“Instead of leaving the squadron to dance attendance at Tunis,” I said to M. Guizot, “send it to Tripoli.  Its appearance will cause surprise, for foreign powers never send their squadrons there.  I will pay a visit to the pasha, and speak to him very plainly.  The characters in the play will change hands, and I fancy we shall be rid of all this Turko-Diplomatic teasing about Tunis for the future.”

M. Guizot approved my view.  I was given secret orders to go to Tripoli, and we left Tunis, to the delight of the whole squadron.

Long before the coast of Tripoli is in sight, its whereabouts is denoted by the gloomy red reflection it casts upon the sky.  Soon a few clumps of date-palms seem to rise out of the water, and at last a dreary strip of land appears, the uniform straightness of which is broken only by the mass of white houses and terraces, the minarets and fortifications, of the town of Tripoli.  A few reefs form a far from safe anchorage, fit for small craft only, and remarkable for the extraordinary clearness of the water in it.  The smallest details of submarine life are easily followed in a depth of ten to twelve fathoms.

Our ships, which all drew a great deal of water, had to anchor at sea, opposite the town, tossed about on the swell from a storm somewhere to the north, which did not actually reach them.  Our sudden, unexpected, and very unusual apparition made a certain sensation both at the consulates and in the pasha’s palace, and all sorts of people hastened on board, very civil all of them, but also very anxious to know the meaning of the visit of a complete naval squadron.  The pasha’s deputy presented himself with a flood of the honeyed expressions demanded by Oriental politeness, accompanied by the classical diffa.  He did not bring us six thousand dozens of eggs, like the Tunis people; indeed they would have been hard to get, I think, in that little favoured spot, but he brought a very respectable contingent of cackling hens and of very sea-sick sheep.  Our acceptance of these creatures, an earnest of our pacific intentions, gave him evident satisfaction, and I caused him to be told that I should ask for an interview with his master, through our consul.

I set forth, as soon as the said interview had been arranged, with a large number of officers.  The streets through which we had to pass were narrow, dirty, and wretched-looking, and did not give one at all the idea of belonging to a town enriched by the commerce of Fezzan and of Central Africa, of which commerce Tripoli is the chief emporium.  They were crowded, as we passed along, by curious lookers on, consisting principally of the three thousand idlers who formed the garrison, Albanian Arnauts most of them, splendid fellows, blue-eyed, with long fair moustaches, dressed in the fustanella and the rest of the picturesque palikare costume.  I will not go so far as to say the glances they cast at us were absolutely friendly, but they were perfectly well behaved.