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[See [page 18].
Outside the towns there is little to see in Malta. Here 45 is a view across the country, and here a wider view from the ramparts of Citta Vecchia; it looks dreary enough, with 46 high stone walls crossing it in every direction with a few cypresses showing above them, and here and there a grove of olives. The walls are necessary, as the island is exposed to every wind that blows, and above all to the gregale, the boisterous north-east storm wind. Even more unpleasant is the Sirocco, a warm damp wind which blows in late summer and early autumn from the Sahara. The summer is hot, and usually without a cloud; and though heavy rains fall in the winter, they quickly soak into the porous rock. Though it seems so bare and rocky and the soil is thin, yet Malta is well cultivated and produces splendid crops on its little farms. But there are too many people for its small area, since the whole Maltese group is only about half as large again as the Channel Islands; and as the Maltese are loath to emigrate, much food must be imported, and large quantities 47 of grain are stored for emergency in the old underground granaries which we see here, hewn from the solid rock. 48 Everything is of stone in Malta; the island is one great mass of limestone with the thinnest covering of soil. We may cross the open country by the narrow gauge railway 49 and enter Citta Vecchia by the old gateway. The place seems sleepy and lifeless, since its people have migrated to Valetta. There are relics in it of very early days; 50 a Norman house which we may recognize by the shape of its doors and windows, and even still older, the remains 51 of a Roman villa. But even here, in this quaint old town, we find soldiers of the Maltese regiment at drill, to remind 52 us that a fortress is not far away.
We will now leave Valetta, with its harbour and forts, its close-packed houses and busy streets, to visit another 53 island of the Maltese group, more thinly populated than Malta and more old-fashioned and rural. We sail northward along the coast, past the deep bay which tradition connects with the wreck of St. Paul, past the islet of Comino, with its solitary castle, lying in mid-channel, and reach the landing-place of Gozo. Here, on the side facing Malta, the coast is low; but the rest of the island is bordered by steep limestone cliffs, hollowed out into caves and grottos. One of these our guide will show us as the very cave of Calypso described by Homer. We land and 54 drive towards the old capital, Rabato, re-named Victoria, which lies in the centre of the island, like the old capital of Malta; but there is no deep inlet on the coast to give rise to another Valetta. From the walls of the old castle, close to 55 the cathedral, we can look across the same flat country, cut up into pieces by stone walls, which we saw in Malta. But 56 the countryside is brighter; on our drive to Rabato we pass gardens where vegetables are grown for the Valetta market; thick hedges of scarlet geranium; fields of tall spiked red clover and banks of wild thyme and vetch. Gozo has been noted for its honey from very early times, and there is abundance of food here for the bees. Everywhere are herds of goats tended by half-clad children, and outside the houses we may see whole families of 57 women and girls busy making lace. The Maltese lace which we buy comes mainly from Gozo, where the industry has existed for thousands of years. Here is one of the 58 old houses; notice its curious eastern look; we shall find that even the language seems to differ somewhat from that of the Maltese and to be allied more to Arabic.
We are in an old-fashioned world, with little to remind us of Europe except the churches and the decaying fortifications of Rabato. But before the Arabs, before the Romans, and perhaps even before the Phœnicians, there were people in these islands who have left strange traces of their occupation. In both islands are to be found fragments of very ancient enclosures or temples, built of huge 59 stones piled together without mortar, such as we have in these two pictures. It may be that the race of these old 60 builders still survives to some degree in the Maltese, and they may well be proud to believe that they have been tenants of the islands without a break from before the beginning of the history of the races of modern Europe. Whatever the exact origin of the Maltese may be, in speaking of Malta and Gibraltar together we are certainly linking the very old with the very new. Gibraltar has no real native people and no continuous history; even from the point of view of naval strategy it is essentially modern. Malta was a naval base in the days when trade and civilization were confined to the Mediterranean; the opening of the Suez Canal has merely added to its former importance. Gibraltar only comes into history when western civilization has spread to the outer seas and the broad Atlantic.