Note 948 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

In the Mediterranean lands, where drought and excessive heat during the growing season offer adverse conditions for agriculture, the small islands, especially those of fertile volcanic soil, show the greatest productivity and hence marked density of population. Though the rainfall may be slight, except where a volcanic peak rises to condense moisture, heavy dews and the thick mists of spring quicken vegetation. This is the case in Malta, which boasts a population of 2,000 to the square mile, exclusive of the English garrison.948 Little Limosa and Pantellaria, the merest fragments of land out in the mid-channel of the Mediterranean, have a population of 200 to the square mile.949 The Lipari group north of Sicily average nearly 400 on every square mile of their fertile soil;950 but this average rises in Salina to 500, and in Lipari itself, as also in Ponza of the Pontine group, to nearly 1300. Here fertile volcanic slopes of highly cultivated land lift vineyards, orchards of figs, and plantations of currants to the sunny air. But nearby Alicuri, almost uncultivated, has a sparse population of some five hundred shepherds and fishermen. Panaria and Filicuri are in about the same plight. Here again we find those sharp island contrasts.