Libya has not always been the easiest of places for outsiders to visit or to travel in. Yet over the four centuries covered in this book (1550-1911), foreign visitors and travellers have included captives and military recruits; resident European consuls, explorers revealing the mysteries of unknown Africa; archaeologists drawn by the remains of past civilisations; would-be colonisers assessing the agricultural potential; and the leisured tourist of the late nineteenth century seeking the unusual, the quaint and the exotic. All the fifty or so contributors to this book have left written accounts of their Libyan experiences, some confined to Tripoli and its surroundings, others of travel into the remotest corners of the Sahara.