self-respect. One thing we can confidently assert: there is nothing here so vile and so grossly immoral as Chinatown in San Francisco, and nothing worse than may be seen any day in St. Giles's, London, or the Latin Quarter of Paris. How closely the lines of civilization and of barbarism intersect each other in all populous centres! Valletta is well policed; rowdiness does not obtrude itself upon the stranger. Even the annoying importunities of the beggars in some parts of the town are not carried beyond the bounds of respectful, though earnest solicitation. Along the course of the Strada Reale,--the Broadway of the capital,--which the French called, after the style of that period, Rue des Droits de l'Homme, at the corners where the cross-streets intersect it, graceful little kiosks are erected, painted in fanciful colors, whose occupants, like those seen upon the Parisian boulevards and the busy thoroughfares of Rio Janeiro, sell flowers, bonbons, coffee, fruit, and newspapers. The pretty Maltese girls, with dark, brilliant, beseeching eyes, who preside in these kiosks, are natural coquettes. Like the occupants of the tall booths in the flower market of Marseilles, coquetry is a most available part of their stock in trade. A winning smile will sell a bouquet more readily than the most eloquent oral appeal. These flower girls are kept quite busy making up and disposing of buttonhole bouquets at certain hours of the day, to adorn strangers and native dudes, from whose presence no locality is quite exempt. This main avenue is the highest street in the city, and runs along the crest of the hill upon which Valletta is situated. The site gives the place natural facility for drainage, and the sanitary conditions seem to be excellent. Every one agrees that the capital is a healthy one, all things considered. Let us enter, for a moment, one of the dwellings on the main thoroughfare, and leave behind the hot sunshine, which seems striving to set everything on fire in the Strada Reale.