warm atmosphere, and the
blossoms on the fruit trees are more lovely and fragrant than the
bouquets which the pretty Maltese girls offer at such minimum prices.
There is a rich and constant glow of shifting color, the yellow
buildings reflecting light like burnished gold.

Surely it is good to be here, good to behold this charming phase of
foreign life, and to contrast it with other scenes more famous but far
less attractive. Paris is said to be the city of art and poetry, but
Valletta embodies both within itself, adding a third allurement as being
the city of romance and vivid history, which leaves upon the visitor's
brain a memorable vision of light, life, and color.

Lord Beaconsfield wrote of Valletta as being equal in its architecture
to any capital in Europe, but this is an exaggeration, and is incorrect.
It may, however, be fairly said to vie with any town on the shores of
the Mediterranean for the elegance of its construction and its general
effect. "If that fair city," says the authority which we have just
quoted, "with its streets of palaces, its picturesque forts and
magnificent church (that of St. John), only crowned some green and azure
island of the Ionian Sea, Corfu, for instance, I really think that the
ideal of landscape would be realized."

The prevailing style of the edifices is Italian and Moorish combined,
quite appropriate to the climate and habits of the people. The Knights
are said to have brought with them from Rhodes the style of building
which has been uniformly adopted here. The palaces now seen in the
capital of Malta are reproductions of those left in the former home of
the order, that "Garden of the Levant." There is an unmistakable flavor
of the Orient in nearly everything which the fraternity brought hither
from Rhodes, even extending, in no small degree, to their domestic
affairs, manners, and customs. Valletta, including the immediate suburb
of Floriana, is about two miles long and nearly a mile in width. After
Venice we know of no other city more strongly individualized or more
thoroughly mediaeval. There is no other capital with which it can
reasonably be compared; it stands quite alone, a populous city and
citadel combined. Like Gibraltar in purpose, it is as unlike that
far-famed rocky fortress and town as can well be conceived. It was
founded in 1566, by Jean de La Vallette, forty-fourth Grand Master of
the Knights of St. John, whose statue, together with that of the brave
and