[Illustration: _Copyright._) (_See page 18._ LACE MAKERS, GOZO.] Outside the towns there is little to see in Malta. Here is 45 a view across the country, and here a wider view from the 46 ramparts of Citta Vecchia; it looks dreary enough, with high stone walls crossing it in every direction with a few cypresses showing above them, and here and there a grove of olives. The walls are necessary, as the island is exposed to every wind that blows, and above all to the _gregale_, the boisterous north-east storm wind. Even more unpleasant is the Sirocco, a warm damp wind which blows in late summer and early autumn from the Sahara. The summer is hot, and usually without a cloud; and though heavy rains fall in the winter, they quickly soak into the porous rock. Though it seems so bare and rocky and the soil is thin, yet Malta is well cultivated and produces splendid crops on its little farms. But there are too many people for its small area, since the whole Maltese group is only about half as large again as the Channel Islands; and as the Maltese are loath to emigrate, much food must be imported, and large quantities of grain 47 are stored for emergency in the old underground granaries 48 which we see here, hewn from the solid rock. Everything is of stone in Malta; the island is one great mass of limestone with the thinnest covering of soil. We may cross the open country by the narrow gauge railway and enter Citta Vecchia by the old 49 gateway. The place seems sleepy and lifeless, since its people have migrated to Valetta. There are relics in it of very early days; a Norman house which we may recognize by the shape of 50 its doors and windows, and even still older, the remains of 51 a Roman villa. But even here, in this quaint old town, we 52 find soldiers of the Maltese regiment at drill, to remind us that a fortress is not far away.