Note 6 — Chapter II

“In our way home” (says the artless and amiable writer of Tully’s Memoirs) “we passed through a street noted for its corn-wells, or rather caverns, dug very deep into the earth. They are situated on each side of the street, at about thirty yards’ distance. They were designed for magazines to lay up corn in, where they say it will keep perfectly good for an hundred years. Happy were it for the inhabitants of this country if these caverns were filled now as they were formerly when the country was so rich in the produce of corn, that it was from hence exported to many parts of the world, and prized almost above any other. The barley when sown here yields twice as much as it does in Europe. When it grows properly, they reckon thirty and thirty-five ears for one an ordinary produce; while in Europe fourteen or fifteen is considered as a good return.” In dry seasons, however, which frequently occur, the case appears to be far otherwise. “The times are so much altered now,” (continues the authoress above mentioned,) “that corn is imported at an immense expense. This melancholy change is attributed to the want of rains, which have failed for several years past. There have not been more than one or two good harvests for thirty years. If cargoes of wheat do not soon arrive from Tunis, the state of this place will be dreadful beyond description.”—Tully’s Narrative, p. 49.—Again, the same writer says, p. 67, “It has been ascertained by the Bashaw to-day, that there is only barley for sale at two bazars, or market-places, left in the place. A few years since the barley here grew so favourably, that it produced in return three times as much as in any part of Europe. Such quantities of it were exported, that Tripoly was enriched by its sale; but the failure of rain has left the country for several years without one good harvest.”

This account is consistent with the above, and we have here some idea of what may be meant by the word formerly, in the passage first quoted, which is certainly somewhat indefinite.