After we had secured our baggage at the hotel, I walked out to take a view of the city. The population seemed to be all in the streets, and to live out of doors. The crowd was immense in every public place, and everything visible was full of character and variety. I do not believe there is a spot in the world that exhibits a more striking and motley spectacle than the streets of Malta. This island is the central point of the whole Mediterranean commerce, which brings it a constant succession of visitors from all the countries around. The crowd looks like a fancy ball, where the people dress so as to differ from each other. Here is the fantastical Greek in his picturesque drapery of red and white; the turbaned Turk with his bushy and flowing beard; the swarthy Arab in his coarse _haick_ or cloak; the grave Austrian, the scowling Moor, the squab Dutchman, the capering Sicilian, the hawk-eyed and tawny Calabrian, the native Maltese; the Spaniard, the Frenchman, the John Bull, and the Yankee, all in strange mixture, and with their various manners and languages. The whole group is perfectly dramatic. Little boys, about as high as my knee, were running about, dressed in black small-clothes and those great cocked-hats which we call “three-cornered scrapers.” The women of the island looked like nuns in black silk hoods; they cover most of the face, and peep out with one eye. This habit makes almost all the women squint-eyed. After I had gone over the greater part of the city and visited its elegant churches, of which it contains a large number, I set forth for a walk into the country. I went out at a massive gateway and across a draw-bridge, which offer the only passage-way into the interior of the island. I was struck with astonishment at the strength and extent of the fortifications. It seemed impossible that any force, either of human arms or cannon-balls, could ever break through the walls. The French took the place in 1800, and when Bonaparte entered at this gate, he said it was lucky there was somebody inside to open it, or they could never have got in. Immense walls and bastions, one above another, towered over my head. I looked down into one of the ditches; it appeared to be a hundred feet deep, and there were flower-gardens and orchards at the bottom. After travelling a few minutes, I saw before me a long row of arches, fifteen or twenty feet high, which I found to be an aqueduct: the road passed under it. Here I had the first glimpse of the country, and I was struck with the odd appearance of everything. There were no fields nor pastures, such as we have in our country, but the whole land lay in terraces, faced with thick stone walls, making little square inclosures, where crops of wheat and other vegetables were growing. The whole face of the island presented a succession of stripes of light yellow rock and fresh green vegetation. Here and there were low hills dotted with dark green locust trees, and a great