These Maltese women are often very charming, especially in their figures and general bearing. No youthful person can be ugly while possessing such eyes as Heaven has been pleased to give them. They have almost universally a gentleness of manner which is in itself a great attraction in women. That their charms are evanescent must be frankly admitted; they marry early in their teens, and grow old quickly, like the women of the fellah class in Egypt, who when young are really beautiful, exquisite in form and graceful in every movement, but who fade rapidly under the cares of maternity and the labor of the fields. The occupations of the Maltese women, however, are of a far less wearing nature. One never wearies of wandering about Valletta. There is somehow, amid the scenes encountered in these quaint streets, a suggestion of the Arabian Nights which haunts one all the while, only a degree less forcibly than at Cairo. It would seem to be quite the thing were Haroun-al-Raschid Grand Master here, accompanied by his favorite minister Jaafar, and there is ample material from which Ali Baba might recruit his Forty Thieves. May not this fellow who is crying in Arabic some mysterious merchandise upon the Strada Reale have new lamps to exchange for old ones? We only require a score of over-laden donkeys and a few mournful looking camels to complete the Oriental picture. CHAPTER IX. Ophthalmia.--Profusion of Flowers.--Inland Villages.-- Educational Matters.--Public Amusements.--Maltese Carnival. --Italian Carnival.--Under English Rule.--No Direct Taxation.--Code of Laws.--A Summer Palace.--Governor-General Smyth.--San Antonio Gardens.--Wages.--Oranges.--Life's Contrasts.--Swarming Beggars.--Social Problem.--Churches crowded with Riches.--Starving Population.--A Mexican Experience.