at Malta.--The Upper Baracca
of Valletta.--A Favorite and Sightly Promenade.--Retrospective
Flight of Fancy.--Conflict between the Soldiers of the Cross
and the Crescent.--A Background Wanting.--Historical and
Legendary Malta.--The Secret of Appreciation.--Last View of the
Romantic Group.--Farewell. 314

THE STORY OF MALTA.

CHAPTER I.

Geographical Position of Malta.--A Pivotal Location.--Warden
of the Great Inland Sea.--First Sight of the Group.--How to
reach the Island.--Early Inhabitants.--Language of the
People.--Phoenician Colonists.--Arabian Dynasty.--A Piratical
Rendezvous.--Suez Canal.--Two Sorts of Travelers.--Gibraltar.
--Harbor of Valletta.--A Place of Arms.--Various Bays of the
Group.--Dimensions.--Extensive Commerce of the Port.

The island of Malta has been known by several significant appellations
during the centuries in which it has claimed a place upon the pages of
history. In our day it is often called the Queen of the Mediterranean,
not only because of its commanding position, dominating, as it were, the
coasts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, but also as possessing a degree of
historical and present picturesqueness unsurpassed by any land between
the Columns of Hercules and the coast of Asia Minor. To the north lie
Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica; to the east are Greece, Turkey, and
Syria; and to the southwest is the coast of Barbary; thus forming an
amphitheatre of nations. Malta is therefore a pivotal location about
which vast interests revolve. The loving, patriotic Maltese proudly call
this shadeless island in the middle of the sea, _Fior del Mondo_,--"the
flower of the world." Yet it must be confessed that the downright
ignorance of these natives concerning the rest of the globe is
appalling. To the critical reader of history it is as much classic
ground as Athens or Rome. Situated twenty-five hundred miles from
England, the government fully realizes its importance as an effective
base of naval and military operations, and as an essential outpost for
keeping open the route to India. In fact, Malta is the strongest link in
the chain which connects Great Britain with her possessions in the East.

During the Crimean war, it was made an English sanitarium for the sick
and wounded who were invalided in that protracted struggle between the
Western powers and Russia. We regarded it, after India, as one of