The one collective term answers for the entire group; so with the beautiful island of Ceylon; people do not usually speak of Colombo, its capital, but of Ceylon, as designating the whole island. Martinique is sufficiently distinctive as regards that picturesque West Indian island; St. Pierre and Fort de France, the commercial and political capitals, are rarely mentioned. Thus Valletta has little significance to the world at large, while Malta is familiar enough.
The Phœnicians, the Greeks, and the Romans, each left tangible evidences of their sovereignty here. The ubiquitous Phœnicians, who are considered to have been the earliest of the commercial tribes, were by no means entirely free from the charge of piracy, which seems to have been almost universal upon this central sea in the earlier and middle ages. Strange, that sea-robbery should have been one of the active agencies in the world's advancement! It is said that all progress since the beginning has been from scaffold to scaffold. In our day no lapse from honorable commercial methods is so abhorrent to civilized nations, and no crimes are more severely punished. Next to the Turks and Algerines, the Greeks were the most reprehensible in this respect,—a people whose love of "freedom" has become a proverb; a country which has enjoyed more of American sympathy and material aid than any other, but whose sons in former times never failed to adopt a corsair life when opportunity offered.
There are very few monuments relating to the occupancy of these islands by the Arabs, who were settled here for more than two centuries. The most durable memorial of that people is their language, a tongue unsurpassed in poetic beauty of expression. After the lapse of ten centuries it is still spoken among the natives, and is held to be remarkably pure, especially in Gozo, the sister isle of Malta. Though it is customary to say that the natives speak Arabic, still it can hardly be a pure tongue; and yet the newly arrived Arabs can understand the Maltese, proving that the basis of the two languages must be identical. An educated resident took occasion to prove to the author that here and there one could select words from the current speech of the common people, the derivation of which was clearly Phœnician. Residents of the capital who are engaged in commerce, and many others of intelligence, speak English, French, and Italian fluently, and most of them speak the native tongue as well. The facility for acquiring foreign languages is a national trait. Cultured Maltese are surpassed only in this respect by educated Russians.
Italian is the official tongue of the law courts, though English is gradually superseding it. Why the former language should be persisted in, it would be difficult to say, though it is the key to all those common in the Levant. The Maltese are not Italians, and never were. Not to put too fine a point upon the matter, they are Arabs in their manners, customs, and language. When the Knights of St. John were sovereign here, nearly four hundred years ago, there was a certain degree of consistency in the adoption of Italian as the current or court language. The intimate relations of the order with the Pope and with Rome were a predisposing influence which could not but have its effect, besides which there was the close proximity of the mainland of Italy; but to continue it as the recognized language of the courts to-day is to sustain an anomaly.
More is known of the Arab dynasty than of any of its predecessors. As soon as this people had gained possession of Malta, they promptly exterminated the Greeks, putting all the male inhabitants to the sword, while making slaves of their wives and children. They were careful to conciliate the native population, even permitting them to worship after the dictates of their own religious convictions, which is a very rare concession among Mohammedans, where they have the power to do otherwise. The Arabs chiefly prized this group of islands for the safe harbors which it afforded in the pursuit of their one occupation, namely, that of undisguised piracy. Their constant raids upon the coast of Italy caused many expeditions to be fitted out from that country for the purpose of driving them away from their stronghold; but as we have said, the Arabs maintained their sovereignty here for over two hundred years. Strong defensive works were erected by them on the present site of Fort St. Angelo, at the entrance of the harbor of Valletta, on the island of Gozo, and at the old capital of the group, Città Vecchia, also known as Cività Notabile,—"Illustrious City," which appellation, in the days of its glory, was probably not inappropriate. This old city, near the middle of the island, was a fortified metropolis centuries before the Arabs came, its defensive walls being contracted by them so that they might be the more easily manned and defended. To visit Città Vecchia to-day is like the realization of a mediæval dream.
A glance at the map will show the reader that the strategic importance of these Maltese islands is almost unequaled. Lying in the middle of the vast and famous inland sea,—happily designated as the cradle of civilization,—within a brief sail of three continents, sixty miles from the shore of Sicily, one hundred and ninety from the mainland of Italy, two hundred from the nearest point of Africa, and equidistant from Constantinople and Marseilles, Valletta has naturally become a popular port of call, as well as an important coaling station for many lines of steamships. This is particularly the case with those bound to or from England and India by way of the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. The opening of that famous and all-important waterway insured the lasting commercial prosperity of the Maltese group. From that day to the present its material growth has been steadily progressing and its population increasing. It is well known how much the Suez Canal promotes the commerce of Europe and Asia, but comparatively few people realize that we have in America a similar means of transportation which is the avenue of a much larger marine traffic. We refer to the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, which connects the State of Michigan with the Canadian Province of Ontario. The aggregate of the tonnage which annually passes through the American artificial river is shown by government statistics to far exceed that of the great canal which connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
Malta is the halfway station, as it were, of the P. & O. line between London and Bombay; but there is other regular communication between the group and England, as well as mail steamships running to Marseilles, Alexandria, Belgium, Tripoli, and Tunis. Occasionally a single passenger or a small party of tourists stop at Valletta until the next packet touches here, enabling them to resume their journey east or west; but it is rather surprising how few visitors to Malta remain long enough to see one half of its many objects of interest, while others, who might easily do so, will not even take the trouble to land. One can sail half round the globe without finding a locality from which such a store of historic information and pleasurable memories can be brought away, or whose present aspect is more inviting. People who have no poetic sense or delicate appreciation will not find these qualities ready furnished for them, either at home or abroad. The dull, prosaic individual whose ideas run only in a practical groove, who lives purely in the commonplace, will be impressed by travel much after the fashion of the backwoodsman from Maine, when he saw Niagara Falls for the first time.
"Great Scott!" said he, gazing approvingly upon the moving aqueous body, "what a waste of water-power!"
A somewhat similar scene, of which the author was a witness, is well remembered.
"Are you going on shore, madam, while we take in coal?" asked the captain of a P. & O. steamship, addressing one of his lady passengers, who was en route from India to England.
"Can I get me a dear little Maltese dog there for a pet?" asked the lady in response.
"It is doubtful," was the answer. "The animals you refer to are now very scarce in these islands."
"Then I think I'll remain on board," rejoined madam. "There's nothing on the island worth seeing, I believe."
"Some persons come thousands of miles solely to visit the place," was the captain's quiet reply. "Its history is very curious."
"Are there any palaces?"
"There are over half a hundred edifices so called, though they have nearly all been diverted from their original purpose by the present government."
"They have nice old lace here, I am told. But one can get the same thing in London, you know."
"Oh, yes, and perhaps you will be able to find a 'puppy' to your liking, in London," said the sarcastic captain.
"I think I'll be content with reading about the place," was the final response of the obtuse passenger.
As to Gibraltar, that gray old solitary rock lying about a thousand miles to the westward of the Maltese