Show PO ll 11 lma mk 0 I 1 a p H I 1 NR A 7 ae 4 y z ar IN OUTSKIRTS OF TRIPOLI CITY Tuli land ULl of 0 arab and berber has exchanged its peacetime peace time industries dus tries for the industry of wa war r and according to a statement prepared par ed by the national geographic society the newer industry adds little to the normal hazard of life danger is the daily bread and meat of the dweller in tripoli and in ili this country flecked with occasional oases and fringed with narrow strips of coastal vegetation even the principal native pursuits for wealth and happiness are accompanied by hidden terror and grave risk tile the principal sources of income to Tripoli tans are those of sponge gathering of esparto picking and of carrying on the trans sali saharan aran caravan trade whether the native son seeks to make his pile searching the slimy bottom of the mediterranean for sponges or gathering esparto grass in the morning mists of the desert 0 or r following the caravan of a thousand camels back from the coast through 1500 miles of saharan desert to the distant sudan he takes not only his labor and capital for profit but also his health and life more often than not lie he reaps disability or death as his reward perils of sponge gatherers the wild seas that now and again boll over the northern coast of africa tire aro the smallest part of at the sponge divers hazard paralysis is always just ahead of this venturesome laborer who day by day making fool foolhardy liard Y rapid ascents accents from the sea bed under press of keen competition sooner or later experiences the return to shipboard P in terrific dizziness which forms the usual prelude to partial or complete paralysis strange as it may seem many partially paralyzed divers are able to continue their calling and the unfitted helpless cripple in the upper air feels normal circulation return to arms and legs when lowered into the sen sea on the sponge grounds and the arab divers of tripoli believing the disease indispensable to the vocation and inured to hazard in their peculiar fatherland dive phlegmatically through a few fat seasons until crippled or killed by their chosen trade back in the plateau lands of the sahara behind the coastal greens in ili the silent treeless untenanted ad desert wastes where the alluring mystery ot of the desert broods under the blighting heat of day and beckons in fanciful shapes over the dunes at night stretch vast fields of wiry esparto grass from which paper Is manufactured in great mills in england in these for the starvation wage of twenty cents a day or less picking the grass and tying it in large bales to be loaded on camel trains for tripoli city the port of Tripoli tania is another corps of workers who adventure their safety in their work picking the esparto grass day lor for in the moonlight of early morning in the chill of desert morning the picker leaves his nearby shack for the field and begins his rapid task of breaking the longest wiry blades leg high from the most matured clump and in the heart of these clumps ever and again lurks his danger in the form of hla his arch enemy the deadly viper in the clumps also are hidden the venomous north african rock scorpions whose stings now and again prove fatal it is the poisonous vipers however that make the work of esparto picking a sporting game with death of the of export trade enjoyed by tripoli before the war one fifth of it was produced by the sponge divers more than one third of it by the esparto pickers and considerably moro more than one sixth was brought over the wide treacherous desert from the sudan many caravans some of a few and some of thousand camels fitted out in tripoli undertook tho the danger fraught journeys to the great marts of sudanese trade TIm buhta kano kanen kuka bernu and wadi these journeys sometimes lasted two years around and brought their undertakers into every species of danger that the desert affords robbers infest all the lanes across the desert and besides these all the inner desert lies subject to the vengeful caprice ot of the masked the strange people who are at war with all who cross their piths and do not pay a sufficient tribute Thebon the bones cs of tho the camels adamen and men of 0 a myriad or of caravans of the past bleach along the desert trails caravans that mostly came to harm harin at the hands of marauders but there are some among them destroyed by thirst by the sand storm or by the water of wells poisoned in intertribal inter tribal wars of all three risky Trl politan trades trades the caravan trade is the most risky and the old caravan men will ainu find little in the newer industry of war for which their peacetime peace time labors have not fully prepared them |