The reason of this peculiar construction is that Valletta is built on the ridge of Mount Scebarras, so that the ascent from the harbor to the principal streets running along the crest of the hill is necessarily steep. The result is, however, a more picturesque town than would have been the case had the architect who laid out the town when Jean de La Valette, Grand Master of the Knights, resolved in 1566 to transfer the capital here from the center of the island, been able to find funds to form a plateau by leveling down the summit of the mound. Hence Valletta is composed of streets running longitudinally and others crossing the former at right angles. Most of these are eked out by steps; one, the Strada Santa Lucia, is made up of flights of them, and none are level from end to end. The backbone of the town and the finest of its highways is the Strada Reale, or Royal Street, which in former days was known as the Strada San Georgio, and during the brief French occupation as "the Street of the Rights of Man." Seven main streets run parallel with it, while eleven at right angles extend in straight lines across the promontory from harbor to harbor. The Strada Reale, with the Strada Mercanti alongside of it are, however, the most typical bits of the capital, and the visitor who conscientiously tramps through either, with a peep here and there up or down the less important transverse "strade," obtains a fair idea of the city of La Valette, whose statue stands with that of L'Isle Adam over the Porta Reale at the farther end of the street bearing that name. Here the first barrier to an invasion from the landward side is met with in the shape of a deep ditch hewn through the solid rock, right across the peninsula from the one harbor to the other, cutting off if necessary the suburb of Floriana from the town proper, though Floriana, with its rampart gardens, parade ground, and barracks, is again protected on the inland aspect by other of the great fortifications which circle the seashore everywhere.