The Story of Malta

nd Pious Peasantry.-Food of the People.-Maltese Women.-Oriental Customs.-Roman Catholic Influence.-Improvisation.-Early Marriag

posed to the fierce winds, rains, and scorching sunshine. A process of disintegration is constantly going on which gradually reduces this surface rock to friable matter, and as soon as a space becomes favorable in its conditions by such means it is promptly improved by the natives for agricultural purposes. The extraordinary success which crowns the husbandman's efforts is the triumph of industry over natural obstacles. All soil is but broken and decomposed rock, pulverized by various agencies acting during long periods of time, counting centuries as days. The molten lava poured from

eaches a large aggregate sum. The early potatoes which are grown in several districts of these islands are of a very choice character, commanding a special market in England, and realizing good prices. So the Atlantic cities on the American coast depend upon Bermuda for their early supply of the same article. Where the ground is not cultivated, wild-growing masses of the prickly pear often form a feature of the landscape, while the almost entire absence of trees in the larger island, outside of the city, creates an arid appearance. The charming color and grateful shade which are afforded by groves is almost entirely wanting. Neither art nor nature can produce an effective landscape without their aid. Where the land is care

h than Naples, the heat of summer is not so intense there as it is in southern Italy. The plants which are so liberally displayed in the balconies of the dwellings require no shelter all the year round. Thus at all times striking bits of color line the second stories of the houses upon the Strada Reale. It will depend somewhat upon the stranger's fancy whether he is attracted by these beautiful f

nature exhibits often a wanton luxuriance of vegetable growth almost tropical. Another obvious reason for this marked fertility of the cultivated soil should be mentioned, namely, that the natives understand and fully appreciate the great value of manure, which no artificial fertilizer can equal in permanent results. Like the Chinese, the people here achieve

realized in the shape of an ample harvest would liberally compensate for all cost of time and labor. There is no zone where nature will do everything for man; his work upon the farm is only begun with the planting of the seed. The fact is, many of our farmers work on the principle of

the average health of Malta, on whose dry soil and in whose usually pure air children thrive and adults live to an extreme old age. The residents have a saying that invalids are obliged to go away to Nice or Mentone, on the mainland, to die, since no one shuffles off this mortal coil by natural means in Malta. There is certainly nothing in the local conditions or in the geographical position to generate any sort of malady. No vegetable matter is permitted to decompose, nor are objectionable substances allowed to remain aboveground. Malta no doubt has its drawbacks, but its clim

ores of the harbor, where seamen congregate, and where every facility for indulgence is easily procurable. It is but fair to say that sobriety of habit is the rule among the common classes of the people. In the rural districts great simplicity of life prevails. Vegetable diet is almost universal, varied by an occasional meal of fish. Meat is much more costly, and is seldom indulged in by ordinary people, in town or country. Fish, which abounds along the shore, is both cheap and nourishing. Shell-fish, especially, are a favorite food in Malta. We say meat is costly; it is only

ad but twice,-on the day of her marriage, and that of her funeral." This sentiment emphasises in a degree the fact of the Eastern origin of the people. No such absolute seclusion as this saying implies is, however, observed here. Though the faldetta is universally worn, still, as we have already intimated, many women use it in so coquettish a manner that they not only expose their pretty faces, but they also manage to see all that goes on about them. The average woman is very much the same, whether in C

upon the common people here that it proves to be on the mainland and in European countries, keeping the ignorant, superstitious class in indigence by taxing its individual members up to the last point of endurance, and beclouding their humble mental capacity. How else could a swarming tribe of useless non-producers like the priesthood be supported in well-fed, sensual idleness, and the costly ornamentation and ceremonies of the church be maintained? There is said to be a priest for every thirty families in the group, men who are intensely bigoted and ridiculously ignorant outside of their professional routin

i tribes or the people of "Darkest Africa," while we have in

ition, the lowly country people have a genius for poetry; indeed, all Eastern tribes who speak the Arabic tongue are thus endowed. This talent finds expression in a sort of improvisation, by which means two persons will hold earnest converse with each other, asserting and denying in something very like epic poetry. They chant th

s with a crude instinct gently fondling their tiny babes,-dolls, we were about to write. It recalled far-away Japan, where the daily life of the humbler classes presents similar domestic tableaux. Japan is a land of babies, where the annu

man Catholic religion is all that is necessary for their spiritual or earthly welfare. Said a famous English general: "Thinking bayonets are dangerous. What we require in a soldier is a machine that knows just enough to obey orders." So it is with the followers of the Roman Catholic faith; people who can read and reason for themselves are "dangerous," so far as putting trust in that bigoted creed is concerned. What the church requires is machines which will obey or

tion is not only compulsory, but it is the only stepping-stone to high preferment in the civil s

church. An influential section of the councils of the Vatican has favored the idea, and it would seem to be well suited for the purpose. Were this to occur, Malta would eventually become the

ms prevail for pleasure excursions, according to the service and the time occupied. Women employed in field labor receive twenty-five cents per day, and men one third more. The P. & O. Steamship Company pay to colliers half a dollar a day; the same men get forty cents per day at the wharves. Blacksmiths, carpenters, sto

econdary consideration in the tropics, where only conventional ideas require the native race to wear clothes of any sort. Idlers swarm about the landings and in the open squares of Valletta, who, it would seem, might be better employed upon the soil inland. An organized effort of capital and official influence to this end would accomplish the object, and render many a square mile of the now sterile

al, as well as every grade of dirt and squalor. In landing and making one's way up to the main thoroughfare of the city, it is necessary to run the gauntlet of this horde of poverty-stricken people. At the base of these "nothing to eat stairs," the longshoremen and fishermen also congregate. It was just here that Midshipman Easy and his companion procured the boat in which they escaped after the "triangular duel." The evil odors permeating the atmosphere in the vicinity are what might be expected from a people reveling in garlic and es

e, monotonous, and unlovely to the eye, are often ten feet in height, not only sheltering, but also hiding vegetation, so that when the island is first observed from on shipboard, while a few miles away, it appears like a huge stone quarry. Nothing could possibly seem more uninviting. Under these circumstances, scarcely a tree or shrub of any sort is visible, with the exception of an occasional slim and solemn-looking cypress, or a straggling old olive-tree raising its isol

d had no desire to do so. It is nothing but a bare rock, with a few dwelling-houses inside of big lin

lders, and the monuments they have left behind them, in the stately city beneath whose stupendous ramparts the ship lies ancho

by lesser commercial craft, all gayly decorated with national emblems, combine to form a picture long to be remembered, while the island is girt by a sapphire sea of purest blue, reaching far away to the horizon,-such a blue as is sometimes reflected in the eyes of very young children, or seen in wood-violets just opening their petals to the light. One should approach the place with a kindly purpose, and not harshly

r natural condition, when sufficiently ripe, but they are not so plentiful as to form a portion of the food supply of the populace at certain seasons, as is the case in Switzerland and the south of France. The blood orange is grown in the vicinity of Valletta in great perfection, being propagated by grafting a slip of the ordinary fruit tree upon a pomegranate stem. The color of the pulp of the fruit thus produced inclines to that of the adopted tree; hence its expressive name. This luscious orange, even in Malta, where it abounds, sells for a higher price than the ordinary fruit. In Florida we have large and productive orange groves, but they are the result of infinite care and intelligent methods. Here in Malta the orange seems to grow after its own sweet wi

the Sicilian pr?tor, Verres, sent hither for women's garments,-certain fine articles of female wear, with which to deck the favorites of his court; and doubtless there was even then produced here something similar to that which is so favorably known as Maltese lace, and which is still so profitable a product of this people. Diodorus Siculus said

ian weed and the saccharine plant, to one familiar with their growth in Cuba and Louisiana, is like a broad caricature. Cigars, chewing tobacco, and snuff are produced here, but almost entirely from stock which has been imported in the raw s

fattening domestic animals. Sheep and goats eat the bean in a green state from the branches of the carob, which has given rise to the saying that in Malta animals climb the trees to procure their food. This tree is green all the year round like our spruce and pine, and flourishes in the most rocky soil, requiring but little depth of earth to sustain and feed it. It seems to have no difficulty in finding or in making fissures, into which to send its expanding roots. It will be remembered

the picture presented by the grim fortifications, the looming towers and domes, the tall, slim spire of the English church, the mass of flat-roofed dwellings, the clear-cut architectural lines of the principal edifices, or the fascination of the cradlelike motion, the delightful coolness, the great sense of peacefulness and silence. Is not this elysium? How responsive are the dimpled waters to the smile of the gracious moon,

have cherished of these delightful Maltese associations,-pic