With respect to the Maltese themselves, I just at this moment recollect a trifling story which will, I think, delineate their character with tolerable accuracy.
[THE RENEGADE.]
Of all the little unhappy prejudices which in different parts of the globe it has been my fortune, or rather misfortune, to witness, I nowhere remember to have met with a deeper-rooted hatred or a more implacable animosity than existed, some twenty or thirty years ago, in the hearts of the Maltese towards the Turks. In all warm glowing latitudes, human passions, good as well as bad, may be said to stand at least at that degree which on Fahrenheit’s scale would be denoted “fever heat;” and steam itself can hardly be more different from ice,—the Bengal tiger springing on his prey cannot form a greater contrast to that half-frozen fisherman the white bear, as he sits on his iceberg sucking his paws,—than are the passions of hot countries when compared with the cold torpid feelings of the inhabitants of the northern regions of the globe.
In all parts of the Mediterranean I found passions of all sorts very violent, but, without any exception, that which, at the period I refer to, stood uppermost in the scale, was bigotry. Besides the eager character which belonged to their latitude, one might naturally expect that the Maltese, from being islanders, would be rather more prejudiced than their continental neighbours; however, in addition to these causes, when I was among them, they really had good reason to dislike the Turks, who during the time of the knights had been ex officio their constant and most bitter enemies.
Whether these fine knights of Jerusalem conquered the Turks or were defeated, the Maltese on board their galleys (like the dwarf who fought with the giant) always suffered: besides this, their own little trading vessels were constantly captured by the Turks, the crews being not only maltreated and tortured, but often in cold blood cruelly massacred; in short, if there was any bad feeling in the heart of a Maltese, which the history of his island, as well as every bitter recollection of his life, seemed naturally to nourish, it was an implacable hatred for the Turks; and that this sad theory was most fully supported by the fact, became evident the instant one observed a Maltese, on the commonest subject, utter that hated, accursed word, Turco, or Turk. The sort of petty convulsion of the mind with which this dissyllable was delivered was really very remarkable, and the roll and flash of the eye—the little bullying shake of the head—the slight stamp of the left foot—and the twitch in the fingers of the right hand, reminded one for the moment of the manner in which a French dragoon, when describing an action, mentions that his regiment came on sabre à la main!—words which, if you were to give him the universe, he could not pronounce without grinding his teeth, much less with that cold-hearted simplicity with which one of our soldiers would calmly say “sword in hand.”
This hatred of the Maltese towards the Turks was a sort of cat and dog picture which always attracted my notice; however, I witnessed one example of it, on which occasion I felt very strongly it was carried altogether beyond a joke.
One lovely morning—I remember it as if it were yesterday—there had been a great religious festival in the island, which, as usual, had caused a good deal of excitement, noise, and fever; and, as a nation seldom allays its thirst without quarrelling, as soon as the hot sun set, a great many still hotter disturbances took place. In one of these rows, a party of Turks, justly or injustly, became offended with the inhabitants; an affray occurred, and a Mahometan having stabbed a Maltese, he was of course thrown into prison; and in process of time, surrounded by a strong guard, he was led into the Maltese court to be tried (Anglicè condemned) for the offence. As he threaded his way through the crowd which had assembled in those dirty passages and dark chambers that led to the tribunal, the women shrunk back as the Turco passed them, as if his very breath would have infected them with the plague; while in the countenances of the men, as they leant forwards arresting him in his progress, and almost touching him with their brown faces, it was evident that they were all animated with but one feeling and one desire, that is to say, hatred and revenge: however, nothing was heard but a very slight murmur or groan, and the prisoner was soon seen a little raised above the crowd, trembling at the bar. He was a diminutive, mean-looking, ill-favoured little fellow, dressed in the loose Turkish costume, with a very small dirty white turban, the folds of which were deemed more odious to the Christian eye than if they had been formed by the wreathing body of the serpent. While the crowd were shouldering each other, head peeping over head, and before the shuffling of moving feet could be silenced, avvocati, or clerks, who sat in the small space between the prisoner and the bench, were seen eagerly mending their pens, and they had already dipped them into ink, and the coarse, dirty, rough-edged paper on which they were to write was folded and placed ready in front of them, before it was possible to commence the trial.
The court was insufferably hot, and there was such a stench of garlic and of clothing impregnated with the stale fumes of tobacco, that one longed almost as much as the prisoner to escape into the open air, while the sallow faces of the avvocati, clerks, and every one connected with the duties of the court, showed how unhealthy, as well as offensive, was the atmosphere which they breathed. On the bench sat what one must call the Judges, but to an English mind such a title but ill belonged to those who had only lately been forced, most reluctantly, to expel torture from their code. Just before Malta fell into the hands of the French and English, my own servant, Giuseppe, had lived in the service of one of the Maltese Judges; and among many horrors which he often very calmly described to me (for he had witnessed them until he had become quite accustomed to them), he told me that he had had constantly to pass through a court in which were those who were doomed to ride upon what was called the “cavallo di legno,” or wooden horse. With weights attached to each foot he used to see them sitting bolt upright on this sharp narrow ridge, with two torches burning within a few inches of their naked chests and backs, in order that they should relieve themselves by a change of attitude no longer than they could endure the pain of leaning against the flame. But to return to the court.
The trial of the Turk now began, and every rigid form was most regularly followed. The accusation was read—the story was detailed—the Maltese witnesses in great numbers one after another corroborated almost in the same words the same statement—several times when the prisoner was ordered to be silent, as by some ejaculation he interrupted the thread of the narrative, did the eyes of every being in court flash in anger and contempt upon him, their countenances as suddenly returning to a smile as the evidence of the witnesses proceeded with their criminatory details. At last, the case being fully substantiated, the culprit was called upon for his defence. Although a poor, mean, illiterate wretch, it is possible he might have intended to have made a kind of a sort of a speech; but when he came to the point, his heart failed him, and his lips had only power to utter one single word.