Malta, with its magnificent harbour, is remarkable in many respects. Valletta, its capital, is built on a rock surrounded on three sides by the harbour, and is strongly fortified, as well as its three suburbs and dock-yard situated across the harbour. The parapets of the various fortifications by which all these places are enclosed are said to measure forty-two miles. The works are of great magnitude. When the island was held by the knights of Malta—formerly knights of Rhodes, and originally knights of St. John of Jerusalem—it is stated that at one period they had as many as 100,000 Saracens, prisoners of war, on the island, who were employed on these stupendous works. The ditch between Valletta and its suburb Floreana is sixty feet wide and forty feet deep, cut out of solid rock, a sandstone resembling that at Bath. The catacombs between Valletta and Citta Vecchia, distant seven and a-half miles, are a perfect labyrinth of excavated galleries, and so many persons have been lost there that the dangerous passages have been walled up. Solid oblong masses of human skulls and bones have been piled in various places, and there are several spacious halls, supposed to have been used as places of concealment. At Citta Vecchia an ancient church exists—a re-building of one erected on the spot stated by tradition to be the place where St. Paul had been bitten by a viper. And you see before you the channel “where two seas meet,” between the islands of Malta and Gozo; where they “_cast out four anchors by the stern_, lightened the ship, and wished for the day.” It is curious that Lord Nelson is supposed to have gained the Battle of the Nile by adopting this plan; for, when breaking through the French line of battle, the latter reserved their fire until his ships should swing round at their anchors; which, of course, having anchored by the stern, did not take place, and they lost their opportunity of raking his ships. The Malta stone when first quarried is soft, but hardens by exposure. It is commonly worked in lathes in various beautiful forms, such as vases, balustrades, &c. The Palazzos of the Grand Knights are rich in architecture, generally quadrangles. The churches and public buildings are also very fine, and some of the monuments of the knights are beautiful; altogether the city is very handsome. The ditch, before referred to, had been converted by the knights into a beautiful garden, the soil of which had all been conveyed from Sicily in ships; and the walks had been so skilfully laid out as to convey a strong impression of extent. While at Malta I was recommended for the appointment of Pay-master of my regiment, which I accepted, my prospects of promotion during peace being remote; and I proceeded to England, on leave of absence, on board a post office packet. This vessel was obliged to put in for repairs at Gibraltar, where she was detained eight days; affording me a fine opportunity for examining that celebrated fortress.