_ 150 _ thirty-five degrees. A third of it is on flat land. It consists of very good houses, all of stonework and rock and has a very well-fortified castle on a hill, surrounded by a very good stonework wall. It is half a day’s journey from Mount Lebanon, which is very high and long. Tripoli has about three thousand citizens, both Arabs and Christians, of all descriptions, and native Jews, all of whom speak Arabic; there are some Spaniards and few Turks. It has a sanjak. It is less than half a league from the sea, and in the port where one embarks there is a great customs-house where all the merchandise and goods which come from abroad are unloaded and pay their dues to certain Turks who are there to collect the dues and watch over them. Around the city, there are five very strong towers half built into the sea, with much artillery and many men for the defense of the port. The city has very plentiful fruits, provisions and livestock. There is a great deal of olive-oil, which is sent from here to many places, Cyprus and Venice and others. It has many kinds of fish, especially red mullet. I discovered here that the French galleon had left for Marseilles. What had caused me to miss it was the delay in Aleppo on account of the mother superior’s possessions; these had been the cause of many delays on my journey.
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