The two excellent harbors of Valletta might afford anchorage for six hundred ships of war, as they have bold, well-defined shores, and an average depth of ten fathoms. This was not so originally, but is the result of a thorough system of dredging, which has been faithfully completed.
As we look upon the scene from an elevated point, beneath the afternoon sun, while freely inhaling the lotus-like air of the Mediterranean, everything is serene and lovely. Over the terraced roofs of Valletta rises the square tower of the Grand Palace, gay with many colored signal flags. Across the harbor the eye rests upon Fort Ricasoli, and here stands stout old St. Elmo, while in the distance Fort San Rocco crowns a hilltop. Much nearer is Fort St. Angelo, with its record of a thousand years and more. The numerous domes and towers of the city, though they are not minarets, have much the same Oriental effect upon the eye. Myriads of small boats, painted in bright, fanciful colors after the florid Maltese style, and having canvas coverings sheltering the stern, shoot hither and thither like birds upon the wing. The boatmen stand while rowing, as do the oarsmen of the Venetian gondolas, pushing, not pulling, at the oars. Hundreds of small feluccas line the shore. A group of fishermen in rude but picturesque costumes are landing the product of their industry. Half a dozen ships belonging to the British navy, and as many huge mail steamers, swing lazily at anchor, while little erratic steam launches dart back and forth from ship to shore; a memorable picture, the sea and sky being its appropriate frame. French, German, Italian, and English flags indicate the nationality of the several vessels, but the eye searches in vain for the stars and stripes of our Union. The same absence of the American flag is only too observable throughout nearly all the ports of the Mediterranean and the far East. The home-keeping citizen who reads these lines can hardly realize the patriotic sensation mingled with dire homesickness which thrills the traveler, long absent from his native land, at sight of our beloved national emblem proudly expanding its folds upon a foreign shore.
We look in vain for one other significant flag, that of the eight-pointed cross, which for centuries waved over these battlements as the sacred banner of the Knights of St. John, the token of their religious faith and their resolve to conquer or to die, which led them in the van of battle at Jerusalem, at Acre, and at Rhodes, and under which they slaughtered the besieging enemy by thousands beneath the wall of Malta; the gallant flag which so often flashed defiance before the eyes of sanguinary Turks, treacherous Greeks, and rapacious Algerines upon the sea; the flag, alas! which was lowered in disgrace, in 1798, without the firing of a single shot in its defense, to give place to the tricolor of France, and to acknowledge the mastership of Bonaparte. This was an act of cowardice equaled only by that of the arch-traitor Bazaine, who shamefully surrendered a whole army at Metz which was perfectly capable of winning a signal victory over the Germans, if it had been led against them by a brave general. The world knows how that dastard poltroon was tried and punished for his treason, as well as of his miserable subsequent life and unregretted death in a foreign land.
To return to the Knights of St. John. This act of treachery – the surrender of Valletta to the French – was virtually the end of the famous order; the dying hour, as it were, of a brotherhood which had for hundreds of years defied the whole Ottoman power almost single handed, and whose members, as chivalrous knights, won the respect of Christendom.
One often reads of the great beauty of the sunset as enjoyed upon this group, and we cheerfully bear witness to the fact that this phenomenon of nature is justly eulogized. Writers are apt to grow enthusiastic over Italian sunsets, especially along the Riviera; but the author, who has seen this diurnal exhibition in all parts of the globe, can truly say he has nowhere witnessed it surrounded by more beauty and grandeur of effect than in our own beloved land. Bostonians who possess an appreciative eye for the loveliness of cloud and sky effect, have seen at the closing of day, looking westward over the Charles River, as glorious exhibitions of the sunset hour as any part of the world can boast. As to the beauty of the afterglow, the lingering twilight of New England, "whose mantle is the drapery of dreams," it can be excelled in no land in either hemisphere. In the enthusiasm of the moment, while on the Yellow Sea of China, the author gave precedence, in his published notes, to the remarkable sunsets which characterize that region; but in this soberer moment a calmer conviction is honestly recorded. Still, the quivering flame that seemed to burn like lava on the line where sky and ocean met, the iris hues softly reflected by the vapory tissue of clouds in the opposite expanse, and the gorgeous robes in which the on-coming night was wrapped that December evening upon the Yellow Sea, can never be forgotten by any one who witnessed it.
On the disappearance of the sun beneath the Mediterranean at Malta, as soon as the opal fires have burned out of the sky, light clouds usually fringe the horizon, emitting rapid flashes of lightning which continue for hours, recalling the Aurora Borealis as seen at Bodöe and Tromsöe, in Norway. There is no lasting twilight in this latitude. Night follows close upon the footsteps of the departing day. The brightness of the stars supervenes so quickly after the curtain falls upon the scene, and the mellow evening atmosphere is so clear, that the twilight is hardly missed by the watchful observer, as the Spirit of the night, upon dewy sandals, begins her course of the circling hours.
CHAPTER IV
The Soil of Malta. – Imports and Exports. – Absence of Trees. – Equable Climate. – Three Crops Annually. – Use of Fertilizers. – Ignorant and Pious Peasantry. – Food of the People. – Maltese Women. – Oriental Customs. – Roman Catholic Influence. – Improvisation. – Early Marriages. – A Resort for the Pope. – Low Wages. – Beggars. – Wind Storms. – Blood Oranges. – The Carob-Tree. – Maltese Lace. – Sailing along the Shore.
It has already been mentioned that a large portion of the island of Malta is covered with a thin, rich soil, some of which, it is said, was brought from Sicily at infinite cost and labor. If this is so, of which we have reasonable doubts, it was done only to a very limited extent. Vessels sailing hence with merchandise for the mainland or Sicily, having no return cargo, may have occasionally brought back as ballast quantities of earth, but that there was ever any systematic importation of soil is not probable. Much of the surface of the island is still only bare, calcareous stone, exposed 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 the fiery mouth of Vesuvius has, in the course of ages, become the soil of thriving vineyards at Resina and Castellamare. The Bahama Islands, composed originally of coral and limestone, have, during the lapse of centuries, become such fertile soil at the surface as to nourish the royal palm, the orange, and the banana, together with the stout-limbed ceiba and the most delicate fruits of the tropics. It should be remembered, also, that vegetation does not depend alone upon the soil for its life and fruitfulness. Like human beings, it borrows vitality from the rain and atmospheric air.
This Maltese soil must be of a very prolific nature, and contain hidden properties which stimulate plant life beyond comparison, to furnish the means of support for so large a number of inhabitants in so circumscribed a space. It is true that cattle, sheep, and grain are regularly imported for the consumption of the garrison and the people, as the island does not yield sufficient meat and breadstuff for the support of the population; but other products which are raised here and exported go far towards balancing the deficiency, by the grain and other needed supplies which they purchase in return. Two articles, salt and soda, are produced upon the island and exported in considerable quantities, the annual income from which reaches 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 carefully improved, it is not unusual to realize three crops annually from the same ground, by a timely succession of seeds. It is the common practice to follow the harvesting of a grain crop by immediately planting the same field with cotton. This last article has long been an established product of Malta, where it is believed to be indigenous. The islands produce two kinds of cotton, one of which is pure white, the other of a yellowish brown, both having a staple combining length and silkiness in a peculiar degree. It will thus be seen that the capacity of the soil and climate is very comprehensive, and it is interesting to know that there are over sixty thousand acres of land under cultivation in Malta at the present writing.
The climate is so equable and mild that there is no sterile period of the year, no unproductive month in the twelve. Every division of the season has its special vegetation and its fragrant flowers, thus rendering the reign of floral beauty ceaseless. March and April, however, are the months which present the most luxuriant phase of vegetation in this latitude. Though Malta lies much farther south 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 flowers, so vivid in color, or by the graceful forms, the lovely olive-hued faces, and appealing eyes, which are half hidden behind them, like screened batteries. One cannot closely observe the use of the Maltese hood, presumedly the insignia of modesty, without becoming convinced that it serves in no small degree the same purpose as the Spanish fan in the hands of an accomplished Andalusian woman.
The obtaining of three crops annually from the same field is not only remarkable in itself, but is also significant of the prevailing industry of the Maltese, as well as of the fertility of the soil and the propitiousness of the climate for agricultural enterprise. It is observed that in sheltered places, where the soil is quite neglected by the hand of man, 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 excellent returns in agriculture by deserving them. The most unwilling soil will succumb to such persevering and intelligent treatment. The careful collection and application of domestic refuse to the land is systematically pursued by the farmers, which process is conducive to cleanliness and health as well as to good husbandry, thus serving a twofold purpose.
Were the same liberal use of easily obtained enrichment, together with a system of irrigation (also well understood in Malta), to be applied to our constantly abandoned farms in New England, we should hear much less grumbling as regards their sterility, while the returns which would be 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 Kodak man, – "You touch the button, and we do the rest." Sitting down in indolence and despair, such men wonder that their utterly neglected lands do not yield better crops, talking the while about rich fields and virgin soil which are supposed to exist somewhere, far away in Utopia.
Until the author visited Malta, he thought that the British island of Barbadoes, the farthest windward of the West Indian group, was the most densely populated spot on the globe, but here we find human beings numbering over thirteen hundred to the productive square mile. One intelligent statistician places the population at fourteen hundred, but the first estimate is quite extraordinary enough. As a matter of comparison, it may be mentioned that the population of England averages three hundred souls to a similar space. The steady increase of the people in numbers speaks well for 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 climate, as a rule, is very healthy. "Malta healthy?" responded a local physician to our inquiry. "Why, we professionals are simply starved out for want of practice." "How about the plague and the cholera?" we asked. "Ah, an occasional visit of that sort occurs, to be sure, at wide intervals, otherwise our occupation would be gone." He added, "All the world is liable to such visitations; but as to the general healthfulness of this island, no one can justly find fault." Such is probably the truth. English physicians continue to send certain classes of their patients hither regularly.
The men one meets outside of the city, in and about the villages, engaged upon the land, or otherwise, form a hardy, swarthy, and capable race, – industrious, ignorant, and very pious. These men, on an average, are not quite so tall as those of North America, but they are strong, broad-shouldered, frugal, and honest, with a decided Moorish cast of countenance, whose usual expression is a compound of apathy and dejection. That the Maltese are a temperate people is very plain. Drunkenness is scarcely ever to be met with even in the humbler portions of the capital, or along the shores 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 so, as compared with the means of the common people, and the amount of money they realize in the form of wages. Beef sells in the market here at about the same price as is charged in our Atlantic cities. Considerable mutton is raised in the group, but the beef which is used for food purposes is nearly all brought from over the sea, the larger portion coming from the Barbary coast. As regards the cost of living at Malta, that depends so much upon individual requirements that no general rule applies, but it is certainly considerably less expensive than at either Nice or Cannes.
A certain inclination for seclusion is observable among the Maltese women in all parts of the group. They are rarely, if ever, seen abroad with their husbands. Their predilection for indoor life is pronounced, and when hastening to morning mass through the streets of Valletta, the shielding black hood is always in requisition, unrelieved by a touch of bright or cheerful color. The general effect is nun-like and funereal. There is an axiom current here to the effect that "A woman should never appear abroad 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 Cairo, on the Strada Reale, Malta, or on the Champs Elysées, – whether in the atmosphere of the Mediterranean, or on the banks of the Seine. The semi-Oriental custom of the sex, as observed in these islands, is doubtless a relic of their association with and descent from the Mohammedans. As they neither use nor understand a word of any language except Maltese Arabic, it is of course impossible for a stranger to hold conversation with them. One would have to speak, not Turkish, but Maltese Arabic, to do so.
The land in Malta is universally terraced on the side-hills. This method serves a double purpose: that of beautifying the landscape, while it secures the soil in its proper place, as one sees it in Switzerland or on the Rhine. Being of a spongy nature, the soil retains the moisture for a long time, thus insuring fertility. Though there are long periods during which no rain falls, little trouble is realized from drought. The ownership of the land is about equally divided between the English government, the church, and two or three thousand farming proprietors. The Roman Catholic institution is the same leech 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 routine, but who are the apt tools of more able personages who hold higher positions in the church. They are ever ready to show their credulous parishioners pieces of the true cross and other sham relics "to whet their almost blunted appetite." Yet it may be doubted if these cunning Maltese agents of the Romish church could go any further in this direction than was lately done by a priest of the same denomination in the city of New York, who pretended to exhibit for worship a bone from the body of St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, which anxious hundreds of deluded people were "permitted" to kneel down and kiss!
Do not let us talk any more about idol worship among the Fiji tribes or the people of "Darkest Africa," while we have in our midst such barefaced trickery under the veil of religion.
The humble owners of the land in Malta, as we have tried to show, are naturally a thrifty, hard-working people, neither rich nor poor. The reader would be surprised to see how much of seeming plenty, comfort, and contentment exists among these sturdy natives under such adverse circumstances. Notwithstanding their uncultured condition, 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 their words in a wild, Maltese sing-song, which appear exactly to accord one with the other, though the music seems to be equally improvised with the ideas of the singer. However unconventional the words and the music may be, there is still a certain rude harmony in both, evidently animated now and then by gorgeous gleams of fancy.
These Maltese are a prolific race, marry quite young, rear large families, and are very fond of their children. Brides only thirteen years of age are common among the working classes. It is a touching sight to watch these childlike mothers 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 annual crop is marvelously sure. In both instances, these youthful mothers, as may naturally be supposed, grow old in appearance at a comparatively early age. It requires no prophet to declare that premature maternity entails premature old age.
We do not intend to convey the idea that ignorance and its natural consequences do not prevail among the Maltese peasantry, when we say that there is much of seeming comfort and contentment to be found among them. As an average class, these children of the soil exhibit only too clearly their want of culture and intelligence. The priests oppose all efforts to improve them by schools. Education is virtually tabooed by the church, it being held that devotion to the Roman 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 orders, and yield up their hard-earned wages to support the priesthood and the regal Romish palace of the Pope at Rome. Any unprejudiced observant traveler in Spain, Italy, Mexico, or South America will bear witness to the truth of this statement. Not one twentieth of the inhabitants of this Maltese group can read and write. In populous, overcrowded China, eight tenths of the inhabitants can read and write, and yet the Western nations look upon them as semi-barbarians.
Can any one indicate another people on the globe, eight tenths of whom can read and write? Education is not only compulsory, but it is the only stepping-stone to high preferment in the civil service of the government. Our venal politicians would do well to profit by the example of China.
It will be remembered in this connection that since the suppression of the Pope's temporal power in Italy Malta has been looked upon as a possible future residence for the head of the Romish 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 Mecca of Catholicism. We may not expect to see such a change brought about in our day; if it should ever happen, it would add but one more to the strange vicissitudes in the history of Malta.
The wages paid to ordinary laborers in these islands are insignificant in amount, though there has been an improvement in this respect during the last decade. Boatmen in the harbor demand but nine-pence, English money, for rowing a person to or from a ship lying a quarter of a mile from the landing. Equally moderate terms 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, stonemasons, boat-builders, and sail-makers rarely earn more than seventy-five cents per day. The drivers of the street vehicles in Valletta are quite reasonable in their demands, and a shilling will pay one's fare to any part of the city. The little one-horse vehicles called carrozzellas are well adapted to their purpose.
The same economic conditions are found here as prevail in India and China. The multiplicity of seekers for employment keeps the prices which are paid for services at a minimum rate. So, in over-populated Barbadoes, a plantation hand can earn but twenty-five cents for a day's work continued through ten hours. To be sure, that sum will more than feed him; and as to clothes and shelter, these are of secondary 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 ground not only beautiful to the eye, but also exuberantly productive. All over the civilized world the most useless and idle portion of the people leave comparatively comfortable homes in the country, where at least good food and shelter can nearly always be earned, to crowd into cities, attracted thither by the glamour of vice and fast life which always prevails more or less in populous centres.
The arrival of a P. & O. steamship in the harbor of Malta, with a goodly number of passengers bound either east or west, is a harvest time for the beggars, who know very well how to challenge the generosity of strangers. They have made a careful study of the business; they have elevated it, as De Quincey would say, to the dignity of a fine art. The "Nix Mangare Stairs" of Valletta are the congregating place of an army of mendicants of every species, men, women, and children, who exhibit all manner of deformities, both real and artificial, 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 eschewing soap. The daily food of the class one sees in this section of the city is a slice of black bread and a raw onion. The traveler's disgust and sympathy are both wrought upon to an extreme degree, while amid all the clamor and whining appeals the practiced eye pauses for a moment to note the picturesqueness of mingled colors and of ragged humanity. The same recalls to mind the broad stone steps leading up to the Capo di Monti from the Piazza di Spagna, in Rome, where the artists' models assemble, clothed in a "congress" of colors.
When it is remembered that the violence of the winds which sometimes blow over these islands is such that in any other part of the world they would be called hurricanes, the successful results achieved by the Maltese gardeners and agriculturists appear more surprising. In order to furnish protection from these fierce winds, high and solid stone walls surround every grain, vegetable, and fruit field, all of which are purposely made small in area. These yellow walls, wearisome, 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 isolated and twisted head above the arid rocks. Some of these walls are redeemed from utter dreariness by the pendulous cactus which hangs from their tops, fringed with yellow bloom. It is a strange though common plant, consisting of a succession of bulbous formations, quite flat and an inch or more thick, which serve the double purpose of stalk and leaves. The incurious traveler is thus impressed, by these screening walls, with an incorrect idea of the true nature of the island.
A passenger once said, in our hearing, replying to a friendly query: "No, I did not land at Malta, and had no desire to do so. It is nothing but a bare rock, with a few dwelling-houses inside of big lines of fortifications. I saw quite enough of its barrenness from the deck of our ship to disenchant me."
How mistaken was this superficial estimate! One would think that the most prosaic passenger would wish to know more of the builders, and the monuments they have left behind them, in the stately city beneath whose stupendous ramparts the ship lies anchored. Let us chaperon the reader, so that he shall entertain no such unwarranted impression of this Queen of the Mediterranean.