The Maltese Group.--Comino.--Cave Life.--Verdant Gozo.--Isle of Filfla.--Curious Lizards.--Loss of an Ironclad.--Mysterious Wheel-Tracks.--Earthquakes.--Population.--Military Dépôt.-- Youthful Soldiers.--Quarantine.--Arrival of the Knights.-- Immorality.--Harbor Defenses.--Land Fortifications.--Charming Photographic View.--The Stars and Stripes Abroad.--The Eight- Pointed Maltese Cross.--Peculiar Sunset Scene. We speak of Malta in the singular, which is the conventional form; official documents say Malta and its dependencies, it being the name which is also most commonly used to designate the capital; but it should be understood that the Maltese group consists of three considerable islands, namely, Malta, Gozo, and Comino. The latter lies midway in the channel which separates the other two. Comino is nearly circular, measures four miles across its surface, and contains some large and curious caves, also a fort which was built in 1618. There are a few huts in which the poor peasants reside, who labor on the soil, and send fabulous numbers of watermelons to Valletta. It would seem that this circumscribed bit of earth, or, more properly speaking, rock, breaking the surface of the Straits of Freghi, was formerly considered to be of more importance than it is in our day. One ancient author mentions it under another name, that of Hephæstia, which means the island of Vulcan. In the Middle Ages Comino was a very nest of Saracen pirates. Up to the beginning of the present century, the special advantage of the group for the promotion of illegitimate commerce has been its curse. Malta was the synonym of piracy from the earliest times,--a reputation which, as we have seen, the Knights of St. John did nothing to improve. Speaking in plain terms, they were the most pronounced and successful corsairs who ever sailed these waters, and were unmolested by the Western Powers because their piracy was conducted under the pretense of fighting only the infidels, and in behalf of Christianity. In our day we invade Central Africa under pretense of suppressing the slave trade; but in the days of this warlike order, its principal source of income was derived from the capture of Asiatics, whom the Knights sold into slavery, or retained in that condition.