Part 10 (1/2)

But the tourist who for the first time surveys Valletta from the deck of a steamer as she anchors in the Quarantine Harbor, or still better from the Grand Harbor on the other side of the peninsula on which the capital is built, sees little of this. Scarcely is the vessel at rest before she is surrounded by a swarm of the peculiar high-prowed ”dghaisas,” or Maltese boats, the owners of which, standing while rowing, are clamorous to pull the pa.s.senger ash.o.r.e; for Malta, like its sister fortress at the mouth of the Mediterranean, does not encourage wharves and piers, alongside of which large craft may anchor and troublesome crews swarm when they are not desired. Crowds of itinerant dealers, wily people with all the supple eagerness of the Oriental, and all the lack of conscience which is the convenient heritage of the trader of the Middle Sea, establish themselves on deck, ready to part with the laces, and filigrees, and corals, and sh.e.l.ls, and apocryphal coins of the Knights of St. John, for any ransom not less than twice their value. But in Malta, as elsewhere in the Mediterranean ports, there are always two prices, the price for which the resident obtains anything, and the price which the stranger is asked to pay. To these tariffs a new one has of late years been added, and this is that paradisaical figure, that fond legend of a golden age invoked only when the buyer is very eager, or very verdant, or very rich, ”the price that Lady Bra.s.sey paid.” However, even when the sojourner fancies that he has made a fair bargain (and the apprais.e.m.e.nts fall suddenly as the last bell begins to ring), the pedler is well in pocket, so well, indeed, that it has been calculated every steamer leaves behind it something like two hundred pounds in cash.

But if the rubbish sold in Valletta can be bought quite as good and rather more cheaply in London, Valletta itself must be seen _in situ_. The entrance to either of the harbors enables one to obtain but a slight idea of the place. It seems all forts and flat-roofed buildings piled one above the other in unattractive terraces. There are guns everywhere, and, right and left, those strongholds which are the final purposes of cannon. As the steamer creeps shrieking into ”Port Marsa-Musciet” (the ”Port” is superfluous, since the Arabic ”Marsa” means the same thing) or Quarantine Harbor, it pa.s.ses Dragut Point, with Fort Tigne on the right and Fort St.

Elmo on the left, in addition to Fort Manoel and the Lazaretto on an island straight ahead. Had our destination been the Grand Harbor on the other side of Valletta, Fort Ricasoli and Fort St. Angelo would have been equally in evidence, built on two of the various projections which intersect the left side of that haven. But the forts are, as it were, only the ganglia of the vast systems of fortifications which circle every creek and bay and headland of Valletta and its offshoots. Ages of toil, millions of money, and the best talent of three centuries of engineers have been lavished on the bewildering ma.s.s of curtains and horn-works, and ravelins and demilunes, and ditches and palisades, and drawbridges and bastions, and earthworks, which meet the eye in profusion enough to have delighted the soul of Uncle Toby. Sentinels and martial music are the most familiar of sights and sounds, and after soldiers and barracks, sailors and war-s.h.i.+ps, the most frequent reminders that Malta, like Gibraltar, is a great military and naval station. But it is also in possession of some civil rights unknown to the latter. Among these is a legislature with limited power and boundless chatter, and, what is of more importance to the visitor, the citizens can go in and out of Valletta at all hours of the day and night, no raised drawbridge or stolid portcullis barring their movements in times of peace. The stranger lands without being questioned as to his nationality, and in Malta the Briton is bereft of the _Civis-Roma.n.u.s-sum_ sort of feeling he imbibes in Gibraltar; for here the alien can circulate as freely as the lords of the soil. But the man who wishes to explore Valletta must be capable of climbing; for from the landing place to the chief hotel in the main street the ascent is continuous, and for the first part of the way is by a flight of stairs.

Indeed, these steps are so often called into requisition that one can sympathize with the farewell anathema of Bryon as he limped up one of these frequent obstacles to locomotion,

”Adieu! ye cursed streets of stairs!

(How surely he who mounts you swears).”

The reason of this peculiar construction is that Valletta is built on the ridge of Mount Scebarras, so that the ascent from the harbor to the princ.i.p.al streets running along the crest of the hill is necessarily steep. The result is, however, a more picturesque town than would have been the case had the architect who laid out the town when Jean de La Valette, Grand Master of the Knights, resolved in 1566 to transfer the capital here from the center of the island, been able to find funds to form a plateau by leveling down the summit of the mound. Hence Valletta is composed of streets running longitudinally and others crossing the former at right angles. Most of these are eked out by steps; one, the Strada Santa Lucia, is made up of flights of them, and none are level from end to end. The backbone of the town and the finest of its highways is the Strada Reale, or Royal Street, which in former days was known as the Strada San Georgio, and during the brief French occupation as ”the Street of the Rights of Man.” Seven main streets run parallel with it, while eleven at right angles extend in straight lines across the promontory from harbor to harbor. The Strada Reale, with the Strada Mercanti alongside of it are, however, the most typical bits of the capital, and the visitor who conscientiously tramps through either, with a peep here and there up or down the less important transverse ”strade,” obtains a fair idea of the city of La Valette, whose statue stands with that of L'Isle Adam over the Porta Reale at the farther end of the street bearing that name. Here the first barrier to an invasion from the landward side is met with in the shape of a deep ditch hewn through the solid rock, right across the peninsula from the one harbor to the other, cutting off if necessary the suburb of Floriana from the town proper, though Floriana, with its rampart gardens, parade ground, and barracks, is again protected on the inland aspect by other of the great fortifications which circle the seash.o.r.e everywhere.

However, the drawbridge is down at present, and a long stream of people, civil and military, are crossing and recrossing it, to and from the Strada Reale. For this street is the chief artery through which is ever circulating the placid current of Valletteese life. Soldiers in the varied uniforms of the regiments represented in the garrison are marching backwards and forwards, to or from parade, or to keep watch on the ramparts, or are taking their pleasure afoot, or in the neat little covered ”carrozzellas” or cabs of the country, in which, unlike those of Gibraltar of a similar build, a drive can be taken at the cost of the coin which, according to Sydney Smith, was struck to enable a certain thrifty race to be generous. Sailors from the war-s.h.i.+ps in the Grand Harbor, and merchant seamen on a run ash.o.r.e, are utilizing what time they can spare from the grog shops in the lower town to see the sights of the place.

Cabmen and carmen driving cars without sides, and always rus.h.i.+ng at the topmost speed of their little horses, scatter unwary pedestrians. Native women, with that curious ”faldetta,” or one-sided hood to their black cloaks which is a characteristic of Malta as the mantilla is of Spain, pa.s.s side by side with English ladies in the latest of London fas.h.i.+ons, or st.u.r.dy peasant women, returning from market, get sadly in the way of the British nursemaid dividing her attention in unequal proportions between her infantile charges and the guard marching for ”sentry-go” to the ramparts. Flocks of goats, their huge udders almost touching the ground, are strolling about to be milked at the doors of customers. Maltese laborers, brown little men, bare-footed, broad-shouldered, and muscular, in the almost national dress of a Glengarry cap, cotton trousers, and flannel s.h.i.+rt, with scarlet sash, coat over one arm, and little earrings, jostle the smart officers making for the Union Club, or the noisy ”globe-trotter” just landed from the steamer which came to anchor an hour ago. A few snaky-eyed Hindoos in gaily embroidered caps invite you to inspect their stock of ornamental wares, but except for an Arab or two from Tunis, or a few hulking Turks from Tripoli with pilot jackets over their barracans, the Strada Reale of Valletta has little of that human picturesqueness imparted to the Water-port Street of Gibraltar by the motley swarms of Spaniards, and Sicilians, and negroes, and Moors, and English who fill it at all periods between morning gun-fire to the hour when the stranger is ousted from within the gates. Malta being a most religiously Roman Catholic country, priests and robe-girded Carmelites are everywhere plentiful, and all day long the wors.h.i.+pers entering and leaving the numerous churches, with the eternal ”jingle-jingle” of their bells, remind one of Rabelais's description of England in his day. At every turning the visitor is accosted by whining beggars whose pertinacity is only equaled by that of the boot-blacks and cabmen, who seem to fancy that the final purpose of man in Malta is to ride in carrozzellas with s.h.i.+ning shoes. In Gibraltar we find a relief to the eye in the great rock towering overhead, the tree-embosomed cottages nestling on its slopes, or the occasional clumps of palms in the hollows. These are wanting to the chief strada of Valletta. In architectural beauty the two streets cannot, however, be compared. The Water-port is lined with houses, few of which are handsome and most of which are mean, while the scarcity of s.p.a.ce tends to crowd the narrow ”ramps” as thickly as any lane in Valletta. It is seldom that the shops are better than those of a petty English town, and altogether the civil part of the rock fortresses has not lost the impress of having been reared by a people with but little of the world's wealth to spare, and kept alive by a population who have not a great deal to spend.

The main street of Valletta on the other hand is lined by good, and in most cases by handsome, houses, frequently with little covered stone balconies which lend a peculiar character to the buildings. The yellow limestone is also pleasant to look upon, while the many palaces which the comfort-loving knights erected for their shelter, impart to Valletta the appearance of a ”a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen.” Here on the right is the pretty Opera House (open, in common with the private theaters, on Sunday and Sat.u.r.day alike), and on the other side of the road the Auberge of the Language of Provence, now occupied by the Union Club. A little farther on, in an open s.p.a.ce shaded with trees, is the Church of St. John, on which the knights lavished their riches, and still, notwithstanding the pillage of the French troops in 1798, rich in vessels of gold and silver, crosses, pixes, jewels, monuments chivalric emblazonments, paintings, carven stone and other ecclesiastical embellishments, though like the wealthy order of military monks, whose pride it was, the Church of St. John is ostentatiously plain on the outside. The Auberge d'Auvergne, now the Courts of Justice, is on the other side of the street, and hard by, a building which was formerly the Treasury of the Knights, the storehouse into which was gathered the contributions of the Commanderies throughout Europe. The Public Library fronted by some trees a little way back from the road is interesting from its containing the books of the Bailiff Louis de Tencin, the Grand Master de Rohan (who erected it), and of many of the more lettered knights, besides a good collection of the island antiquities. Close to it is the palace of the Grand Master, now the residence of the Governor, or in part utilized as Government offices. The courtyards, planted with oranges, euphorbias, hibiscus, and other greenery, and the walls covered with Bougainvillia, have a delightfully cool appearance to the pedestrian who enters from the hot street; while the broad marble staircase, the corridors lined with portraits and men-at-arms, and pictures representing the warlike exploits of the knightly galleys, the armory full of ancient weapons, and majolica vases from the Pharmacy, and the numerous relics of the former rulers of the island, are worthy of a long study by those interested in art or antiquity. The Council Chamber also merits a visit, for there may be seen the priceless hangings of Brussels tapestry. And last of all, the idlest of tourists is not likely to neglect the Hall of St. Michael and St. George, the frescoes celebrating the famous deeds of the Order of St. John, and the quaint clock in the interior court, which, according to Maltese legend, was brought from Rhodes when that island was abandoned after a resistance only less glorious than a victory. For, as Charles V. exclaimed when he heard of the surrender which led to Malta becoming the home of the knights, ”there has been nothing in the world so well lost as Rhodes.” The main guard, with its pompous Latin inscription recording how ”Magnae et invictae Britanniae Melitensium Amor et Europae vox Has insulas confirmant AN MDCCCXIV,” is exactly opposite the palace. But when the visitor sees the wealth of art which the knights were forced to leave behind them, he is apt to be puzzled how the Maltese, who contributed not one baiocco to buy it, or to build these palaces or fortifications, could either through ”Amor,” or that necessity which knows no law, make them over us to us, or how ”Magna et invicta Britannia” could accept without compensation the property of the military monks, whose Order, bereft of wealth and influence, still exists and claims with the acquiescence of at least one court to rank among the sovereign Powers of Christendom. The knights are, however, still the greatest personalities in Malta. We come upon them, their eight-pointed cross and their works at every step. Their ghosts still walk the highways. The names of the Grand Masters are immortalized in the cities they founded and in the forts they reared. Their portraits in the rude art of the Berlin lithographer hang on even the walls of the hotels. Their ecclesiastical side is in evidence by the churches which they reared, by the hagiological names which they gave to many of the streets, by the saintly figures with which, in spite of three-fourths of a century of Protestant rulers, still stand at the corners, and by the necessity which we have only recently found to come to an understanding with the Pope as to the limits of the canon law in this most faithful portion of his spiritual dominions.

On the other hand, the secular side of the Order is quite as prominent.

Here, for instance, after descending some steps which serve as a footpath, we come to the Fort of St. Elmo, which terminates the Strada Reale. But long before there was any regular town on Monte Sceberras, when the capital was in the center of the island, this fortress on the point midway between the two harbors was a place round which the tide of battle often swirled, when Paynim and Christian fought for the mastery of the island. Of all these sieges the greatest is that of 1565, a year before the town of Valletta was laid out. Twice previously, in 1546 and 1551, the Turks had endeavored to expel the knights, but failed to effect a landing.

But in the year mentioned Sultan Solyman, The Magnificent, the same Solyman who thirty-four years before had driven them from Rhodes, determined to make one supreme effort to dislodge the Order from their new home. The invading fleet consisted of a hundred and thirty-eight vessels under the Renegade Piali, and an army of thirty-three thousand men under the orders of Mustafa Pasha. These sea and land forces were soon afterwards increased by the arrival of two thousand five hundred resolute old Corsairs brought from Algiers by Ha.s.san Pasha, and eighteen s.h.i.+ps containing sixteen hundred men under the still more famous Dragut, the Pirate Chief of Tripoli, who, by the fortunes of war, was in a few years later fated to toil as a galley-slave in this very harbor. The siege lasted for nearly four months. Every foot of ground was contested with heroic determination until it was evident that Fort St. Elmo could no longer hold out. Then the knights, worn and wounded, and reduced to a mere remnant of their number, received the viatic.u.m in the little castle chapel, and embracing each other went forth on the ramparts to meet whatever lot was in store for them. But St. Angelo and Senglea, at the end of the peninsula on which Isola is now built, held out until, on the arrival of succor from Sicily, the Turks withdrew. Of the forty thousand men who on the 18th of May had sat down before the Castle, not ten thousand re-embarked; whilst of the eight or nine thousand defenders, barely six hundred were able to join in the Te Deum of thanks for the successful termination of what was one of the greatest struggles in ancient or modern times. Then it was that ”the most ill.u.s.trous and most Reverend Lord, Brother John de la Valette,” to quote his t.i.tles inscribed over the Porta Reale, determined to lay out the new city, so that, before twelve months pa.s.sed, the primeval prophecy that there would be a time when every foot of land in Monte Sceberras would be worth an ounce of silver bade fair to come true. St. Elmo is still the chief of the island fortresses, and the little chapel which the knights left to fall under the Turkish scimitars is again in good preservation, after having been long forgotten under a pile of rubbish. But though churchmen and soldiers, the masters of Malta were, if all tales are true, a good deal more _militaires_ than monks. Eye-witnesses describe the knights as they sailed on a warlike expedition waving their hands to fair ladies on the sh.o.r.e. In their albergos or barracks the ”Languages” lived luxuriously, and though dueling was strictly prohibited, there is a narrow street, the Strada Stretta, running parallel with the Reale, in which this extremely unecclesiastical mode of settling disputes was winked at. For by a pleasant fiction, any encounter within its limits was regarded as simply a casual difficulty occasioned by two fiery gentlemen accidentally jostling each other!

Turning into the Strada Mercanti, the San Giacomio of a former nomenclature, we come upon more reminders of this picturesque brotherhood.

For close by the Hospital for Incurables is the site of their cemetery, and farther up the steep street is the Military Hospital, which was founded by the Grand Master, Fra Luis de Vasconcelos. This infirmary, as an old writer tells us, was in former days ”the very glory of Malta.”

Every patient had two beds for change, and a closet with lock and key to himself. No more than two people were put in one ward, and these were waited upon by the ”Serving Brothers,” their food being brought to them on silver dishes, and everything else ordered with corresponding magnificence. Nowadays, though scarcely so sumptuous, the hospital is still a n.o.ble inst.i.tution, one of the rooms, four hundred and eighty feet in length, being accounted the longest in Europe. But there are no silver dishes, and the nurses have ceased to be of knightly rank. The University, an inst.i.tution which turns out doctors with a celerity which accounts for the number of them in the island, is an even less imposing building than the public p.a.w.nbroking establishment hard by, and neither is so noteworthy as the market, which is remarkable from a literary point of view as being perhaps the only edifice in Valletta the founder of which has been content to inscribe his merits in the vulgar tongue. On the top of the hill, for we have been climbing all the time, is a house with a fine marble doorway, which also is the relic of the knights. For this building was the Castellania, or prison, and the pillory in which prisoners did penance, and the little window from above which prisoners were suspended by the hands, are still, with the huge hook to which the rope was attached, to be seen by those who are curious in such disciplinary matters. But like the rock-hewn dungeons in which the knights kept their two thousand galley-slaves, in most cases Turks and Moors who had fallen in the way of their war-s.h.i.+ps, which still exist in the rear of the Dockyard Terrace, such reminders of a cruel age and a stern Order are depressing to the wanderer in search of the picturesque. He prefers to look at the Auberge of the Language of Italy, where the Royal Engineers have their quarters, or at the Palazzo Parisi, opposite (it is a livery stable at present), where General Bonaparte resided during that brief stay in Malta which has served ever since to make the French name abhorred in the island, or at the Auberge de Castille, the n.o.blest of all the knights' palaces, where the two scientific corps hold their hospitable mess.

We have now tramped the entire length of the two chief longitudinal streets of Malta, and have seen most of the buildings of much general interest. But in the Strade Mezzodi and Britannica there are many private dwellings of the best description, and even some public ones, like the Auberge de France (devoted to the head of the Commissariat Department), warrant examination from a historical if not from an architectural, point of view. All of these knightly hotels are worthy of notice. Most of them are now appropriated to the needs of Government offices or, like the Auberge d'Arragon (an Episcopal residence), to the housing of local dignitaries. But where the Auberge d'Allemagne once stood the collegiate church of St. Paul has been built, and if there ever was an Auberge d'Angleterre (for the language of England was suppressed when Henry VIII.

confiscated the English Commanderies and was early succeeded by that of Bavaria), the building which bore her name was leveled when the new theater was built. It is nevertheless certain that the Turcopolier or General of the Horse was, until the Reformation, selected from the Language of England, just as that of Provence always furnished the Grand Commander, France the Grand Hospitaller, Italy the Admiral, Arragon the Drapier, Auvergne the Commander, Germany the Grand Bailiff, and Castile the Grand Chancellor of the Sovereign Order, whose Grand Master held among other t.i.tles those of Prince of Malta and Gozo.

We are now at the Upper Barracca, one of those arcades erected as promenades by the knights, and still the favorite walk of the citizens in the cool of morning and evening. From this point also is obtained a good bird's-eye view of Valletta and much of the neighboring country, and if the visitor continues his walk to St. Andrew's Bastion he may witness a panorama of both harbors; one, which the Maltese affirm (and we are not called upon to contradict them), is surpa.s.sed by the Bosphorus alone. It is at all events the most picturesque of the island views. There at a glance may be seen the two chief harbors alive with boats, sailing vessels, and steamers, from the huge ironclad to the noisy little launch.

We then see that beside the main peninsula upon which Valletta is built, and which divides the Quarantine from the Grand Harbor, there are several other headlands projecting into these ports in addition to the island occupied by Fort Manoel and the Lazaretto. These narrow peninsulas cut the havens into a host of subsidiary basins, bays, and creeks, while Valletta itself has overflowed into the suburbs of Floriana, Sliema, and St.

Julian, and may by-and-by occupy Tasbiesch and Pieta; Bighi, where the Naval Hospital is situated, and Corradino, a.s.sociated with gay memories of the racecourse, and the more sombre ones which pertain to the cemeteries and the prisons, all of which are centered in this quarter, where in former days the knights had their horse-breeding establishments and their game preserves.

But there are certain suburbs of Valletta which no good Maltese will describe by so humble a name. These are the ”Three Cities” of Vittoriosa and Senglea, built on the two peninsulas projecting into the Grand Harbor, and separated by the Dockyard Creek, and Burmola or Cosspicua, stretching back from the sh.o.r.e. These three ”cities” are protected by the huge Firenzuola and Cottonera lines of fortifications, and as Fort Angelo, the most ancient of the Maltese strongholds, and Fort Ricasoli, recalling the name of its builder, are among their castles, they hold their heads very high in Malta. Indeed, long before Valletta was thought of, and when Notabile was seen to be unfitted for their purpose, the knights took up their residence in Borgo or the Burgh, which, as the Statue of Victory still standing announces, was dignified by the name of Citta Vittoriosa after their victory over the Turks. Strada Antico Palazzo del Governatore recalls the old Palace which once stood in this street, and indeed until 1571 this now poor town was the seat of Government. Antique buildings, like the Nunnery of Santa Scolastica, once a hospital, and the Inquisitor's Palace, now the quarters of the English garrison, are witnesses to its fatten dignity. Burmola is also a city of old churches, and Senglea named after the Grand Master De la Sengle, though at present a place of little consequence, contains plenty of architectural proofs that when its old name of ”Chersoneso,” or the Peninsula, was changed to Isola, or ”The Unconquered,” this ”city,” with Fort Michael to do its fighting, played in Malta militant a part almost as important as it does nowadays when its dockyard and a.r.s.enal are its chief t.i.tles to fame.

Turning our survey inland, we see from the Barracca a rolling country, whitish, dry, and uninviting, dotted with white rocks projecting above the surface; white little villages, each with its church and walled fields; and topping all, on the summit of a rising ground, a town over which rise the spires of a cathedral. This is Citta Vecchia, the ”old city” as it was called when the capital was transferred to Valletta, though the people round about still call it by the Saracenic name of ”Medina,” (the town), the more modern designation of ”Notabile” being due to a complimentary remark of Alfonso the Magnanimous, King of Castile. No town in Malta is more ancient. Here, we know from the famous oration of Cicero, that Verres, Praetor of Sicily, established some manufactories for cotton goods, out of which were made women's dresses of extraordinary magnificence, and here also the same voluptuous ruler did a reprehensible amount of plundering from temples and the ”abodes of wealthy and honorable citizens.” In their time-honored capital the Grand Masters had to be inaugurated, and in its cathedral every Bishop of Malta must still be consecrated. But the glory of Notabile is its memories, for in all Christendom there is no more silent city than the one towards which we creep by means of the island railway which has of late years shortened the eight miles between it and Valletta. Every rood, after leaving the cave-like station hollowed out of the soft solid rock, and the tunnels under the fortifications, seems sleepier and sleepier. Every few minutes we halt at a white-washed shed hard by a white-washed ”casal.” And all the ”casals” seem duplicates of each other. The white streets of these villages are narrow, and the people few. But the church is invariably disproportionately large, well built, and rich in decorations, while the shops in the little square are much poorer than people who support so fine a church ought to patronize. There is Hamrun, with its Apostolic Inst.i.tute directed by Algerian missionaries, Misada in the valley, and Birchircara.

Casal Curmi, where the cattle market is held, is seen in the distance, and at Lia and Balzan we are among the orange and lemon gardens for which these villages are famous. The San Antonio Palace, with its pleasant grounds, forms a relief to the eye. At Attard, ”the village of roses,” the aqueduct which supplies Valletta with the water of Diar Handur comes in sight, and then, at San Salvador, the train begins the steep pull which ends at the base of the hill on which Notabile is built.

On this slope are little terraced fields and remains of what must at one time have been formidable fortifications. But all is crumbling now. A few of the Valletta merchants are taking advantage of the railway by building country houses, and some of the old Maltese n.o.bility cling to the town a.s.sociated with their quondam glory. But its decaying mansions with their mouldering coats of arms, palaces appropriated to prosaic purposes, ramparts from which for ages the clash of arms has departed, and streets silent except for the tread of the British soldiers stationed there or the mumble of the professional beggar, tell a tale of long-departed greatness.

A statue of Juno is embedded in the gateway, and in the shed-like museum have been collected a host of Phoenician, Roman, and other remains dug out of the soil of the city. Maltese boys pester us to buy copper coins of the knights which are possibly honest, and their parents produce silver ones which are probably apocryphal.

In Notabile itself there is not, however, a great deal to look at, though from the summit of the Sanatorium, of old the Courts of Justice (and there are dreadful dungeons underneath it still), a glance may be obtained over the entire island. To the prosaic eye it looks rather dry to be the ”Fior del Mondo,” the flower of the world, as the patriotic Maltese terms the land which he leaves with regret and returns to with joy. There to the south lies Verdala Palace, and the Boschetto, a grove in much request for picnic parties from Valletta, and beyond both, the Inquisitor's summer palace, close to where the sea spray is seen flying against the rugged cliffs. The Bingemma hills, thick with Phoenician tombs, are seen to the west, and if the pedestrian cares he may visit the old rock fortress of Kala ta Bahria, Imtarfa, where stood the temple of Proserpine, and Imtahleb near the seash.o.r.e, where in the season wild strawberries abound.

Musta, with its huge domed church, is prominent enough to the northeast, while with a gla.s.s it is not difficult to make out Zebbar and Zeitun, Zurrico, Paola, and other villages of the southeastern coast scattered through a region where remains of the past are very plentiful. For here are the ruins of the temples of Hagiar Khim and Mnaidra, rude prehistoric monuments, and on the sh.o.r.e of the Marsa Scirocco (a bay into which the hot wind of Africa blows direct), is a megalithic wall believed to be the last of the temple of Melkarte, the Tyrian Hercules.

But in Notabile, far before Apollo and Proserpine, whose marble temples stood here, before even the knights, whose three centuries of iron rule have a singular fascination for the Maltese, there is a name very often in many mouths. And that is ”San Paolo.” Saint Paul is in truth the great man of Malta, and the people make very much of him. He is almost as popular a personage as Sir Thomas Maitland, the autocratic ”King Tom,” of whose benevolent despotism and doughty deeds also one is apt in time to get a little tired. Churches and streets and cathedrals are dedicated to the Apostle of the Gentiles, and from the summit of the Sanatorium a barefooted Maltese points out ”the certain creek with a sh.o.r.e” in which he was wrecked, the island of Salmun, on which there is a statue of him, and the church erected in his honor. It is idle to hint to this pious son of Citta Vecchia that it is doubtful whether Paul was ever wrecked in Malta at all, that not unlikely the scene of that notable event was Melita, in the Gulf of Ragusa. Are there not hard by serpents turned into stone, if no living serpents to bite anybody, and a miraculous fountain which bursts forth at the Apostle's bidding? And is not ”the tempestuous wind called Euroklydon” blowing at this very moment? And in the cathedral we learn for the first time that Publius, on the site of whose house it is built, became the first bishop of Malta. For is not his martyrdom sculptured in marble, and painted on canvas? And by-and-by we see the grotto in which St. Paul did three months' penance, though the reason is not explained, and over it the chapel raised to the memory of the converted Roman Governor, and not far away the Catacombs in which the early Christians sheltered themselves, though whether there is an underground pa.s.sage from there to Valletta, as historians affirm, is a point in which our barefooted commentator is not agreed.

All these are to him irreverent doubts. Notabile, with its cathedral, and convents, and monasteries, its church of St. Publius, the ”stone of which never grows less,” the seminary for priests, the Bishop's Palace and the Bishop's Hospital, is no place for scepticism touching Saint Paul and his voyages. Any such unbeliefs we had better carry elsewhere. The day is hot and the old city is somnolent, and the talk is of the past. At the wicket gate of the little station at the hill foot the engine is, at least, of the present. And as we slowly steam into Valletta, and emerge into the busy street, we seem to have leapt in an hour from the Middle Ages into the Twentieth Century. The band is playing in the Palace Square, and the politicians are in procession over some event with which we as seekers after the picturesque are not concerned. But in Valletta we are in the land of living men. Behind us is a city of the dead, and around it lie villages which seem never to have been alive.