years ago this practice was rampant there, it is now almost abolished. Ho related a pathetic scene which he had witnessed one morning in his travels across the Sahara Desert. He came in contact with a string of caravans, and,, to his great surprise and horror, saw directly behind them a great number of slave children who were on the road to Tripoli. These children had already travelled over 2000 miles! Those inhabitants of the former civilisation who had not been obliterated by Moslem domination had become earthdwellers, and it was from these people that the Turks had had great trouble. At the back of Tripoli, in the Grurian Mountains, there is an old fortress, built 1000 n.c. The explorer said that, if the Turks were/now to fortify this place, the Italians would have considerable trouble in subduing them.