very appropriate system of nomenclature. Casal Luca is mostly
inhabited by stone masons and quarrymen; indeed, the whole district
about the hamlet is one large quarry. The church in this thrifty village
contains three admirable and well-remembered paintings by that
illustrious artist, Mattia Preti.

There are twenty-six small casals in Malta proper, the larger number of
which are on the eastern end of the island, and all of them are very
much alike. They are divided by narrow streets, designed to exclude the
powerful rays of the summer sun, while the low stone houses are full to
repletion of children and Arabic-speaking people with Oriental
proclivities. Though there are beggars by the score along the roads and
in the villages, there are no other obvious tokens of poverty. Indeed,
there is a general appearance of thrift. It is in populous centres, in
large cities, that real want and hunger are mostly suffered, where from
force of circumstances the multitude of people cease to be producers,
but are still consumers. Each of these casals has its school, wherein,
it is said, the government tries to introduce the English language, but
it would seem with indifferent success. Those who are sovereign here
appear to be too indifferent in this matter. There is a well-organized
college at Valletta, where degrees are conferred in divinity, law, and
physic. To our inquiry of an intelligent citizen touching this subject,
he promptly replied: "Education in Malta is cheap, bad, and neglected."
This is only too true, though all the civilized world admits it to be
the great and most effective weapon of Christianity and progress. The
most effective missionary who can be dispatched to foreign lands is the
competent school-teacher. Tenets of faith will adjust themselves in
accordance with reason, among those who are rendered sufficiently
intelligent to think for themselves. The ignorance of a large portion of
the Maltese villagers is absolutely deplorable. They have no recognized
language in literature; and if they had, they could neither read nor
write it. They are quite uninformed even upon the most common current
events. An English gentleman (Mr. Seddall), who lived some years at
Malta, declared that they were not a whit better educated than the
Bedouin Arabs. As a conclusive evidence of this, he tells us in print:
"A laboring man once informed me that the Sultan was the supreme ruler
of the island." The same author says: "The priests opp