lleys, and nourishes its sweet-scented
orange-groves, was imported from richer lands; yet, notwithstanding
this, a larger number of inhabitants of every religion, colour, and
costume, continue to exist on its surface, than on any similar-sized
portion of the globe. But in its capital, Valetta, with its magnificent
fortifications, and superb harbour, are centred its chief attractions,
and which have gained for it a name imperishable on the page of history
as the bulwark of Christendom, against the pagan hosts of the Saracens.

But as my tale is with the present rather than with the past, I will not
stop to describe how, when it was called Mileta, Saint Paul landed on
the island,--how the Vandals and Goths took possession of it, and were
driven out by Belisarius,--how in 1530, the Knights of Saint John of
Jerusalem, driven away from Rhodes, here settled,--how they built a
fortress which withstood the mighty army of the Turks, and how those
gallant gentlemen hurled back the infidels defeated and disgraced,--how
they at length degenerated, and its inhabitants, deceived by treachery
from within and without their gates, yielded their liberty to the great
enemy of Europe, Buonaparte, and were unmercifully ill-treated, and
pillaged,--and how, in the year 1800, with the the aid of an English
fleet and a small English army, they drove out their conquerors, and put
themselves under the protection of Great Britain.

How Mr Cameron was first Civil Commissioner, and was succeeded by Sir
Alexander Ball, a man justly endeared to the inhabitants as the sharer
of their toils and victory,--how he was followed by Sir Hildebrand
Oakes, after whom reigned, as their first Governor, for eleven years,
commencing in 1813, Sir Thomas Maitland, called by irreverent lips, King
Tom; a gallant soldier, and the terror of ill-doers, on whose decease
the Marquis of Hastings and General Ponsonby successively became chiefs.

It was during the time that one of the three last-mentioned governors
ruled the land, that the events I am about to narrate took place, and as
it is in the capital, Valetta, and its magnificent harbour, that our
scene more particularly lies, it is somewhat important that the reader
should have them described to him.

Valetta is situated on that side of the island which faces the
north-east, though towards the southern end of it. The harbour is of a
very peculiar shape, and if the reader should not happen to possess a
chart of it,