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.
LETTER LIII.
SYRACUSE—CATANIA.
Catania, 31st July, 1818.
My departure from Malta was delayed by adverse winds, but at last, on Monday the 13th of July, I was awakened with the notice that the trabaccolo in which I had engaged my passage, was on the point of sailing. A trabaccolo is a small, decked boat with two masts: the present was a trading vessel bound for Venice, but stopping in the way at Agusta to take in a cargo of salt. It contained no regular accommodation for passengers, but there was plenty of room, and they made me up a bed, where I slept very comfortably. Some of the sailors were among the handsomest and best made men I have ever seen; all from the Venetian states, or from those of the Pope, bordering on the Adriatic. We arrived by the gentlest motion at Agusta, about six o’clock on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday I took possession of the single room called a lazaretto, and with the assistance of the supercargo and sailors of the vessel, formed my establishment: I had a couch, a table, and six chairs, an uncommon portion of furniture for a lazaretto. On the 18th I obtained my release, being transformed by the magicians of the town into an officer of engineers, by which means I obtained the privilege of counting the two days spent on the voyage as part of the quarantine. It is said to be owing to Sir T. Maitland’s negligence of quarantine regulations at Malta, that we have any quarantine to undergo on passing from that island into Sicily. Yet in other places, rank seems to be considered as a preservative against contagion, of which I could cite you examples if it were worth while. The Maltese are now threatened with a longer quarantine, on account of the jewels I have already mentioned to you, as having been hidden during the plague at Malta, and lately discovered. I thought this merely a contrivance to obtain money from me, but I have since found that after allowing communication for a fortnight on the usual terms, i. e. five days’ quarantine, an order was really issued on this account, to extend it to twenty-eight days. I took a walk through the town, where there was nothing to tempt me to stay; but although Agusta presents nothing very beautiful, yet there are some porticos, arcades, balustrades, and cornices in a long, straight, narrow street, which produce a very picturesque effect. I hired a boat for two pieces (about 8s. 9d.) to Santa Bonaccia. The boatmen would not take me to Syracuse, because they would have had to pay three pieces for port dues, and they told me it would cost me another to get through the examinations at the health-office, but after landing three miles off, you may enter the town without having to answer a single question. These three miles are altogether within the limits of the ancient city, and the little hamlet of Santa Bonaccia, is far from being at the extremity of the ancient walls. Indeed, besides the island on which alone the present town is placed, Syracuse altogether, comprising the quarters or cities of Acradina, Tyche, and Neapolis, appears to have occupied a space which forms nearly an equilateral triangle of five miles on each face, and it is said to have contained 2,000,000 inhabitants. I found a very comfortable inn, the Golden Lion, rather dear, but the landlord, if willing to obtain a good profit for himself, was very ready to give me both information and assistance, in order that I should not be imposed on by others.