A VISIT TO MALTA.

The view of Malta did not quite equal my expectations, though the I harbour certainly is very fine, and the number of gay and picturesque-looking boats makes it a lively scene. The fortifications are of great extent, but so different from Gibraltar, being all artificial. I need hardly say that Malta is an island in the Mediterranean, between Africa and Sicily, but perhaps it may be necessary to mention that it is about 20 miles long by 12 broad.

By the way, Malta is not unlike some human beings—naturally barren and of no use, but by culture and application and diligence, and with help from others, how very fertile they become?

This reflection occupies us whilst we row to land—there to see for ourselves the places of note. The streets are very curious, being large flights of steps leading up from the sea into the town. The church of St John and the governor’s house are well worth seeing; but one of the finest modern buildings is the Hospital, on the left hand side of the entrance to the town. The hotels and shops are very good, that is, you can get what you require, but then you have to pay rather dearly; perhaps the people think that persons going to the East must make all their purchases here, as it is the last European place at which the steamers stop, and that persons coming from the East are only too glad to prepare here for the colder climate they will encounter before they finish their journey, and so do not much mind what they pay for things. The population is somewhat over 125,000, and as most of the inhabitants are Roman Catholics, there is a great deal of church-going. But the bell-ringing is enough to summon ten times the number of people to matins and vespers;—clang, clang, ding, dong,—the noise is incessant. I am talking, of course, of the time when I was there, but I hear that much of the nuisance has been done away with. Then, besides the churches, there are many monasteries, one of which I visited, and of which I will tell you, as a very singular custom is in force there, that of baking the deceased friars.

The monastery is one of the Capuchin order, and as soon as one of the monks dies, his body is exposed to a dry heat; whereby the softer parts become hardened; then he is propped up in a niche set apart for him, and his name and history are written above. The catacombs, where all these bodies are placed, consist of a long narrow room dimly lighted, and filled with a faint sickly odour; on either side is a row of corpses attired in the robes of their order, with ropes fastened round them as waistbands. Over each niche branches of the bay tree were wreathed, and among them the monks, with horrible ingenuity, had intertwined garlands and festoons of skulls, thigh bones, legs, and arms. The monk who accompanied me appeared intensely gratified and exultant over these disgusting things, and when he pointed out one old fellow who had been baked about a hundred years, he was in raptures.

Rather an unpleasant order to belong to! Fancy seeing your niche in the wall that your body will fill up some day! almost as bad as the custom in Iceland of standing the minister’s coffin in the church near the pulpit, or as the man who bought a job lot of coffins, thinking they would be sure to come in useful some day.

An officer of ours accompanied me, who two years ago knew one of the monks, and on his asking for him, he was taken to a newly-filled niche, and there shown his old friend in a state of mummyism, as he had been dead some months.

Instead of being an order of friars, they should be called an order of bakers.