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There may be forty or fifty houses, mere square boxes of mud or plaster, mixed with old Roman stones, about twelve feet high, and containing perhaps a hundred inhabitants. Being new, the houses have a clean appearance. There are two streets, and a fondouk, or caravanserai. To build such a village and a fortress, some rather fine Roman ruins received their final stroke of demolition.
"La illah il Allah, Mohammed rassoul'lah! Allah Akbar! God is great!" One by one the dim towers took it up. The call to prayer rolled between the stars and the town. It searched the white runways. It penetrated the vine-bowered arbour. Little by little, tower by tower, it died. In a fondouk outside the gate a waking camel lifted a gargling wail.
He says of present matters, "The people pay 6,000 mahboubs per annum; it is too small a sum for a city of merchants; there is little money in the country, it being mostly deposited in the hands of merchants in Tripoli; he wishes Christians established here, and a regular souk, or market, opened; the number of Arab troops which he has here is 120; he is building barracks and a fondouk at Emjessen, in order to station troops there to guard the wells, for the banditti come there and drink water, and then lie in ambush to plunder caravans."
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