Disraeli wrote in one of his novels: 'If that fair Valletta, with its streets
of palaces, its picturesque forts, and magnificent church, only crowned some
green and azure island of the Ionian Sea Corfu, for instance I really think the
ideal of landscape would be realized.' The beauties of Valletta, despite this
fine piece of word-painting, are not apparent at the first view. The traveller,
going by the overland route to Malta, sails from Syracuse in the familiar Hungarian
S.S. Carola, with her genial captain for no British ship, strange to say, carries
mails or passengers between this important Imperial possession and the mainland.
Midnight being the hour of arrival, the island will present patches of rock silvered
in the moonlight and deep shadows, dotted with the myriad lights reflected in
the dark water from the ships of the Fleet, Valletta and the Three Cities. If
he travels by another line, he may be lucky enough to pass between the guardian
forts of Ricasoli and our old friend St. Elmo in the early hours of the morning,
and will have ample time, before being allowed by the authorities to land, to
watch that most wonderful of sights, the panorama of the Grand Harbour unfolding
in the rays of the rising sun.
The Grand Harbour, a long, narrow arm of the sea, runs almost exactly two miles inland to the Marsa, where it is lost to view in a forest of masts. The steamer usually anchors about fifty yards from the quay known as the Marina, upon which stand the Custom House and the Victoria Gate leading into Valletta. Save for the few green balconies of the rather dingy shipping-offices upon the Marina, and the monument to Sir Alexander Ball just visible beneath Fort St. Elmo, the architectural charms of Valletta remain so far undiscovered, and little of its reputed life and colour can be seen unless in the bunting of the wash-tub hanging from the back windows of Strada Levante. Otherwise not a sign of the auberges, churches, palaces, squares, and crowded streets, for they lie hidden behind the famous fortifications towering many hundred feet above the steamer's deck.
No written description can convey the imposing appearances of these masses
of masonry and rock, rising straight from the water's edge in curious symmetrical
shapes scarps, curtains, demi-lunes, ravelins, and all the other technical effects
of mediaeval fortification almost oppressive to the beholder by reason of their
magnitude. Even the bell-towers of the renowned St. John's are out of sight:
they were intentionally kept low in building, as much to get them out of the
line of the guns of the Order, mounted on the cavaliers of St. John and St. James,
when firing seawards, as to prevent them becoming a mark for those of the enemy
the sacred building in those days presenting the characteristics of a place of
strength with that of worship, 'half church of God, half castle.' The science
of modern warfare has rendered parts of the fortifications of Valletta now of
no importance, and many places on the heights overlooking the harbours have in
consequence been abandoned by the military authorities. Many of these bastions
called Notre Dame, Our Lady's Half-Moon, St. John the Almoner, and by other romantic
names marking the particular posts of the Knights in time of attack have accordingly
been turned into promenades for the public, and planted with trees and flowers,
so that the frowning ramparts, where men-at-arms once watched for the enemy,
now conceal behind them nothing more formidable than nursemaids and their charges,
the latter playing, to their great delight, among the dismantled guns and pyramids
of old-fashioned cannon balls. Many ditches and fosses of the outer works of
Valletta have also become deserted, and are filled with weeds and wild-flowers,
while innumerable caper-bushes and creepers cover the walls, taking root in the
cracks of the masonry.
From the Marina, the Three Cities on the far side of the harbour, rather than
Valletta, attract attention. They are (Citta) Vittoriosa (old Birgu / Borgo),
Cospicua, and Senglea, standing on slight elevations between the Calcara, Dockyard,
and French Creeks, which run inland upon the right shore. The Clock Tower from
which La Valette watched the progress of the Great Siege rises behind Fort St.
Angelo, and the red-coloured dome of San Philippe in Senglea is at once noticed
crowning rows of weather-beaten houses reaching down to the water's edge. Distance
lends enchantment here, for the grandeur of these cities is gone: they are now
in large part given over to barracks, stores, and quarters, connected with the
multifarious activities of a Naval Station. In Vittoriosa, on the edge of Dockyard
Creek, stands the official residence of the officers of H.M. Dockyard, the same
building having been, two centuries ago, the residence of the Captain of the
Galleys of the Order of St. John. Hollowed in the rock close by are found the
caves, now used as Government stores, in which were housed the wretched Mohammedan
prisoners who rowed these galleys, chained to benches five abreast and urged
by whips to bend to the fourteen pairs of oars. Adjoining their far from cheerful
abode is the spot where these unfortunate beings were graciously allowed to bathe,
called by the Knights in consequence 'The Bay of Vermin.'
Here, too, in the old days was moored the famous fighting ship of the Order,
built about 1600, known as the Johannes Baptista fierosolymitanus, or more
popularly as The Great Galleon. When ready for war she carried a crew of 100
Knights, 500 fighting-men, and 100 seamen, with 55 guns firing sixty-pound balls,
and is said to have cost 50,000 crowns to equip for a single expedition in pursuit
of the Turks, during which she generally remained at sea six or seven months.
In Dockyard Creek is moored H.M.S. Egmont, formerly called the Achilles, the
flagship of the Port Admiral. This replaced in recent years the still older Hibernia,
one of the wooden walls of England, which was long a landmark, or rather watermark,
in Valletta Harbour.
Senglea, with its spacious and symmetrical streets, had once hoped to emulate
Valletta as ' a city built by gentlemen for gentlemen'; and many 'dolphin' door-knockers
those emblems of Maltese respectability may be seen upon the doors of the fine
old houses, in which still linger a few families of position. Vittoriosa was
built earlier and otherwise, not for mere gallantry but hard fighting, with streets
narrow and crooked, to allow a handful of men to resist, in hand-to-hand encounter,
an invading army. The Three Cities attract many visitors to view the spots associated
with the Great Siege, and everyone inspects in Vittoriosa the Column of Victory,
the hat and sword of La Valette in the Oratory of San Giuseppe, and the Palace
of the Inquisitor a very important personage in his day, who could be exceedingly
unpleasant to those who published an undesirable book, or took sides with the
enemies of Holy Church. The Cottonera lines, built on the principles of Valperga,
surround the Three Cities on the land side; but despite their many interests
and their ancient pedigree Vittoriosa, the original Borgo (AKA Birgu), showing
traces of Norman architecture they have sunk into shabby gentility, and it is
not now considered quite the thing to live 'across the water'; this phrase in
Maltese 'tal nahha lohra' conveying a sense of social inferiority. 
On
a small rocky promontory beside Fort Ricasoli stands Bighi Hospital, perhaps
the finest naval hospital in the world, built by the Government in 1830. This
was the spot destined by Napoleon to be the site of his winter palace, which,
had he ever erected it, could scarcely have surpassed, in outward appearance
at least, the present handsome building.
The visitor, anxious to land from his steamer, will find that he must entrust
himself and his trunks to one of the hundred dghaisas, the owners of which are
seeking with loud, discordant, guttural cries to secure his custom and row him
to the Marina. The dghaisa resembles a gondola, only brightly painted, generally
green, with tapering bows rising about four feet higher than the boat itself,
which are, during a festa, adorned with flowers. In summer a brightly coloured
awning with tasseled fringe is stretched over the heads of the passengers. Two
men generally row the boat, who, it is curious to note, stand up to do so, one
at the centre and the other in the prow, using a long, sweeping oar apiece with
great grace and energy.
On landing, the visitor passes through the Customs and into the hands of the
drivers of carozze, who seemingly are about to make him scale the perpendicular
heights of the town in their quaint little carriages like small victorias, with
equally small fares ranging from a couple of pence, and with white holland curtains
suspended from a sort of framework like a four-post bed. The drivers will then
lash their sturdy little ponies at a furious rate, and rattle the visitor along
the rocky road from Victoria Gate into the heart of Valletta. Strada Levante
is passed on the way, with its motley crowd, made up of the crews from ships
of all nations, Maltese boatmen, coal-heavers, and lightermen, who here buy their
tobacco and frequent the cheap eating-houses, in the doorways of which you see
the proprietors frying, over portable stoves, fish, macaroni, and such local
delicacies as black-puddings called mazzit.
One reaches, at length, by sharp turnings through Strada Cristoforo, St. George's
Square, the focus of life in Valletta, where stands the Governor's Palace, the
Main Guard with its well-known inscription defining England's title to Malta,
and the Garrison Library, in which one can get all the latest English and foreign
papers, and hear the local gossip; and on the square itself may be seen a stolid
sentry pacing up and down, whose khaki or scarlet tunic and fair Anglo-Saxon
features will give the English visitor, if he has been a wanderer in foreign
parts, a pleasurable sense of home. This appearance of Tommy Atkins beside the
quaint little laurel tubs in front of the Main Guard has inspired a French novelist
with the following passage, which may interest the reader as a foreigner's impression
of the Imperial ideal: 'Je revois le soldat en petite veste rouge, blond, un
peu raide, qui promene son fusil entre la facade entincilante deja de soleil
et une ligne de lauriers-roses en caisses. C' est le meme partout, ici et la,
sous les climats chauds et sous les climats froids, la meme tenue correcte, le
meme air de conque'rant inassimilable, montant la garde pour la reine qui collectionne
les isles du monde.'
So in his 'Sicile' writes Rene Bazin, in phrases that might have been coined
by Kipling.
Strada Reale (now Republic Street / Ir Repubblika Triq) , just half a mile long from Porta Reale to Fort St. Elmo, runs
along the crest of the promontory upon which Valletta is built, forming a sort
of spinal column to the city. Ten streets run parallel to it, five on either
side, and eleven more cut it at right angles, all in accordance with the original
plans, Laparelli and Cassar having anticipated by several centuries the symmetrical
lines of modern American cities. The monotony, however, disappears in this case
by reason of the slopes of Mount Sceberras, the varied levels of the streets
giving at every turn striking views: vistas of the harbours and shipping in the
distances below; glimpses over the housetops of the sweeping Mediterranean horizon,
with perhaps the Fleet steaming away to 'Gib'; inland is seen the undulating
country, yellow streaked with green, dotted with casals over-shadowed by the
domes of the ever-present church; and, near at hand, a jumble of balconies, church-towers,
roof-gardens, and ramparts, looking almost topsy-turvy in the curious perspective.
Strada Reale (now Republic Street / Ir Repubblika Triq) contains most of the important buildings in Valletta: the Governor's
Palace, the Opera House, the Casino Maltese, the Union Club, the Borsa di Commercio,
one side of St. John's Church, and the Public Library, which latter is interesting
as a building begun by the Knights but completed under English rule. In Strada Reale (now Republic Street / Ir Repubblika Triq) also are to be found two less heroic institutions, not to be omitted,
however, as places to be visited: Bissazza's, where are sold, amongst other confectionery,
curious Sicilian sweetmeats; and Blackley's, where a truly British ' afternoon
tea,' including currant buns, may be obtained. In the afternoons everyone turns
into St. George's Square for the band, or strolls up and down Strada Reale (now Republic Street / Ir Repubblika Triq) until
sunset, when, as there is scarcely any twilight, darkness falls in a few minutes
upon the city, and the crowds disappear. The sunsets in Malta are indeed magnificent,
and well worth a climb on to the terrazzo to witness. The east appears a rich
dark purple, and the west presents ' the true yellow glow of Claude Lorraine,'
as the observant Brydone remarked a century ago; and particularly fine is the
effect, viewed on the road from Valletta, of the somewhat Oriental towers and
buildings of Citta Vecchia in sullen silhouette against the setting sun.
A description by Thackeray, written sixty-five years ago, depicts very faithfully,
so little has life in Malta changed, some features which will today strike the
fancy of the newcomer.
The streets are thronged with a lively, comfortable-looking population;
the poor seem to inhabit handsome stone palaces, with balconies and projecting
windows of heavy carved stone. The lights and shadows; the cries and stenches;
the fruit-shops and fish-stalls; the dresses and chatter of all nations; the
soldiers in scarlet and women in black mantillas; the beggars, boatmen, barrels
of pickled herrings and macaroni; the shovel-hatted priests and bearded capuchins;
the tobacco, grapes, onions, and sunshine; the signboards, bottled-porter stores,
the statues of saints, and little chapels, which jostle the stranger's eyes as
he goes up the famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a scene of such pleasant
confusion and liveliness as I have never witnessed before. And the effects of
the groups of multitudinous actors in this busy, cheerful drama is heightened,
as it were, by the decorations of the stage. The sky is delightfully brilliant,
all the houses and ornaments are stately, castles and palaces are rising all
around, and the flag, towers, and walls of Fort St. Elmo look as fresh and magnificent
as if they had been erected only yesterday.
'The Strada Reale (now Republic Street / Ir Repubblika Triq) has a much more courtly appearance. Here are palaces, churches,
courthouses, and libraries, the genteel London shops, and the latest articles
of perfumery. Gay young officers are strolling about in shell-jackets much too
small for them; midshipmen are clattering by on hired horses; squads of priests,
habited after the fashion of Don Basilio in the opera, are demurely pacing to
and fro; professional beggars run shrieking after the stranger. The houses where
they are selling carpet-bags and pomatum were the palaces of the successors of
the goodliest company of gallant Knights the world ever heard tell of.'
The city of Valletta is itself the lasting legacy of the Order, the principal
buildings and almost every house having been erected in the days of the Knights.
Valletta was built, as is well known, immediately after the Great Siege, upon
the promontory which the attack of the Turks showed to be the point of vantage
for the defence of the island, and to this the Knights transferred their headquarters
from the Borgo. On March 28, 1566, the first stone of the new city was laid,
with great ceremony, at the corner of St. John's Bastion. La Valette forthwith
took up his abode in a wooden hut in the midst of the works, which he continued
directing from day to day until his death in 1568, the hero of the Great Siege
thus living to see only the outer fortifications completed. The new Grand Master,
Pietro del Monte, began his term of office by announcing that no one would enjoy
his favour who did not to the best of his ability promote the building of the
city. In consequence of this Eustachio del Monte, nephew of the Grand Master,
began at once to build a house the first in Valletta in the centre of the high
ground above St. Elmo occupied by one of the Turkish batteries during the Siege,
the special interest of this house being that it formed the nucleus of the present
Governor's Palace. Subscriptions for the building of the city had been collected
from all parts of Europe, both from the members of the Order and from the principal
Roman Catholic Sovereigns. The Pope sent not only a contribution in money, but
his chief military engineer, Francesco Laparelli, who resided in Malta for four
years, and designed the fortifications of Valletta. These were completed in the
year 1570, when Laparelli departed, leaving the works, civil, military, and ecclesiastical,
in the hands of a truly remarkable man, Girolamo Cassar, about whom we know very
little. Happily, however the Knights being very business-like individuals in
the matter of galley log-books and minutes of meetings the register of the Council
of the Order records for May 18, 1581, as follows: 'The Grand Master, Jean Levesque
de la Cassiere, certifies that Girolamo Cassar, of the Maltese nation, Ordinary
Architect and Engineer of the Order, during many years lent his services in the
said capacity, from 1565 to 1581.' After mentioning his services during the Siege,
it goes on to say: 'Girolamo Cassar was one of the engineers under whose directions
Valletta was built. The designs for the seven auberges are his; that of the magisterial
palace; and the most remarkable of all his works is the Church of St. John.'
A list of buildings designed by Cassar here follows, including several churches
in Valletta, and the fortress palace called the Tower of Verdala. It is interesting
to notice that Cassar was succeeded as Chief Engineer to the Order by his son
Vittorio Cassar, several of whose military works remain in the watch towers
placed round the coast of Malta and Gozo.
The architecture of Malta, or rather that part seen in the official buildings
of the Order, has been described as Renaissance, to which a certain Doric sobriety
has been added, in keeping with the originally monastic foundation of the Order.
In the other buildings, civil and ecclesiastical, built for and by the Maltese
themselves, a noted architect has written that a curious similarity is found
between the architecture and that of some of the Belgian towns, which is explained
by the presence of the Spaniard, for, as has been mentioned, a Spanish Sovereign
held Malta for the two centuries preceding the coming of the Order. Spanish architects
in great numbers were in all probability employed upon the city of Valletta.
'Those peculiarly licentious forms of Renaissance art,' says Mr. Ingress Bell,
'which are distinctive of Spain those defiant, discursive, curly-wurly doorways
and dressings, which are plentiful in Antwerp have their exact counterparts in
Valletta.' Their influence is said to extend even to the balconies, which are
held to be the Spanish miradores, themselves but modifications of the Oriental
moncharbis, supported upon solid brackets of stone and closed with gratings.
The Spanish design is certainly seen in the private houses of Valletta. Here
is a description of a Valletta house given by Bedford: A vaulted vestibule
leads into the courtyard of the mansion sometimes closed by folding-doors with
a wicket for entrance, sometimes by a high wooden gate, the object of which is
to keep out the goats driven along the street to be milked by a picturesque herdsman,
in half-seafaring guise, straight into your milk jug a touch of nature which
modern science, finding in the goat's milk the medium of infection of the dreaded
Malta fever, will shortly banish from the scene. The courtyard is sometimes planted
with shrubs or else simply paved, but always has a well. There is often a mezzanine
floor, with a distinct entrance and tenancy, let to persons in humble station.
The rooms of this tenement have no chimneys nor ventilation except from the front,
and the cooking of the occupants is done upon the balcony in a little square
stone oven. The ordinary rooms of the house are often palatial and always lofty,
on an average eighteen feet high, and approached by a broad, handsome staircase,
generally going round the four walls of the hall a welcome change from that found
in the ordinary English house.
Some short allusion must be made to the three buildings which recall, above
others, the days and doings of the Knights. St. John's, originally the conventual
church of the Order, but now ranking equally with the Cathedral of the Bishop
in Notable and called in consequence the 'Co-Cathedral,' stands in a rectangular
block of buildings which includes the Palaces of the Treasurer, and the Grand
Prior, and the Campo Santo, the burying-place of the Order. The principal entrance
is in Strada San Giovanni, by the great doorway between the two unpretentious
towers, which is usually protected by a heavy leathern curtain, like those in
Italian churches, which can only be moved aside by a muscular effort on the part
of those entering. The gorgeous pavement immediately attracts attention, formed
as it is of over 400 armorial bearings in a mosaic of marbles and rare stones
'the sprawling, heraldic devices of the dead gentlemen of the dead Order, as
if in the next world they expected to take rank in conformity with their pedigrees,
and would be marshalled into heaven according to the orders of precedence.' So
remarked the cynical Thackeray, Grand Cross Knights alone being granted burial
in the nave, and Grand Masters alone Oliver Starkey excepted in the vault under
the High Altar.
The most striking thing about the nave is its enormous width of 51 feet greater
than that of St. Paul's and its length of 187 feet. In the transepts are seven
chapels, each devoted to a particular Langue, filled with artistic treasures
and memorials amply suggesting the commanding power of the departed Order. The
Oratory Chapel, in which the novices were instructed, contains a fine painting
of the decollation of St. John the Baptist, by Caravaggio, signed with the letters
M.A.C., which are traced, such was the painter's vanity, in the blood trickling
from the saint's neck. Caravaggio visited Malta in 1608. He is known to have
painted the famous portrait of Vignacourt in the Louvre, and to have killed a
Knight in a duel for saying it did not do the Grand Master justice. The ceiling
of the church is barrel-vaulted, and entirely covered with frescoes by Mattia
Preti, called Il Calabrese, giving the history of the life of St. John the Baptist,
in which the figures stand out in wonderful relief. Preti, who is said to have
spent thirty-eight years of his life upon this work, came to Malta in 1657, at
the invitation of the Grand Master Cottoner, from Rome, where he had just completed
his famous frescoes in Sant' Andrea della Valle. He lies buried in St. John's
Church, the ceiling of which is, perhaps, his masterpiece. A quaint conceit,
showing the growing artificiality of Preti's age, is seen in the daughter of
Herodias, who is depicted in the fresco dancing before Herod, while hovering
in the air above the damsel is a demon engaged in working her limbs by strings
in the manner of a marionette. The grand embellishment of the Church of St.
John's is, of course, the tapestry, consisting of twenty-eight pieces in all,
which completely cover the sides of the church. They were presented in 1697 by
the Grand Master Perellos, and prepared from designs of Preti by the famous brothers
De Vos of Brussels. Unfortunately, these wonderful works of art rarely appear
to public view, save for a few days in the year in summer, when everyone is out
of Valletta. The effect of these tapestries when in position, in strict harmony
with the painted vault of the ceiling, is nothing short of a riot of colour and
florid design, perhaps anywhere unequalled.
Among the things the sightseer must not miss are the silver railings of the Chapel of Our Lady of Philermos, saved from the spoiling hands of the French by a clever coat of paint; the modern effigy in the Chapel of France of the Comte de Beaujolais, brother of Louis Philippe; and two statues of an African and an Asiatic by Bernini, who also designed the High Altar.
The Governor's Palace is an outwardly severe two-storied building, presenting
inside a maze of courtyards, colonnades, and corridors, filled with frescoes
and pictures illustrating the history of the Knights. In the Palace is the Armoury
of the Order, containing over 4,000 pieces, most of which did service in the
Great Siege. They have recently been catalogued by Mr. Guy Laking. Relics of
the days of chivalry are to be found in a baton of La Valletta; the sword and
dress of Dragut (Turgut Reis 1485 – 23 June 1565; an Ottoman Admiral);
the original act of donation of the islands of Malta, Gozo, and the fortress
of Tripoli to the Order; and the trumpet on which was sounded the retreat of
the Knights from Rhodes in 1522. The present ballroom has witnessed sterner scenes
than the vagaries of the 'Boston' or the mystic mazes of the valse. In this room,
then ornamented with red damask and large mirrors, was held, upon the night of
June 10 to 11, 1798, the last Council of the Order, at which presided the Grand
Master Ferdinand von Hompesch, in biretta and black robe, seated on the throne
decorated in crimson and gold, beneath a large crucifix. The Bishop of Malta,
the Prior of St. John's, and the Vice-Chancellor were seated at a black ebony
table, drafting terms which they fondly imagined they could offer to the French.
Here they received on the morning of the 11th the Chief of Brigade General Junot,
first aide-de-camp of Napoleon, who made them sign 'a suspension of arms,' during
which the surrender of the fortress was to be arranged on board LS Orient between
Napoleon and the Deputies of the Order. In this room, also, the remains of Sir
Alexander Ball lay in state, his death having taken place at Sant' Antonio in
October, 1809. The room was draped in black and white, and at one end was placed
the coffin, upon which lay the gold sword and medal presented to him in 1800
by the devoted Maltese to commemorate the surrender of Valletta.
One other building must be mentioned the Hospital built by the Order at the
end of Strada Mercanti. It contains the longest hospital ward in the world 503
feet long, 50 feet wide, and 30 feet high and is used today as a military hospital.
The Knights observed to the last one of the original rules of their Order in
maintaining, and personally attending, this Hospital. Their methods were scarcely
in accordance with modern ideas. They relieved the darkness of the interior (it
had very small windows) by great tapestries, which must have made a snug home
for many malignant germs; they served the patients upon silver, and filled the
ward with heavy furniture. Even today the place is a dismal one, and dreaded
by the soldiers who are sent there; and it stands in a very bad situation, being
exposed to the enervating Scirocco.
The reader who wearies of the many memorials of the past presented at each
turn in the buildings of Valletta and the Three Cities may turn for relief to
the beautiful gardens, such as the Argotti or Sa Maison, each called after a
Bailiff of the Order; or the Maglio, which is called after the game of handball
formerly played here, and now turned into a finely planted promenade its history
in this respect resembling that of the Mall in London or the Giardino Botanico,
all these being in the suburb of Floriana. In the country Palace of Sant' Antonio,
too, fine gardens will be found, with palms and all types of tropical foliage;
and at Verdala, a palace built like an Italian fortalice, there is the wood called
Boschetto, planted by the Grand Master Verdala as a deer-park.
One may follow the country roads lined in spring and summer, before the fierce
August sun has parched them up, with all sorts of wild flowers, geraniums, the
deep red thorn-rose, clumps of the dark carob tree, and occasional cypresses
passing through orange and lemon groves, vineyards, gardens of figs, peaches,
pomegranates, medlars, apricots and pears. Farther afield, a climb to the top
of the Bengemma Hills will give a view of fields green with wheat, barley, and
cumin, or streaked red with clover. The countryside from this height presents
the appearance of a chess board, the small fields and gardens being carefully
enclosed by high walls or terraced at different levels to prevent the wind and
the rain sweeping them away, so thin is the layer of soil. One cannot, indeed,
escape the stone. Malta has been described as a mason's earthly paradise, being
in reality one vast quarry, the verdure with which it is covered in spring and
early summer being due to the untiring energy of the inhabitants, the peasants
in the country, like those in Gozo, living by agriculture, exporting to England
and elsewhere early potatoes, beans, onions, melons, figs, oranges, especially
blood oranges, and lemons.
Thus the Isles of Calypso abound with many interests over and above the fortifications,
fever, and lace, with which alone they are frequently associated.
>>
Next - Malta's Social life in 1910
