culture, and
another known as the Society of Arts. Each of these engages the
attention of a certain set of people of culture, to their own advantage
and indirectly to that of the community.

It is natural that there should be a certain exclusiveness observed
between the Maltese families and those of the official English
residents. Caste, so to express it, though not under the arbitrary
conditions in which it exists in India, is not unknown here. Where is it
not to be found under various forms throughout Christendom? It exists
to a certain degree among the English themselves. The separation caused
by the dissimilarity of language, religion, and education is also wide.
There are, as already stated, a certain number of "nobles" who transmit
their distinction to their sons. These are a bigoted, useless, and
extremely ignorant class, generally possessing just enough inheritance
to keep them from beggary, yet who are too proud of their empty titles
to adopt any occupation. These individuals, together with the numerous
native priests, as illiterate as their humblest parishioners, form the
black sheep of Malta, equally useless and unornamental, illustrating the
proverb that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."

The quays bordering the harbor of the capital present a busy and
picturesque scene well worthy of study. Next to the Strada Reale, they
afford the strongest local color. They are dotted with fruit stands,
refreshment booths, out-of-door cafes, piles of ship-chandlery, jack
tars in white canvas clothes and beribboned hats, and native boatmen in
scarlet caps and sashes of the same texture. One feels inclined to laugh
at the queer little go-carts intended to carry three or four persons,
and drawn by a dwarfed donkey. These vehicles are not unlike an
Irish-jaunting-car, the passengers sitting sideways in the same fashion.

The former Grand Palace of the Knights of St. John is quite a plain
structure externally, much less pretentious than the edifices devoted
to the several divisions of the order. The Auberge de Castile, for
instance, is a far more striking and ornamental palace, built at the
headquarters of the Spanish language. The Grand Palace has an unbroken
frontage of three hundred feet on St. George's Square,--Piazza St.
Giorgio,--forming an immense quadrangle bounded on each side by large
thoroughfares. Two centuries ago this was called the Piazza dei
Cavalieri, or the "Square of the Knights," and