"His body's under hatches,

His soul has gone aloft.""

Going aloft" in the Mediterranean has a very different meaning: it signifies passing upwards and eastwards from the Straits of Gibraltar.* We are now going aloft to Malta, a British possession hardly second to that of the famed Rock itself.

CHAPTER VII.

ROUND THE WORLD ON A MAN-CF-WAR (continued).

MALTA AND THE SUEZ CANAL.

Calypso's Isle-A Convict Paradise-Malta, the "Flower of the World"-The Knights of St. John-Rise of the OrderThe Crescent and the Cross-The Siege of Rhodes-L'Isle Adam in London-The Great Siege of Malta-Horrible Episodes-Malta in French and English Hands-St. Paul's Cave-The Catacombs-Modern Incidents-The Shipwreck of St. Paul-Gales in the Mediterranean-Experiences of Nelson and Collingwood-Squalls in the Bay of San Francisco-A Man Overboard-Special Winds of the Mediterranean-The Suez Canal and M. de Lesseps-His Diplomatic Career-Saïd Pacha as a Boy-As a Viceroy-The Plan Settled-Financial Troubles-Construction of the Canal-The Inauguration Fête-Suez-Passage of the Children of Israel through the Red Sea.

APPROACHING Malta, we must "not in silence pass Calypso's Isle." Warburton describes it, in his delightful work on the East-a classic on the Mediterranean-as a little paradise, with all the beauties of a continent in miniature; little mountains with craggy summits, little valleys with cascades and rivers, lawny meadows and dark woods, trim gardens and tangled vineyards-all within a circuit of five or six miles.

One or two uninhabited little islands, "that seem to have strayed from the continent and lost their way," dot the sea between the pleasant penal settlement and Gozo, which is also a claimant for the doubtful honour of Calypso's Isle. Narrow straits separate it from the rock, the "inhabited quarry," called Malta, of which Valetta is the port. The capital is a cross between a Spanish and an Eastern town; most of its streets are flights of steps. Although the climate is delightful, it is extremely warm, and there is usually a glare of heat about the place, owing to its rocky nature and limited amount of tree-shade. "All Malta," writes Tallack, "seems to be light yellow-light yellow rocks, light yellow fortifications, light yellow stone walls, light yellow flat-topped houses, light yellow palaces, light yellow roads and streets." Stones and stone walls are the chief and conspicuous objects in a Maltese landscape; and for good reason, for the very limited soil is propped up and kept in bounds by them on the hills. With the scanty depth of earth the vegetation between the said stone walls is wonderful. The green bushy carob and prickly cactus are

* Vide "Malta Sixty Years Ago," by Admiral Shaw.

"The Crescent and the Cross."

"Malta under the Phoenicians, Knights, and English," by W. Tallack.

to be seen; but in the immediate neighbourhood of Malta few trees, only an occasional and solitary palm. Over all, the bright blue sky; around, the deep blue sea. You must not say anything to a Maltese against it; with him it is "Flor del Mondo "the "Flower of the World."

The poorest natives live in capital stone houses, many of them with façades and fronts which would be considered ornamental in an English town. The terraced roofs make up to its cooped inhabitants the space lost by building. There are five or six hundred promenadable roofs in the city. Tallack says that the island generally is the abode of industry and contentment. Expenses are high, except as regards the purchase of fruits, including the famed "blood,” “ Mandolin" (sometimes called quite as correctly " Mandarin ") oranges, and Japan medlars, and Marsala wine from Sicily. The natives live simply, as a rule, but the officers and foreign residents commonly do not; and it is true here, as Ford says of the military gentlemen at Gibraltar, that their faces often look somewhat redder than their jackets in consequence. As in India, many unwisely adopt the high living of their class, in a climate where a cool and temperate diet is indispensable.

The four great characteristics of Malta are soldiers, priests, goats, and bells—the latter not being confined to the necks of the goats, but jangling at all hours from the many church towers. The goats pervade everywhere; there is scarcely any cow's milk to be obtained in Malta. They may often be seen with sheep, as in the patriarchal days of yore, following their owners, in accordance with the pastoral allusions of the Bible.

What nature commenced in Valetta, art has finished. It has a land-locked harbourreally several, running into each other-surrounded by high fortified walls, above which rise houses, and other fortifications above them. There are galleries in the rock following the Gibraltar precedent, and batteries bristling with guns; barracks, magazines, large docks, foundry, lathe-rooms, and a bakery for the use of the "United" Service.

To every visitor the gorgeous church of San Giovanni, with its vaulted roof of gilded arabesque, its crimson hangings, and carved pulpits, is a great object of interest. Its floor resembles one grand escutcheon-a mosaic of knightly tombs, recalling days when Malta was a harbour of saintly refuge and princely hospitality for crusaders and pilgrims of the cross. An inner chapel is guarded by massive silver rails, saved from the French by the cunning of a priest, who, on their approach, painted them wood-colour, and their real nature was never suspected. But amid all the splendour of the venerable pile, its proudest possession to-day is a bunch of old rusty keys-the keys of Rhodes, the keys of the Knights of St. John. What history is not locked up with those keys! There is hardly a country in Europe, Asia, or Northern Africa, the history of which has not been more or less entangled with that of these Knights of the Cross, who, driven by the conquering Crescent from Jerusalem, took refuge successively in Cyprus, Rhodes, Candia, Messina, and finally, Malta.

The island had an important place in history and commerce long ere that period. The Phoenicians held it 700 years; the Greeks a century and a half. The Romans retained it for as long a period as the Phoenicians; and after being ravaged by Goths and Vandals, it was for three and a half centuries an appanage of the crown of Byzantium. Next came the Arabs, who were succeeded by the Normans, and soon after it had become a German possession, Charles V. presented it to the homeless knights.

In the middle of the eleventh century, some merchants of the then flourishing commercial city of Amalfi obtained permission to erect three hostelries or hospitals in the Holy City, for the relief of poor and invalided pilgrims. On the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the position and prospects of the hospitals of St. John became greatly improved. The organisation became a recognised religious order, vowing poverty, obedience, and chastity. Its members were distinguished by a white cross of four double points worn on a black robe, of the form commonly to be met in the Maltese filigree jewellery of to-day,

often to be noted in our West End and other shops. Branch hospitals spread all over Europe with the same admirable objects, and the order received constant acquisitions of property. Under the guidance of Raymond du Puy, military service was added to the other vows, and the monks became the White Cross Knights.* Henceforth each seat of the order became a military garrison in addition to a hospice, and each knight held himself in readiness to aid with his arms his distressed brethren against the infidel.

Slowly but surely the Crescent overshadowed the Cross: the Holy City had to be evacuated. The pious knights, after wandering first to Cyprus, settled quietly in Rhodes, where for two centuries they maintained a sturdy resistance against the Turks. At the first siege, in 1480, a handful of the former resisted 70,000 of the latter. The bombardment

In contradistinction to the Red Cross Knights, or Templars, who, though Crusaders, formed a purely

military order.

was so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off, and for this extraordinary defence, Peter d'Aubusson, Grand Master, was made a cardinal by the Pope. At the second siege, L'Isle Adam, with 600 Knights of St. John, and 4,500 troops, resisted and long repelled a force of 200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against him, and after a brave but hopeless defence, which won admiration even from the enemy, L'Isle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope, and to the Courts of Madrid, Paris, and London, the then almost valueless Rock of Malta was bestowed on the knights in 1530. Its noble harbours, and deep and sheltered inlets were then as now, but there was only one little town, called Burgo-Valetta as yet was not.

In London, L'Isle Adam lodged at the provincial hostelry of the order, St. John's Clerkenwell, still a house of entertainment, though of a very different kind. Henry VIII. received him with apparent cordiality, and shortly afterwards confiscated all the English possessions of the knights! This was but a trifle among their troubles, for in 1565 they were again besieged in Malta. Their military knowledge, and especially that of their leader, the great La Valette, had enabled them to already strongly fortify the place. La Valette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers, while the Turks had 30,000 fighting men, conveyed thither in 200 galleys, and were afterwards reinforced by the Algerine corsair, Drugot, and his men. A desperate resistance was made: 2,000 Turks were killed in a single day. The latter took the fortress of St. Elmo, with the loss of Drugot-just before the terror of the Mediterranean-who was killed by a splinter of rock, knocked off by a cannon-ball in its flight. The garrison was at length reduced to sixty men, who attended their devotions in the chapel for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded, but even then the old spirit asserted itself, and they desired to be carried to the ramparts in chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order. Next day few of that devoted sixty were alive, a very small number escaping by swimming. The attempts on the other forts, St. Michael and St. Angelo, were foiled. Into the Eastern Harbour (now the Grand), Mustapha ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to be cast. They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross, and floated by the tide across to the besieged with La Valette, where they were sorrowfully taken up and interred. In exasperated retaliation, La Valette fired the heads of the Turkish slain back at their former companions—a horrible episode of a fearful struggle. St. Elmo alone cost the lives of 8,000 Turks, 150 Knights of St. John, and 1,300 of their men. After many false promises of assistance, and months of terrible suspense and suffering, an auxiliary force arrived from Sicily, and the Turks retired. Out of the 9,500 soldiers and knights who were originally with La Valette, only 500 were alive at the termination of the great siege.

This memorable defence was the last of the special exploits of the White Cross Knights, and they rested on their laurels, the order becoming wealthy, luxurious, and not a little demoralised. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the confiscation of their property in France naturally followed; for they had been helping Louis XVI. with their revenues just previously. Nine years later, Napoleon managed, by skilful intrigues, to obtain quiet possession of Malta. But he could not keep it, for after two years of blockade it was won by Great Britain, and she has held it ever since. At the Congress of