Note 9 — Chapter II

We must, however, confess, that we cannot altogether understand, why the loss of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of Tripoly, said by Leo Africanus to have been flooded in his days, should have necessarily occasioned to the inhabitants of the town so great a scarcity of grain as that mentioned by this geographer. For the high grounds immediately beyond the parts which were overflowed, must at all times, we should conceive, from their rocky foundation, have been placed above the level of the sea at its greatest height, and might therefore have been cultivated as we find them to be at present; and the Gharian mountains, as well as the country of Tagiura, both of which are still very productive, are mentioned by Leo as places highly cultivated at the period of the overflow alluded to.

We may remark on this subject—that the coincidence of the former with the present state of the last-mentioned places, appears to be the more worthy of notice, from the circumstance of our finding the actual produce of other districts, both in Tunis and Tripoly, very different from what it appears to have been in earlier periods. Among other examples, in proof of this assertion, we may notice the great difference which has taken place in the produce and soil of Byzacium. This district was formerly much renowned for its fertility; and we are informed by Pliny that one grain of corn from the Byzacium was sent to the Emperor Augustus, which yielded four hundred shoots; and that three hundred and forty stems had been afterwards sent to Nero, produced equally from a single grain of corn[a]. But whatever be the cause of the change which has taken place, we find the soil of the Byzacium to have greatly fallen off from its former extraordinary fertility; in proof of which we need only extract the following observations from Shaw’s Travels in Barbary.

“The many parts which I have seen of the ancient Byzacium, or winter circuit, fall vastly short in fertility of the character which has been attributed to them by the ancients. For such as are adjacent to the sea coast are generally of a dry, sandy nature, with no great depth of soil in the very best portion of them. This is called the Sahul, and is planted for the most part with olive-trees, which flourish here in the greatest perfection. Neither is the inland country in a much better condition.”