Bidding farewell for a time to Gozo, let us now recross the Straits of Freghi to Malta proper, there to enjoy the unequaled attractions and delights of beautiful Valletta. CHAPTER VIII. Valletta, Capital of Malta.--A Unique City.--Bright Faces, Flowers, and Sunshine.--Architecture.--L'Isle Adam and La Vallette, Grand Masters.--Mount Sceberris.--Stone Dwelling- Houses.--Streets of the Capital.--A Specialty.--Fancy Goods Merchants.--The Yacht Sunbeam.--Main Street of the City.--A Grand Opera House.--A St. Giles in Malta.--Strada Santa Lucia.--Street of Stairs.--Thoroughfares.--The Military Hospital.--Characteristic Street Scenes.--Emigration. As the Grand Harbor of Malta is entered and the white battlements of forts St. Elmo and Ricasoli are passed, one realizes the vast importance of the situation. Those heavy guns rising tier upon tier are silent now, but they are capable of doing fearful execution upon an approaching enemy. Probably the access to no other seaport in the world is more powerfully defended, unless it be that of Cronstadt, guarding the mouth of the Neva and the passage leading up to the city of St. Petersburg. Let us hope that such armaments may prove to be preventives and not incentives to warfare. "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds make deeds ill done!" This is very true, and yet being prepared, fully prepared, for it has doubtless often prevented war. It is calculated that twenty-five thousand men would be required to properly man these defensive works which hem about the town. Few persons visiting this capital for the first time are prepared, on landing at the broad stone steps near the Custom House, to find in this isolated place a large and beautiful city whose historic associations and architectural charms so admirably harmonize. Valletta is a genuine surprise. Whatever preconceived idea the stranger may have formed concerning it, he can hardly have approximated to the truth. Unique and mystical, it constantly appeals in some new form to the imagination. It strikes one at first as somewhat too pretentious in its endless fortifications, palaces, hospitals, churches, public institutions, theatres, and population, for a place so circumscribed geographically, and of such seeming commercial unimportance. It will appear, presently, as we progress in our Story of Malta, why and how such a full-fledged city should have sprung, Minerva-like, into complete existence, without experiencing the throes of incipient childhood, and the slow-ripening capacities of maturity.