A Trip to the Orient: The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise

by Robert Urie Jacob

ATTRACTIVE STORES LINE THE "STRADA REALE."

The streets of Valetta were full of life that day. In reply to inquiries we were informed that on the following day, the Sunday preceding Lent, a festa, or carnival, lasting three days, would begin. During the festa, business would be suspended, and the people, disguised in masks and fanciful costumes, would engage in most ludicrous and extraordinary antics and play all manner of practical jokes on one another, showering the passers-by gently with confetti and flowers, or pelting them stingingly with dried peas and beans. Many children, impatient for the morrow to come, were already parading the streets arrayed in their costumes.

Attractive stores line the "Strada Reale," the main shopping street. In these stores laces, gold and silver filagree work, jewelry, and embroidered muslins were the principal wares sought by the tourists. The ladies of our party were particularly anxious to secure pieces of Maltese lace, a special hand-made product noted for the excellence of its quality, the making of which gives employment to thousands of the inhabitants. In trading with the Maltese merchants, we soon found that the prices asked by the dealers were about twice the amount the customer was expected to pay, and that bargaining was as necessary in Malta as in Algiers.

Almost all the costumes we saw on the streets were of the English style, but the varied uniforms of soldiers and the distinctive garments of Greeks, Turks, Spaniards, and Arabs added color and interest to the scene. The Maltese women wear immense bonnets, called faldettas. These peculiar bonnets have long skirts which reach to the waist and are totally black without color or ornament. As the majority of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, we saw many priests and monks who wore black robes and very broad-brimmed black hats turned up at the sides.

The Maltese are lovers of flowers, which are raised in profusion. At the corners of the principal streets were small fanciful buildings, a few feet in diameter, in which dark eyed brunettes offered flowers and bonbons for sale. The people also love music. In the Opera House, an elaborate structure, which, we were told, cost a quarter of a million dollars, Grand Opera is given three times a week for six months in the year.

We visited the old church of St. John, which was built three centuries ago and lavishly adorned out of the proceeds of plunder that had been taken from infidels and pirates. The tower above the church contains a chime of ten bells, and the clock on the tower has a triple face, one face showing the hour of the day, one showing the day of the week, and the third, the day of the month. The heavy doors were open, but a curtain of matting hung over the entrance. A ragged, barefoot boy ran before us, and, drawing aside the matting that we might enter, extended his hand for a penny. We walked over the beautiful inlaid mosaic marble floor, and beheld handsomely painted ceilings with life-size figures overhead, and richly decorated walls and pillars around us. A priest with pride pointed out the famous paintings on the walls, the bronze and the marble statues around the sides, and, in the various chapels, the three huge iron keys which opened the gates of Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes, and the gates of solid silver in front of the richly decorated altar. As we stood before the silver gates our guide told us his little story:

"When the French captured Malta in 1798 they carried away as booty the most valuable possessions of the church in the form of precious jewels, silver statues, golden vessels, valuable vestments, and works of art. The Emperor Napoleon with his own hand took a most valuable diamond from the finger of the jeweled glove which covered the sacred relic, the hand of St. John, and placed it on his own finger. The Emperor also took the diamond mounted sword, which had been carried by Valette, and buckled it to his side. These silver gates, too, would have been carried away but for the forethought of a priest who painted them black and so concealed their value."

THE STREETS OF VALETTA WERE FULL OF LIFE THAT DAY PRECEDING THE FESTA.

In the nave of this church we tramped over hundreds of marble slabs which have been placed among the mosaics in the floor as memorials of the knights and nobles who are buried underneath. These flat tombstones are adorned with representations of coats-of-arms, musical instruments, angels, crowns, palms, skeletons, and other odd devices. But in the crypt underneath, whither we were next conducted, majestic monuments of elaborate design mark the resting places of the most noted Grand Masters of the Order, the tomb of Grand Master Cottoner being one of the most imposing. In the sacristy we gazed at, but were not permitted to touch, the beautifully illuminated missals, the finely woven pieces of ancient embroidery, and the splendid robes of former Grand Masters.