_15th._--The wind continued all night and the following day. It dropped down on the afternoon of the 16th; on the 17th a pleasant breeze sprung up, and continued until we got within a couple of miles off Tripoli. We were followed for three hours by a shoal of porpoises, some nearly as big as our bark, which enjoyed highly the run with us, "_perceiving_," as the captain said, "_our motion_." The first night of our anchorage in the Tripoli Vecchia, we had several alarms that the tiny bark had dragged its anchor, and was about to take us out into the open sea: no one could sleep. After the wind subsided, our _Christian_ sailors were alarmed that we might have our throats cut by the _Ishmaelite_ Arabs from the shore the next night. When it was quite calm we went on shore to search for water; we found a well of good water on the N.E. landing of the port. A palm beckoned us to the spring, but a single palm is often found where there is no well or water; and it is not true, as vulgarly supposed, that where there are date-palms there must be water. The country in this vicinity is a perfect desert, yet on this arid waste shepherds drive their flocks in the spring, and up to May and June. The captain considered Tripoli Vecchia, which is a very ancient port, and the site of a once famous city, more secure than that of Tripoli itself, though certainly much smaller. Whilst we were here no bark visited it. Good-sized ships occasionally anchor in it. Like Tripoli, it is defended with a sunken reef of rocks, some peaks of which rise several feet out of the water. Along this line is a strong surf always chafing and roaring. There are two mouths of entrance; the deepest water within is about twelve or fourteen feet. There is another but much smaller port, two miles further east; the coast from this to Tripoli offers nothing to the tourist. Twelve miles this way begin those forests of fine broad-waving palms, which form so noble a feature in the suburban landscape of Tripoli. When we got off Tripoli we had a dead calm, and myself looking about for the wind, the Moors got angry, and said, "Be still; if you restlessly stare about, and wish the wind to come, it will never come: you cast the '_eye malign_' upon it." These superstitious ideas are not peculiar to the Moors. An English captain once told me, if I continued to stay below, the wind would never be fair. Tripoli looked here very bold, massive, and imposing from the sea; its broad lime-washed towers, and the graceful minarets beyond, all dazzling white in the sun, contrasting with the dark blue waters of the Mediterranean. Such is the delusion of all these sea-coast Barbary towns; at a distance and without, beauty and brilliancy, but near and within, filth and wretchedness.