wn as La Torre de
Giganti, "the Giant's Tower," which is probably the remains of a
prehistoric sacred temple, whose builders bowed before the image of
Baal. The careful study of antiquarians points to the fact of its having
been formerly the temple of Astarte, the Phoenician Venus. There are
others who attribute this ancient monument to a people who inhabited the
group before the nomadic tribes of Tyre and Sidon formed a colony in
Malta. This singular edifice, be its original purpose what it may, is
constructed of stones laid in a very skillful manner, no mortar being
used. The builders must have possessed admirable and efficient tools;
there is evidence enough to prove this in the careful finish shown in
many places. They must also have used powerful machinery to properly
adjust such heavy blocks in place. The great antiquity of the Giant's
Tower is undisputed. Its style antedates both the Greek and the Roman
examples which have been spared to us, and it is plainly the work of a
primitive people. It is situated on an eminence not far from Casal
Shaara, and forms a large inclosure with walls of great thickness. In
shape it is a circular tower open at the top, not unlike the "Towers of
Silence" which form the Parsee edifices near Bombay used for the
disposal of the dead. In this tower at Gozo, doubtless, the rites of
fire were celebrated; human victims were probably sacrificed here, and
their bodies burned. Fire, it will be remembered, was the symbol under
which ancient tribes worshiped the sun. The character of this tower is
also emphasized by a carved serpent cut in the solid stone, an emblem of
religious veneration among the ancient people of the East. Egyptian gods
were often represented with the bodies of serpents.

Even in our day, certain sects among the Japanese venerate this reptile
as sacred. In Benares, India, bulls, elephants, and monkeys are held to
be representatives of divinity. The author has seen in the Temple of
Honan, at Canton, China, a pen of "sacred" hogs! In the sincere struggle
to find some element as representative of the Great and Good, before
which to bow down and worship, for these singular devotional freaks seem
to be the outcome of such a purpose, one would think that the wildest
fanaticism must surely stop short of such excessive grossness.

Touching this most interesting Gozo tower, which it is not unreasonable
to say may have stood here for some three thousand years, it shows that
the bu