t
many a continental metropolis far more pretentious, and having thrice
its population.

As the present possessors of the island of Malta, its story has
doubtless a greater degree of interest for the English than for any
other people. But as regards its relation to the history of the past,
its importance is universal. When it was a Phoenician colony, so long
ago, it was a powerful factor in the political calculations of the
Christian powers; but above all other associations, the island will
always be famous as the place where the glory of the chivalrous Knights
of St. John reached its zenith, and where it also came to its
ignominious end. Of this period the pages of history furnish a fair
amount of truthful detail, but conjecture alone can fill the blank which
precedes the arrival of this remarkable order at Malta.

CHAPTER II.

Island of Hyperia.--Where St. Paul was Wrecked.--An
Historical Bay.--Rock-Cut Tombs.--Curious and Unique
Antiquities.--Sovereignty of the Knights of St. John.--An
Anomalous Brotherhood.--Sailor-Monks.--Ancient Galleys.--A
Famous Barbary Corsair.--Antique Norwegian Vessel.--Navy of
the Knights.--Barbaric Warfare.--About the Maltese Nobility.
--Romantic History.--"Arabian Nights."--Valletta the
Beautiful.

Lovers of classic fable will remember that one of the islands of this
group was named Hyperia by Homer, and was the supposed residence of the
mystic nymph Calypso, where she entertained--not to say detained--the
shipwrecked Ulysses by her siren fascinations, when he was on his way
home from Troy. Her grotto, entirely shorn of its poetic adornment, is
exhibited to the curious stranger at Gozo. It was while under the
Phoenician dynasty that Calypso is supposed to have kept Ulysses
prisoner for seven years. Such ingenious allegories impart a certain
local and romantic interest, though they rather obscure than illumine
history. Homer threw a glow of poetic fancy over the localities which he
depicted, while Scott--to present a contrasting instance--gives us
photographic delineations of the times and places to which he introduces
us. In "Kenilworth," for instance, the novelist teaches the average
reader more about the days of Queen Elizabeth than a labored history of
her reign would do, presenting it also in such a form as to fix it
firmly upon the mind.

It would seem that fable, like history, is bound to repeat itself, since
thousands o