ith milk and
honey,--Melita, "Isle of Honey,"--its choice goat's milk being also a
staple commodity. As for butterflies, to which we have incidentally
referred, graceful, leisurely, aerial creatures, nowhere outside of
southern India can finer specimens of this beautiful and delicate insect
be found. An enthusiastic German naturalist in Valletta told the author
that he had secured a rich collection in Gozo, and that he was then on
his way to the little island of Filfla to reap a harvest in another
line, namely, among the curious lizard family, which thrive upon its few
square rods of rocky soil.

Who ever traveled in out-of-the-way places abroad, without meeting some
quaint German naturalist, wearing a green woolen cap with an impossible
leather visor, a sort of Dominie Samson, in search of ugly centipedes,
stinging ants, extraordinary spiders, or other hideous bugs? These
"Innocents Abroad" are all alike, wearing gold-bowed spectacles, and
having a chronic disregard for clean linen. One can easily forgive the
butterfly enthusiast, these delightful, innocuous insects, exquisite in
their frailty and variety of colors, are so like animated flowers; but
pray spare us from poisonous bugs, with innumerable crooked legs.

One has not far to go, after landing upon Gozo, before small flocks of
well-conditioned, silky-haired goats begin to appear, intelligent-looking
animals, with large, gazelle-like eyes and transparent ears. They are
generally tended by a barefooted lad or a young girl having the
slenderest amount of covering in the shape of clothes. These boys and
girls, nine or ten years of age, are often strikingly handsome, the
latter betraying a perfection of youthful promise as to form, distinctly
seen through their scanty rags. The boys have the blackest of black
eyes, and the brownest of brown skins, such as one sees among the Moors
who come into Tangier with the caravans arriving from Fez. These sheep
tenders would answer admirably as models for an artist, often
unconsciously assuming artistic poses, forming grand pictures, and
reminding one of the subjects which Murillo delighted in. The quiet
self-possession of these children of nature is both impressive and
significant. They are utterly untaught, but how graceful in every
movement! It would be as impossible for one of them to be awkward as for
a young kitten. Every attitude is statuesque and full of repose. They
have borrowed somewhat of the grandeur of their birt