Though less than sixty miles from Sicily, these placid isles oft though they have been shaken by earthquakes, do not seem to have ever been troubled by the volcanic outbursts of Etna. Composed of a soft, creamy rock, dating from the latest geological period, the elephants and hippopotami disinterred from their caves show that, at a time when the Mediterranean stretched north and south over broad areas which are now dry land, these islands were still under water, and that at a date comparatively recent, before the Straits of Gibraltar had been opened, and when the contracted Mediterranean was only a couple of lakes Malta was little more than a peninsula of Africa. Indeed, so modern is the group as we know it, that within the human era Comino seems to have been united with the islands on each side of it. For, as the deep wheel-ruts on the opposite shores of the two nearer islands, even at some distance in the water, demonstrate, the intervening straits have either been recently formed, or were at one period so shallow as to be fordable. But if it be open to doubt whether night or day is the best time to make our first acquaintance with Malta, there can be none as to the season of the year when it may be most advantageously visited; for if the tourist comes to Malta in spring, he will find the country bright with flowers, and green with fields of wheat and barley, and cumin and "sulla" clover, or cotton, and even with plots of sugar-cane, tobacco, and the fresh foliage of vineyards enclosed by hedges of prickly pears ready to burst into gorgeous blossom. Patches of the famous Maltese potatoes flourish cheek by jowl with noble crops of beans and melons. Figs and pomegranates, peaches, pears, apricots, and medlars are in blossom; and if the curious pedestrian peers over the orchard walls, he may sight oranges and lemons gay with the flowers of which the fragrance is scenting the evening air. But in autumn, when the birds of passage arrive for the winter, the land has been burnt into barrenness by the summer sun of the scorching sirocco. The soil, thin, but amazingly fertile, and admirably suited by its spongy texture to retain the moisture, looks white and parched as it basks in the hot sunshine; and even the gardens, enclosed by high stone walls to shelter them from the torrid winds from Africa, or the wild "gregale" from the north, or the Levanter which sweeps damp and depressing towards the Straits of Gibraltar, fail to relieve the dusty, chalk-like aspect of the landscape. Hills there are--they are called the "Bengemma mountains" by the proud Maltese--but they are mere hillocks to the scoffer from more Alpine regions, for at Ta-l'aghlia, the highest elevation in Malta, 750 feet is the total tale told by the barometer, while it is seldom that the sea cliffs reach half that height. The valleys in the undulating surface are in proportion, and even they and the little glens worn by the