ional 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 hemisp