Nearly every locality which is visited by travelers is found to have some special annoyance which is active in its warfare upon humanity. Thus diseases of the eye prevail among the common people of Malta as they do in Egypt, a trouble in both countries which is caused by the fervor of the sun's rays and the general lack of shade, not forgetting also an evident want of cleanliness. The author has seen native camel-drivers come into Egyptian cities from across the desert quite blind for the time being from continuous exposure to the sun's rays and the powerful reflection of the heated sand. The same effect arises from the yellow stone dwellings of Valletta, and the bare rocks inland aggravate the prevailing trouble. So Arctic explorers, living amid the constant glare of the snow-fields, are subject to ophthalmia, an affliction which they guard against by wearing snow-goggles. In the Maltese capital, as in Cairo, there is a fine dust permeating the atmosphere when the wind blows, charged with silex and animal impurities, which finds lodgment in the eyes. The ordinary people have no predilection for the use of water wherewith to cleanse their hands and faces, consequently such matter accumulates in these delicate organs, first irritating, then poisoning them. Ulceration follows, and insects--especially flies, which are a great pest in Malta--carry the virus from one person to another, creating, in warm weather, an epidemic of sore eyes. Children are most frequently the sufferers; and this disease, commencing with them when they are of tender age, is liable to become chronic. Nine tenths of the inhabitants of the group are professed Roman Catholics. One meets a priest or cowled monk at every turn in the public streets, as well as upon the roads inland. They usually wear a characteristic black robe, together with an impossible hat, very broad of brim and turned up at the sides. There are said to be about two thousand priests in these islands, whose physical appearance certainly indicates free and generous diet, not to say luxurious living. The reader may imagine what a strong contrast they furnish to the hungry, begging masses of the town whom they pass by with the most utter indifference. One is fain to ask, Does it ever strike the people, who are taxed so heavily to support these "walking delegates" of the church in idleness, that there must be something radically wrong in a system which fattens a priest by starving a laborer? The conduct of church affairs should be just as amenable to consistency and sound common sense as any of the affairs of life. The Maltese, unfortunately, have a paucity of reason and a plethora of priests.