Saturday, April 19.--In the after-dinner hour walked out with Mr. and Mrs. Stoddart, towards the Quarantine harbour. One's first feeling is, that it is all strange, very strange; and when you begin to understand a little of the meaning and uses of the massy endless walls and defiles, then you feel and perceive that it is very wonderful. A city all of freestone, all the houses looking new like Bath; all with flat roofs, the streets all strait, and at right angles to each other; but many of them exceedingly steep, none quite level; of the steep streets, some, 'all' stepped with a smooth artificial stone, some having the footpath on each side in stone steps, the middle left for carriages; lines of fortification, fosses, bastions, curtains, &c. &c. endless:--with gardens or bowling-grounds below; for it is all height and depth--you can walk nowhere without having whispers of suicide, toys of desperation. Expletive cries of Maltese venders shot up, sudden and violent. The inhabitants very dark, almost black; but straight, cleanlimbed, lively, active,--cannot speak in praise of their cleanliness--children very fair--women from the use of the faldetto, or cloak-hooding their heads, as women in England in a shower throw over their aprons, and from the use of always holding it down to one side of the face, all have a continued languishing manner of holding their heads one way--picturesque enough as expressive of a transient emotion, but shocking and inelegant in 'all' and always. The language Arabic, corrupted with Italian, and perhaps with others. Sunday, April 20, 1804.--Went to church, plain chapel with a picture behind the pulpit, which I was not close enough to see, and at the other end in a nitch, a 'cross painted'! Was it there before? or was it in complaisance to Maltese superstitions?--Called on Sir A. Ball--there I met General Valette, and delivered my letter to him,--a striking room, very high; 3/4ths of its height from the ground hung with rich crimson silk or velvet; and the 1/4th above, a mass of colours, pictures in compartments rudely done and without perspective or art, but yet very impressively and imagination-stirringly--representing all the events and exploits of the Order.--Some fine pictures, one by Correggio, one of a Cain killing Abel, I do not know by whom. Monday, April 21, 1804, Hardkain.--Sir A. Ball called on me, and introduced me to Mr. Lane, who was formerly his tutor, but now his chaplain. He invited me to dine with him on Thursday, and made a plan for me to ride to St. Antonio on Tuesday morning with Mr. Lane, offering me a horse. Soon after came on thunder and storm, and my breathing was affected a good deal, but still I was in no discomfort.