The Argosy — page 157: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

142 A Day at Malta. under the anxiety, and the way in which Mauleverer smoked himself pale and ill day after day to reduce the risk and the quantity. I don’t think he will forget it as long as he lives; I shall never even recover it. | Then further up the street came the Union Club, where we had almost lived-at our previous visit. Yet beyond that the Opera House, where we had listened to ‘‘ Faust,” and very nearly forsworn music for ever after. Opposite that again was Truefitt’s, which really made one feel quite in London, and brought the Burlington Arcade unpleasantly before one’s mental vision. And just beyond was the old Porta Reale, with its statues of the Knights of St. John, and the draw- bridge spanning the great dyke which runs from the Quarantine Harbour to the Great Harbour; a dyke nearly one thousand yards long, fifty-five feet deep, and thirty feet wide. For this little island of Malta has gone through histories and vicissitudes, and belonged to many nations. It is simply a rock rising out of the sea, seventeen miles long, nine miles broad, and about sixty miles round. For its size, Valetta, the capital, is almost the most densely populated place in the world. Outside, in the country, the island looks nothing but a barren waste of rock and sand, bleached white and hard under the blazing sun. Hardly a tree meets the eye, or any green, or any sign of vegetation. And yet there is abundance of it, and Malta is really very fertile. The reason for this apparent contradiction is that nearly all vegetation, trees, fruits, cereals, is enclosed and concealed within high walis. Everything without the walls is destroyed by the influence of the sea air and spray. Within these walls vegetation is often singularly luxuriant and beautiful. The history of Malta dates from very remote days; as remote as the expulsion of the Phoenicians from Canaan by Joshua, who are said to have been its first known settlers. ‘Then came a colony of Greeks seven hundred years before the Christian era, and five nundred years later it fell into the hands of those universal con- querors, the Romans. - §o it went on; belonging now to the East, now to the West; as if, situated at almost equal distances between the three great con- tinents of the known world, each and all had a right to its possession. At last came its most interesting epoch, when it became subject to the Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers as they were often called. . Like many other great results the Order began in a very small way. A band of merchants from Amalfi founded a hospital and chapel at Jerusalem for the use of poor pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre: buildings dedicated to St. John the Baptist. After the capture of Jerusalem by Godefroi de Bouillon in 1ogg9, the Order suddenly be- came famous. To its pacific attributes it was allowed to add a martial side, and take up arms in defence of its faith: and before many COMIC OOOKS. CCl ag)