In the middle of the eleventh century, some merchants of the then flourishing commercial city of Amalfi obtained permission to erect three hostelries or hospitals in the Holy City, for the relief of poor and invalided pilgrims. On the taking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, the position and prospects of the hospitals of St. John became greatly improved. The organisation became a recognised religious order, vowing poverty, obedience, and chastity. Its members were distinguished by a white cross of four double points worn on a black robe, of the form commonly to be met in the Maltese filigree jewellery of to-day, often to be noted in our West End and other shops. Branch hospitals spread all over Europe with the same admirable objects, and the order received constant acquisitions of property. Under the guidance of Raymond du Puy, military service was added to the other vows, and the monks became the White Cross Knights.(84) Henceforth each seat of the order became a military garrison in addition to a hospice, and each knight held himself in readiness to aid with his arms his distressed brethren against the infidel. Slowly but surely the Crescent overshadowed the Cross: the Holy City had to be evacuated. The pious knights, after wandering first to Cyprus, settled quietly in Rhodes, where for two centuries they maintained a sturdy resistance against the Turks. At the first siege, in 1480, a handful of the former resisted 70,000 of the latter. The bombardment was so terrific that it is stated to have been heard a hundred miles off, and for this extraordinary defence, Peter d’Aubusson, Grand Master, was made a cardinal by the Pope. At the second siege, L’Isle Adam, with 600 Knights of St. John, and 4,500 troops, resisted and long repelled a force of 200,000 infidels. But the odds were too great against him, and after a brave but hopeless defence, which won admiration even from the enemy, L’Isle Adam capitulated. After personal visits to the Pope, and to the Courts of Madrid, Paris, and London, the then almost valueless Rock of Malta was bestowed on the knights in 1530. Its noble harbours, and deep and sheltered inlets were then as now, but there was only one little town, called Burgo—Valetta as yet was not. [Illustration: THE DEFENCE OF MALTA BY THE KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN AGAINST THE TURKS IN 1565.]