tairs up to the city of Valetta. And, when under a
powerful sun such as one can experience at Malta in, say, July, and
before we reach the top, how often do Byron's truthful words occur to
us:

"Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, scirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs!
How surely he who mounts you swears!"

A friend who had long resided at Malta, suggested a slight alteration in
the above to--

"Adieu, ye streets of stinks and stairs!"

The reason for these wearisome steps was, I believe, owing to the
following facts:--After the brave old knight, La Valette, had repulsed
the Turks with great slaughter, and had consequently obtained a little
breathing time, he set about re-fortifying the island and rebuilding the
city, with the intention of levelling the rocky parapet for its
foundation; but, owing to reports of another expedition of the Moslem
being fitted out at Constantinople, for a still more powerful and
revengeful attack on their fortress, the city had to be finished
quickly, and so was built on the rocky slope in all haste--and hence the
steep flight of steps leading up to the highest part of the city from
the harbour.

Having taken breath, we move on and find ourselves in the stony narrow
streets of the city, almost every other person met with being a priest
or a nun, the church bells still clanging with utmost discord around.
The houses, with their green painted jalousies, are all built of a kind
of white limestone, and so reflect the dazzling heat and glare of the
sun as to prove exceedingly painful and injurious to the eyes; hence,
ophthalmia is rather prevalent at Malta. Never was there a place so
priest-ridden and superstitious; everywhere in the streets, under the
lamps at the corners, within niches cut in the walls, you see some
painted image of a saint, bedizened with jewels, silver and gold and
tinsel, grandly painted and decorated--the objects of abject adoration
to the benighted poor people and other passers-by. Indeed, of late years
some very serious disturbances have occurred at Malta, because our
soldiers and sailors would not bow down before some superstitious
priestly procession through the streets; and one feels ashamed to
confess (no longer for an Englishman _civis Romanus_) that some of these
men were punished for not doing so. Surely it should be enough that the
Maltese are allowed full freedom to enjoy their own religious, or rather
gross