The city we now call Malta includes four towns, Valetta, Florian, Vittoriosa, and Borgo, but these names have given way in common use to that of the island. The principal part is seated on a point of land between two noble harbours, the northern of which is appropriated to vessels in quarantine, and on the northern shore of this is the Lazaretto. We occupied there two large rooms, about 27 feet square, and near 20 high. We had a vaulted gallery to walk in about 120 feet long, and a terrace of nearly the same length. The windows command a view of the harbour, and of a series of walls and batteries rising one above another, forming the fortifications of Malta, or rather of Valetta; and something of the town is seen above them. To the right are scattered houses and plots of land, inclosed by stone walls with very little appearance of green among them. A boat came every morning with milk, fruit, and vegetables, and we established a communication with an innkeeper in the town for our dinners. It cost each of us a little more than two dollars per diem, which certainly is not extravagant, for we must expect to pay more at such places, than where we are our own masters. The guardiano appointed to see that we observe the rules of quarantine, is said usually to act also as a servant, and expects to receive at the end of his imprisonment, for he is confined with the travellers, some addition to his regular pay, but the one assigned to us was a stupid old fellow, who would do nothing. Fortunately, my companions had an Italian servant who was willing to do every thing. Meanwhile we amused ourselves with reading, playing at chess, &c. Mr. Calvert has been so good as to furnish us with books. It is amusing when any body comes to visit us, (which amounts only to a conversation of a few minutes at the entrance of the building) to see them shrink from us if we happen to approach, lest we should incautiously touch them.

The quarantine at Malta for vessels from Turkey is of forty days; but the king’s ships, and this packet, are let off for thirty, on the assumption that they do not carry susceptible goods; and besides, the time they are on the voyage is allowed as part of the quarantine. S. who came here with Capt. Murray, as I have already said, left me a note, to state that he had escaped quarantine by a miracle of San Tommaso. The governor indeed, seems to use a dispensing power, which shows that he does not think the quarantine regulations of much importance; indeed, in many respects they must be deemed unreasonable, for I do not suppose that there is a man in Malta so timid as to have abstained from communication with us for fear of the plague, although what they suffered from it must be still fresh in their memory. Just before that disease made its appearance at Malta, a ship laden with old hospital rags, (a curious cargo) left that island for England, having on board some invalid officers; the ship sailed slowly, and before her arrival, news had reached London that the plague had appeared in Malta; she was consequently ordered into a quarantine for eighty days, but a representation being made that such a confinement would probably prove fatal to some of the officers who had come to England merely on account of their health, all these were at once freed from restraint, but the ship and crew had still to undergo their appointed time.

We gained our liberty on the 20th of June, and established ourselves at a comfortable inn kept by an Englishman, who is also a tailor. Our first occupation was to walk about the town. La Valetta, the principal division, is a very handsome city, with straight streets, and large well built stone houses; at least, they appear well built, but I am told the mode of construction is very defective. Most of the houses have stone balconies over the door, or in some part of the front, with bold projections well supported. There is no want of material, for the whole island is a rock of soft, coarse, limestone, of I believe, a very late formation. It is of a good colour, and works easily, but yields to the weather, and is not calculated for nice execution.

Zante looks like a place of importance after the miserable collections of hovels called towns in Turkey, but there is more difference between Malta and Zante, than between Zante and Patras. The streets, for the south of Europe, are wide; they are very much up and down hill, and it is probably owing to this circumstance that they are usually very clean. Besides the balconies already mentioned to the larger houses, those of all sizes have architraves to the windows and doors, with some additional ornament to the latter, and a good cornice. The balcony occurs sometimes only in the centre, at others it extends along the whole front, and is not unfrequently repeated in the second story. I know of nothing in England which will enable you to judge of the effect of these bold and massive, but ornamental projections; our taste has run so exclusively into the opposite and more economical side, that we seem to have forgotten that simplicity without relief is mere tameness and insipidity. We however, thus escape the reproach of having spent much money in badly imagined ornaments, which is so often urged against the Italians; but in spite of the bad taste, or perhaps rather of the bad judgment, which frequently appears, we must still confess, that wherever we can find a little space to distinguish the objects, the interior of an Italian town is beyond comparison superior to that of an English one. Bath has more the appearance of an Italian city, than any other town in England; and in the greater width of the streets, and perhaps in the more correct style of ornament, it has the advantage; the great defect is the littleness both of the useful and ornamental parts.

The churches in Malta are handsome. That dedicated to St. John the Baptist is the principal, and is also the one which pleases me the best. The roof is a continued vault, and when I first visited it, the side arches were covered by a tapestry of rich and handsome colours, leaving only low, square openings underneath into the side aisles. This does not sound well in description, yet it was certainly very handsome; and I thought even better than when the arches were exposed, and I saw the full height of the openings. The floor is composed of the very rich, inlaid, marble tombstones of the knights, and the space is almost filled: the walls of the side chapels are covered with gilt carving. In one of these is a fine painting of St. John the Baptist, which may probably be considered as the masterpiece of Mattia Prete (il Calabrese), whose works are very frequent in this city. Here also are some good paintings by Caracciuoli, a Neapolitan artist.

The Church of Sant Agostino is in the form of a Greek cross, and though the arms are rather too long, and it is rather deficient in simplicity, it is a light and elegant room.

The new Church of San Domenico pleases me in another way; by the size and openness of the side aisles. Where this is effected without the appearance of weakness, it is sure to please, and it is probably a circumstance of this sort which has contributed to the reputation of two very different buildings; the cathedral at Amiens, and the church of St. Stephen, Walbrook.

The governor’s palace is a large, but not a handsome building; the principal defect arises from the irregular disposition of the windows; it has a large balcony at each angle of the principal face, and on each of them a sort of glazed box, and this has a bad effect. These boxes upon the balconies are very frequent in Malta. They are painted of a gray or dull green colour, and do not rise so high as the windows behind them. They might perhaps be admissible occasionally as a source of variety, but are very injurious in a building which makes any pretence to magnificence.

The front of this palace forms one side of the Piazza. Opposite to it is the guard-house, with a handsome portico of Greek Doric, rather out of its place amongst so much Corinthian work, and profuse ornament. Each order is in itself capable of considerable variety of expression and character, and it is better to avail oneself of this, than to introduce another so completely different. A balustrade on the top serves to unite this portico with the body of the building, but it forms an inharmonious appendage to so severe an order. There is another Square on the flank of the palace, one side of which is formed by a building which contains the public library, and this is really a very fine structure. It presents a range of seven arches on the ground plan, and as many windows above, with half columns in the piers. These half columns are set in recesses, which is not the best way of disposing them, but when the proportions are good, the architect avoids by this means the appearance of weakness below, or of too great weight above; evils always avoided with difficulty, when a range of arches is employed to sustain a series of single columns. The staircase of this building is very handsome, at least the lower part of it, rising from a square vestibule with two semicircular recesses.

The most magnificent staircase at Malta is in the Albergo of Castille. A noble, single flight forms the lower part; this divides to the right and left in two branches, up to the principal story. The ascent to the second floor is continued laterally beyond the lower part, and not over it; and where this disposition is practicable, a fine staircase is much more easily obtained, than where the flights are repeated over one another.

Instead of stuccoing the walls, the Maltese builders cover them with a whitewash as thick as paste, and lay this over the mouldings as well as on the plain surface, a plan destructive of all beauty of detail.

The village churches in Malta are remarkably fine, and one in particular at Zeitun would merit minute examination. We see there, as in some places in Italy, a range of lofty open arches, rising above the external wall of the side aisles, to skreen the roof. The judgment is not altogether satisfied with this piece of magnificence, because the idea is excited, that it is intended in some measure to conceal the construction, and it seems too much for such an object; yet the eye is pleased. There is also a great deal of architecture in the private houses in the villages. A decorated doorway, with a window on each side, and a bold projecting balcony over it is the usual disposition. Sometimes the house is continued above this, with a large arch opening onto the balcony; sometimes the higher part of the edifice is set back, and the balustrade of the balcony is continued in front of a terrace, and in either case the appearance is very handsome, and the parts are never crowded together. The fault of these villages is, that they have nothing rural about them. The houses are placed close together, or at least with few and small intervals, and one or two palm-trees, with a few carobs, figs, or cactus, peeping above the stone wall, is all that can be seen of vegetation.

I passed my time very pleasantly in Malta, thanks to Mr. Calvert, Mr. Fletcher, and Col. Whitmore, to all of whom I am very much indebted. The latter, nature intended for an architect, since she has given him not only taste and invention, but the prophetic view of the effect produced by his designs. I have made acquaintance also with Dr. Naudi, who is very busily employed about printing a Maltese bible; and when executed, it is probable that he and the compositor will be able to read it. He is himself of opinion that there will be in the island nearly half a dozen other persons, but I have found no one to agree with him. Some attempts have been previously made to write Maltese, but it is not yet settled what character ought to be adopted. In the town almost every body can speak Italian; in the country only the native language is understood, but every person who can read or write does it in Italian. The Maltese itself is a dialect of Arabic; but whether it may be considered as a relic of the ancient Punic, or as derived from the Saracens of the middle ages, I leave to wiser heads to decide. The latter appear to have been only possessors of the country, and not to have formed its population. They were possessors also in Sicily, where they have left little of their language. I called also on Mr. Corner, whose garden is adorned with gazelles and Numidian cranes, and who has shown me some exquisite drawings of Lusieri, but almost all unfinished. Some of them are executed on three sheets of antiquarian, i. e., they are above 13 feet long, and filled with the minutest details, all copied on the spot from nature. Dr. Naudi likewise took me to the principal architect of the place, who talked a great deal about purity of design, and correct imitation of the ancients, and then shewed me a design full of absurdities, of which he boasted as circumstances quite new, and of his own invention. We afterwards called on the professor of painting, and on the librarian, who has very considerable talents as a painter of domestic life, but no opportunities to improve them. The library is open to every body; it is a fine room, and contains a good collection of books, but it has at present no funds for its increase, or for the addition of any modern publication.

There are said to be some curious tombs in Malta, which I have not seen, but I visited what is thought to be a Celtic antiquity, at a place called Krendi, on the south side of the island. It is composed of large stones set on their edges, or in some instances upright on the end. The disposition has been, I think, in a form composed of four or five portions of circles, united to inclose an area. Some of the stones have been worked; and a circular hole, and a sort of rebate in one of them, are evidently artificial. Near this is a range of hills of perhaps 500 feet elevation, the highest on the island. I was not on them, but all the island which I did see seemed to be composed of a calcareous rock of recent formation, abounding in places with shark’s teeth. Dr. Naudi shewed me, however, some marbles which were dug somewhere in the island, but he could not point out the precise spot. I was told of Greek antiquities, but they only amount to obscure traces of foundations, formed of blocks of considerable size. At Casal Zurico indeed there is a little edifice, which is perhaps of a Greek period. It has the appearance of a large pedestal, but it contains a small room now used as a dairy.

Another excursion was to Cività Vecchia, to a festa. The church there is considered as the chief church in the island. On my way I listened to a long and curious account of the plague at Malta, of which, as it rested on little points which strongly excite the attention of those exposed to danger, and not on any medical details, I shall give you a few heads. Leaving all the various suppositions as to the manner of its entrance, which after all are only suppositions, I shall pass at once to the effects of its appearance in the island. The Maltese for a considerable time refused to believe that it was the plague, and prided themselves on touching suspected people. Every body felt how injurious such an infectious disorder must be to a city depending on commerce, and it was therefore considered as a want of patriotism to call it the plague; and they were not convinced, till the contagion had fixed itself too widely both in town and country, to allow of precautionary measures. Afterwards, in the height of the disorder, the scenes were horrible. When a man was taken ill, he was immediately conveyed to sheds erected in the ditches of the town, and his family were conveyed to another part of them. If no disease appeared in the latter, they were removed in succession to other parts, till the danger was thought to be over, and they were dismissed. If on the contrary, any of the party fell ill, he was immediately transferred to the diseased ditch, under a shed which afforded very imperfect shelter, either from the sun or rain, almost without attendance, and what was worse, without water; it is even said that many died raving mad from thirst. The only persons who could be obtained to carry the sick and dead, were of the lowest class and worst character, many of them were released from jails for that purpose; they wore pitched dresses, and were directed to oil themselves frequently, and their time seems to have been long or short in proportion as they complied with this direction. The only one who survived after the disorder had ceased, says that he oiled himself constantly twice a day. The pay was four dollars per diem, which was received every morning, and the survivors were the heirs of their deceased brethren. Besides this they plundered wherever they went, and were suspected of having committed murders, when the relations of the deceased defended their property. They lived in riot and drunkenness, but it was thought that they could not have spent all their profits, and that a great accumulation would be found at last. An English sailor is said to have received 800 dollars from this source, I do not know how or why, but no such hoards as had been imagined were ever discovered. These people were called beccamorti, the common name in Italy for those employed in carrying dead bodies; if they saw in a shed, a body which appeared to be dead, they threw in a hook, and if no cries were heard, cast it into the cart. One man who is now alive, cried out on this occasion. Oh ho! cried the beccamorte, we must come for you to-morrow. The sufferer was wounded by the hook, and bled profusely, not having the means of stopping it, and to this bleeding he attributes the preservation of his life. A law was made that any one having the disorder and concealing it, should be shot, and one man was executed in consequence; an old woman was also brought up for the same purpose, who died as she arrived at the appointed place.

After the plague had ceased in the city, it was renewed by digging up property which had been buried; and just at this moment some alarm is excited by the discovery of certain jewels which were concealed at that time; but as they were immediately reported to the police, and the jewels themselves, as well as all who had been concerned in the discovery, conveyed to the lazaretto, there does not seem much danger, especially as they are objects, which according to the received theory, are incapable of retaining the infection. We did not arrive at the Cathedral at Città Vecchia, till the ceremonies of the festa were almost finished. It is a fine church of the usual Italian style, for though built in the twelfth century, it underwent a complete restoration in 1693. It is richly ornamented, and of course as it was a festa, covered with drapery, which was of crimson damask festooned in the arches, and with a deep fringe of gold. This is much better than the Roman fashion of striped drapery. The music was very fine. After the mass an old canonico showed us what remained of their finery. The French are said to have carried away twenty-four cart-loads of plate. From the cathedral we proceeded to the grotto of St. Paul, where all visitors are told that the earth is endued with wonderful medicinal powers, and that it is annually taken away in great quantities without increasing the size of the cavern. According to the Acts, St. Paul was hospitably entertained by M. Publius, the governor of the island. This does not well agree with his living in a cave, and it could not have been his immediate retreat from the shipwreck, since it is some miles from the shore; but the good people here do not trouble themselves about trifling inconsistencies. Of Publius, they have made not only a Christian, but a saint. We were shown a fragment of the arm-bone of St. Paul, a most beautiful piece, as our conductor told us. It is enclosed in a glass case, over which is placed a golden arm of the natural size.

From Città Vecchia we proceeded to the Bosketto, an old palace of the grand master, where there is a garden shaded with orange-trees, the accustomed scene of the amusements of the morning, these however, were nearly over when we got there. I left my companions in order to obtain a glance of what was going on. The people were wandering about, or collected in groupes; some dancing Maltese dances, others singing Maltese songs, with the hand up to the ear, as is the practice in Greece. It is always done by the criers at the mosques, and I was told in Greece, that in this case it is an imitation of a habit adopted by Mahomet. We dined on the ground, and then remounted our caleshes, (covered carriages, each with one horse, and the driver running by the side) to return to the races at Città Vecchia; the ground may be three quarters of a mile long, not quite straight, and rather uphill from the starting post. The first race was performed by asses, the second by mules; both these animals are remarkably large and handsome in Malta. The third was by ponies, and the second of these, a white one, was one of the most beautiful animals I ever saw. The fourth and last race was of horses. They all start with riders, who are boys, without either saddle or bridle, and very few of them reach at the end of the race, but I understood that none were hurt. As the horses reach the goal, the owners run in to seize them, and a scene of the greatest confusion ensues. The number of spectators was far beyond what I expected to see collected in this little island. The women were drest mostly in black. The men had long caps of blue or red hanging half way down the back, white or Nankin trowsers, and frequently silk waistcoats, adorned with four rows of large, worked, silver balls, suspended on short chains, in the place of buttons. The jacket at this time of year is usually suspended over the left shoulder. In returning I had another companion, the calesh only holding two persons, who gave me some account of the politics of the island. Sir Alexander Ball, the first governor, was extremely affable in his manners, and always accessible, this gave him influence to get a petition sent to England against restoring Malta to the order, but he could persuade nobody but those dependent upon himself to take an active part in it. Though well satisfied with the English, especially as long as the war lasted, the Maltese would have been, and would now be perfectly content to have the order back again. The government of the knights was not oppressive, and the money which they drew from other countries and spent in Malta, gave activity to the place; but the inhabitants would not like to have the knights again, without their foreign revenues. Corn at Malta is always at forty Maltese scudi the salma,^[37] being bought up by government at Taganrock and Odessa, and sold uniformly at that price. The Maltese scudo is worth about 1s. 10d., and the salma is not quite equal to an English quarter. It is computed that the islands produce annually 20,000 salma, and that 70,000 are imported. The Maltese say it would be better to bring the market to Malta, and for the government to buy up what individuals brought, but this could not answer, unless government would give up its monopoly. Spain used to take the cotton twist made in these islands, but they have lately made new regulations which shut out this article of commerce, and the prohibition is said to be severely felt.