all before them. The alacrity with which they
scramble up the perpendicular side of the ship is simply astonishing. It
struck me that we could not do it with greater ease, notwithstanding
that we possess the advantage of unfettered extremities. In the
twinkling of an eye they are below, and besieging us in our messes,
holding out for our inspection greasy looking rolls of paper, purporting
to set forth in English, French, Italian and Spanish, and even in Greek
and Turkish, the bearers' exploits amidst the soap suds. To read the
English certificates while at breakfast is highly amusing and
provocative of much merriment. Here is one. The writer is one "Bill
Pumpkin," H.M.S. "Ugly Mug," who states that the holder, Mary Brown (who
does not know Mary the ubiquitous Mary), "has a strange knack of
forgetting the gender of a shirt, for it not unfrequently happens that
you may find her with that article of male apparel on her own 'proper
person,' otherwise, he says, she is all that can be desired." The said
Mary B being unable to read English--or for that matter any other
language--holds up her paper in triumph. Happy, ignorant Mary!

Having squared yards with the black-eyed nymphs (all the shady side of
thirty), we are next assailed with the milkmen, who not only bring their
cans, but also their goats on board. When the can is run out "nanny" is
milked, and sent about to look for a feed under the mess-tables, a
locality she is thoroughly acquainted with from frequent experience.

Our first breakfast in Malta is over, a meal not easily to be forgotten,
for fruit is plentiful and good and very cheap, and milk equally so, and
cans full of the latter added to the chocolate make that nutritious
beverage truly delightful, while luscious grapes supply a wholesome and
refreshing dietary.

Now for a run on shore. Valetta, or la Valette, in honor of one of the
most famous of the Grand Masters, the modern capital of Malta, is a
fairly large place, though by no means extensive enough to be styled a
City, except out of courtesy. How dingy the buildings and how dusty the
pavements from the crumbling masonry. The houses are so lofty that the
strip of blue sky can scarcely send its light to the bottom, whilst the
upper storeys have such an affectionate leaning towards each other, that
the wonder is that any mortar is capable of restraining their eagerness
to fall on each other's necks. But all the houses are not like this, and
the character