Adapted From: Malta - Described
by FREDERICK W. RYAN - Published in London by Adam & Charles Black in
1910 - Painted
by V. BORON - 20 Full-page illustrations in colour
MALTA - CHAPTER I - INTRODUCTON
<< Back to PREFACE
Malta, a mere dot upon the map of Europe, creates in the minds of those who know it or its history an
interest out of all proportion to its size. The Grand Harbour, big enough to hold the British Mediterranean
fleet, the dockyard, the garrison of 7,000 men, and the fortifications, make good its claim to be described
as 'the key to our Empire in the East.' Its importance, however, is scarcely suggested by the first view as one approaches the island. This broad rib of yellow rock, rising abruptly from the sea, gives little indication of its power as an outpost of empire, or a place rich in human interest, and a visit of a few hours only will exhaust the casual attention of the tourist. By the ship's side, crowd the traditional sunburnt urchins diving for coppers, but he has seen these in many parts if he has travelled at all. The bastions and redoubts raised by the Knights in defence of Christendom against the Turk will attract him if he knows anything of history. In the town there is lace to buy from Borg, and cigarettes from Marich, the Governor's
Palace to gaze at, and the beautiful interior of St. John's Church for a hurried visit. Then, when his
steamer sails away, the tourist will probably carry with him as the dominating impression of his visit
to Valletta a climb in a hot sun of a street of stairs, about which Byron has written some profane verses.
But this is not to know Malta, for it has many interests beyond that of a British fortress or a port
of call.
By reason of its secure anchorage and its position between the African and European seaboard, lying
as it does sixty miles from Sicily and two hundred from Tunis, Malta has been, even from early classical times, the coveted prize of those nations who sought to extend their commerce and increase their possession by maritime power. It has been, in consequence, the meeting-place and the battle-ground of such various protagonists as the Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, and Normans, to name only a few of the races which have directed the destinies of the island.
About equal in area with the Isle of Wight, Malta has a population of, roughly,
215,000. The Maltese are a homogeneous race, distinct from their African or European
neighbours in language and character, and with national customs of which they
are tenacious and proud. They are descended from the Phoenicians, who colonized
the island a thousand years before Christ. From this stock they inherit their
native tongue, which is neither English nor Italian, but a patois of Arabic akin
to the ancient Hebrew. Many races have ruled Malta since the coming of the Phoenician,
but few have sent settlers to the island in sufficient numbers to crush out the
primitive inhabitants, and so down to this day the Phoenician strain predominates.
Some ancient families, indeed, especially among the nobility, are of foreign
extraction, bearing Italian, French, Spanish, or other surnames; they came to
the island long ago, intermarried with the natives, and are now more Maltese
than the Maltese themselves. Environment has, no doubt, in part done this, as
well as the use from infancy of the Maltese tongue, universal as the language
of domestic life by both high and low in the island: hence, the Maltese present
a study in national development in many ways unique. A people, so small in numbers,
with a territory so valuable, could not, however, live their life entirely uninfluenced
by the rest of the world, and Malta has, in consequence, been drawn into most
great movements. It is no exaggeration to say, with a native writer, that in
local records may be read in microcosm the history of Europe; while in the archaeological
remains found, the island presents a complete picture of the various stages of
western civilization. Here Hamilcar surrendered to Titus Sempronius Gracchus,
when Carthage ceded her command of the Great Sea to Rome. St. Paul the Apostle,
ship-wrecked upon the island, preached Christianity to the Maltese. Feudalism
came early into Malta, and stayed, under the regime of the Knights, an interesting
anachronism, until the eighteenth century. In the wars of the Crescent and the
Cross, Malta became, under the Knights, the bulwark of Christian Europe; in later
days Napoleon saw its importance as a naval and military base when he declared
to the British Ambassador in Paris: 'Peace or war depends upon Malta. ... I would
rather put you in possession of the heights of Montmartre than of Malta.' Bonaparte,
indeed, with characteristic assurance, marked the Bighi promontory as a spot
for his winter palace when the Mediterranean should become, as he hoped, a French
lake. When Garibaldi entered Rome, the Vatican considered the possibility of
transferring the Holy See to Malta, always loyal to the Papal connection. These
are but a few cases in which the island has been a factor in European events,
and as we come to know local history better, we find the Maltese people themselves
have played, within the narrow compass of their island, a part not ignoble. Hence,
the problems of race, language, and religion which confront the Government of
Malta today, of which something more will be told, have sprung from seed long
sown in a field long prepared.
If historic associations and national questions do not interest the visitor to Malta, other things are to
be found to make a winter season there tolerable to even the most blase individual. Sunshine and blue sky, spacious stone-built houses, with courtyards and fountains, green-shuttered windows and restful balconies, gardens of flowering oleander, orange and lemon groves, give an Italian touch, welcome after the cheerless hues of London in November. Something, too, of the 'dim mysterious East' is felt in the appearance and costume of the people, and in much of their mode of life. It is suggested in the street-cries, the hubbub of the market, in many names of persons and places, and also in the older architecture. In Malta the traveller from
home sees for the first time that fascinating phenomenon, the meeting of East with West; though, thanks to the Church, little is found of the vice and squalor of other great ports upon the route to India.
Plenty of amusement may be enjoyed in Malta. The season generally lasts from
November to March. The cheapest Italian Opera in the world in a splendid Opera
House, dances at the Casino Maltese or the Union Club, picnics to Boschetto,
bathing and boating at Sliema, excellent music in the public squares, racing
and polo in the Marsa, are some of the recreations with which Society whiles
away the winter. A local nobility, holding titles in some cases conferred by
the Kings of Aragon and Castile or the Grand Masters, maintain an 
old-world
dignity of life in their residences in Citta Vecchia or their country villas,
and by their presence add a distinction to social functions. In Valletta the
English visitor may obtain good apartments and the best living, perhaps in a
palace of some long-forgotten Knight, at little more than the expense of a Bloomsbury
boarding-house. Possessed of any tact and some regard to the traditions and ideas
of others, he will soon find himself at home, making many lasting friends among
the Maltese, who, rich and poor alike, will be found polite and courteous to
the stranger.
A winter in Malta is therefore a thing of pleasant memories. The charms of the climate and the surroundings, the string of gaieties its social life affords, no less than the glamour of romance and
chivalry with which history has invested each stone of the island, have well earned for it the name, so dear to its patriotic people, of 'Il Fior del Mondo.'
Next>> Malta
in the early days
