Armoury in the Governor's Palace, Valetta
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After the Duke's departure we went ashore again, called on various friends before luncheon, and went over the palace and through the armoury. Then we took a walk down the Strada Reale, the shopping street of Valetta, until it was time to go on board to receive some friends to tea. The shops are full of coral, lace, gold and silver filigree work, and a new sort of lace they make in Gozo, of white silk, in beautiful patterns. It has been manufactured only during the last few years, and varies much in quality and design. Some forty or fifty friends came on board and amused themselves looking at our curiosities and photographs until long past the dinner hour. We had to hurry on shore to dine, and go afterwards to the Opera Manoel. The new Grand Opera House is not to be opened until next October. It had been blowing fresh and strong from the westward all day, but to-night, as we rowed across the harbour, the breeze had dropped to a flat calm, and Tom is most anxious to be off at daybreak.

Thursday, May 10th.—I was up before sunrise. A fresh fair wind was blowing, and as soon as the children could be got ready we all went ashore to the market, which was crowded with people, and full of fish, meat, and all spring vegetables and fruit. We were to start at 6.30, so there was no time to lose, and laden with lovely bouquets of flowers we hastened on board; but it was nine o'clock, after all our haste, before we were fairly off, through some mistake about the bill of health.

Malta is certainly the most delightful place for yachting winter quarters, with its fine healthy harbour, charming society, very cheap living, and abundance of everything good. It is in proximity to many pleasant places, and most interesting excursions can easily be made to Sicily and Italy, or the coast of Africa. To-day we glided along the coast, past the strongly fortified little island of Consino, standing boldly out in mid-channel between Malta and Gozo. The Mediterranean appears to us a highway after the lonely oceans and seas we have been sailing over. Within one hour this morning, we saw more ships than in the whole of our passage from Valparaiso to Tahiti and Yokohama. Towards the evening we could see the island of Pantellaria in the distance. We retain a lively remembrance of it from having been becalmed just off it in the 'Albatross' for three weary days and nights. It was after this and a long series of other vexations and delays that Tom and I registered a vow never to go a long voyage again in a yacht without at least auxiliary steam power.

Friday, May 11th.—At 2.30 a.m. Pantellaria was abeam. At five the homeward-bound P. and O. steamer passed us quite close, and at six we met the outward-bound P. and O. steamer. At eight we passed Cape Bon and sailed across the mouth of the Bay of Tunis, in the centre of which is Goletta, the port of Tunis, the site of the ancient city of Carthage. Once we anchored close by that place for two or three days, and on that occasion I collected enough varieties of marble and mosaic from the old palaces to make some beautiful tables when we got home. In the afternoon and evening we made the Fratelli and the Sorelle Rocks, and still later the little Island of Galita. There were many steamers going in all directions, and it struck one very forcibly how much this little islet in mid-channel stands in need of a light.

Sunday, May 13th.—The wind was dead ahead, and the sea of that remarkably confused character for which the Mediterranean is famous. It seemed as if the wind of yesterday, the wind of to-morrow, and the wind of to-day, had all met and were bent on making a night of it. We had service at eleven and four. The chart, now a good old friend, for it has been used by us on so many Mediterranean voyages, showed that this is the fourth noontide we have spent within a radius of thirty miles of this particular spot; within a radius of sixty miles we have spent at least three weeks of our lives at various periods. This does not of course include voyages in steamers which are not recorded in the chart.

Monday, May 14th.—About breakfast time to-day we crossed the meridian of Greenwich; and this virtually completed our voyage round the world, our original point of departure having really been Rochester, which is a few minutes to the east of Greenwich. The wind changed in the middle of the day, and we passed through a large fleet of merchantmen hove-to under shelter of Cape de Gat, where they had collected, I suppose, from various ports in Spain and Italy.

Tuesday, May 15th.—This was a somewhat sad day, many of our pets dying from the effects of the cold wind or from accidents. The steward's mocking-bird from Siam, which talked like a Christian and followed him about like a dog, died of acute bronchitis early this morning; and his monkey, the most weird little creature, with the affectionate ways of a human friend, died in the afternoon, of inflammation and congestion of the lungs. Two other monkeys and several birds also expired in the course of the day.

This evening 'Beau Brummel,' the little pig I brought from Bow Island, in the South Pacific, died of a broken spine, as the doctor, who made a post-mortem examination in each case, discovered. A spar must have dropped upon poor piggy accidentally whilst he was running about on deck, though of course no one knew anything about it. I am very sorry; for though I must confess he was somewhat greedy and pig-like in his habits, he was extremely amusing in his ways. He ran about and went to sleep with the pugs, just like one of themselves. Besides, I do not think any one else in England could have boasted of a pig given to them by a South-Sea-Island chief. Probably 'Beau Brummel' was a lineal descendant of the pigs Captain Cook took out in the 'Endeavour.'