Across the trackless deserts of Africa caravans from various parts of the interior are constantly toiling through the sand towards the waters of this inland sea. The traveller who goes up the Nile is doomed, we all know, to stem its torrent, but the produce of Egypt and the triple harvest of that luxuriant land is no sooner embarked, than of its own accord it glides majestically towards this favoured sea; and there is truth and nothing speculative in still further remarking, that this very harvest is absolutely produced by the slime or earth of Abyssinian and other most remote mountains, which by the laws of nature has calmly floated 1200 miles through a desert to top-dress or manure Egypt, that garden which eventually supplies so many of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean with corn.
Again, the Red Sea is a passage apparently created to connect Europe with the great Eastern world; and as the power of steam gradually increases in its stride, it is evident that by this gulf, or natural canal, much of the produce of India eventually will easily flow into the Mediterranean Sea.
Finally, it might likewise be shown, that much of the commerce of Asia Minor and Europe, either by great rivers or otherwise, naturally moves towards this central point; but besides these sources of external wealth, the Mediterranean, as we all know, is most romantically studded with an Archipelago and other beautiful islands, the inhabitants of which have the power not only of trading on a large scale with every quarter of the globe, but of carrying on in small open boats a sort of little village commerce of their own. Among the inhabitants of this sea are to be found at this moment the handsomest specimens of the human race; and if a person not satisfied with the present and future tenses of life, should prefer reflecting or rather ruminating on the past, with antiquarian rapture he may wander over these waters from Carthage to Egypt, Tyre, Sidon, Rhodes, Troy, Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Argos, Syracuse, Rome, &c., until tired of his flight he may rest upon one of the ocean-beaten pillars of Hercules—and seated there, may most truly declare that the history of the Mediterranean is like the picture of its own waves beneath him, which one after another he sees to rise, break, and sink.
In the history of this little sea, in what melancholy succession has nation and empire risen and fallen, flourished and decayed; and if the magnificent architectural ruins of these departed states mournfully offer to the traveller any political moral at all, is it not that homely one which the most common tomb-stone of our country churchyard preaches to the peasant who reads it?
“As I am now, so you will be,
Therefore prepare to follow me!”
However, fully admitting the truth of the lesson which history and experience thus offer to us—admitting that no one can presume to declare which of the great Mediterranean powers is doomed to be the next to suffer—or what new point is next to burst into importance; yet if a man were forced to select a position which, in spite of fate or fortune, feuds or animosities, has been, and ever must be, the nucleus of commerce, he would find that in the Mediterranean Sea that point, as nearly as possible, would be the little island of Malta; and the political importance of this possession being now generally appreciated, it is curious rapidly to run over the string of little events which have gradually prepared, fortified, and delivered this valuable arsenal and fortress to the British flag.
In the early ages of navigation, when men hardly dared to lose sight of the shore, ignorantly trembling if they were not absolutely hugging the very danger which we now most strenuously avoid, it may be easily conceived that a little barren island, scarcely twenty miles in length or twelve in breadth, was of little use or importance. It is true, that on its north coast there was a spit or narrow tongue of land (about a mile in length and a few hundred yards in breadth), on each side of which were a series of connected bays, now forming two of the most magnificent harbours in the world; but in the ages of which we speak this great outline was a nautical hieroglyphic which sailors could not decipher. Accustomed to hide their Lilliputian vessels and fleets in bays and creeks on the same petty scale as themselves, they did not comprehend or appreciate the importance of these immense Brobdignag recesses, nor did they admire the great depth of water which they contained; and as in ancient warfare, when warriors used javelins, arrows and stones, scalding each other with hot sand, the value of a position adapted to the present ranges of our shot and shells would not have been understood, in like manner was the importance of so large a harbour equally imperceptible; and that Malta could have had no very great reputation is proved by the fact, that it is even to this day among the learned a subject of dispute, whether it was upon this island, or upon Melita in the Adriatic, that St. Paul was shipwrecked. Now if either had been held in any particular estimation, the question of the shipwreck would not now be any subject of doubt.
As navigators became more daring, and as their vessels, increasing in size, required more water and provisions, &c., Malta fell into the hands of various masters. At last, when Charles V. conquered Sicily and Naples, he offered it to those warriors of Christendom, those determined enemies of the Turks and Corsairs—the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. This singular band of men, distinguished by their piebald vow of heroism and celibacy, had, after a most courageous resistance, been just overpowered by an army of 300,000 Saracens, who, under Solyman II., had driven them from the island of Rhodes, which had been occupied by their Order 213 years. Animated by the most noble blood of Europe which flowed in their veins—thirsting for revenge—yet homeless and destitute, it may easily be conceived that these brave, enthusiastic men would most readily have accepted almost any spot on which they could once again establish their busy hive: yet so little was the importance of Malta, even at that time, understood, so arid was its surface, and so burning was its rock, that, after minutely surveying it, their commissioners made a report to Charles V., which must ever be regarded as a most affecting document; for although the Knights of Malta were certainly in their day the “bravest of the brave,” although by that chivalric oath which bound them together, they had deliberately sworn “never to count the number of their enemies,” yet after the strong, proud position which they had held at Rhodes, it was only hard fate and stern necessity that could force them to seek refuge on a rock upon which there was scarcely soil enough to plant their standard. But though honour has been justly termed “an empty bubble,” yet to all men’s eyes its colours are so very beautiful, that they allure and encourage us to contend with difficulties which no other advocate could persuade us to encounter; and so it was that the Knights of Malta, seeing they had no alternative, sternly accepted the hot barren home that was offered to them, and in the very teeth, and before the beard of their barbarous enemy, these lions of the Cross landed and established themselves in their new den.
When men have once made up their minds to stand against adversity, the scene generally brightens; for danger, contrary to the rules of drawing, is less in the foreground than in the perspective—difficulties of all sorts being magnified by the misty space which separates us from them; and accordingly the knights were no sooner established at Malta, than they began to find out the singular advantages it possessed.
The whole island being a rock of freestone, which could be worked with peculiar facility, materials for building palaces and houses, suited to the dignity of the Order, existed everywhere on the spot; and it moreover became evident, that by merely quarrying out the rock, according to the rules of military science, they would not only obtain materials for building, but that, in fact, the more they excavated for their town, the deeper would be the ditch of its fortress. Animated by this double reward, the knights commenced their operations, or, in military language, they “broke ground;” and, without detailing how often the rising fortress was jealously attacked by their barbarous and relentless enemies, or how often its half-raised walls were victoriously cemented with the blood of Christians and of Turks, it will be sufficient merely to observe, that before the island had been in possession of the Order one century, it assumed very nearly the same astonishing appearance which it now affords—a picture and an example, proving to the whole world what can be done by courage, firmness, and perseverance.