Turkey in Africa has gradually been reduced to Tripoli and Barca.
There is a low cabin (felze) for passengers; the ordinary gondolas can take four or six persons, and larger ones (barca or battello) take eight.
The Turkish or Ottoman Empire comprises Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia, and the vilayets of Tripoli and Barca, or Bengazi, in North Africa; and in addition to those provinces under immediate Turkish rule, it embraces also certain tributary states and certain others under foreign administration.
After the conquest of Egypt `Amr carried his conquests eastward along the North African coast as far as Barca and even Tripolis.
The northern half of this district, which alone was fertile, was known as Pentapolis from its possession of five considerable cities (1) Hesperides-Berenice (Bengazi), (2) Barca (Merj), (3) Cyrene (Ain Shahat-Grenna), (4) Apollonia (Marsa Susa), (5) Teucheira-Arsinoe (Tocra).
