old quickly, like the women of
the fellah class in Egypt, who when young are really beautiful,
exquisite in form and graceful in every movement, but who fade rapidly
under the cares of maternity and the labor of the fields. The
occupations of the Maltese women, however, are of a far less wearing
nature.

One never wearies of wandering about Valletta. There is somehow, amid
the scenes encountered in these quaint streets, a suggestion of the
Arabian Nights which haunts one all the while, only a degree less
forcibly than at Cairo. It would seem to be quite the thing were
Haroun-al-Raschid Grand Master here, accompanied by his favorite
minister Jaafar, and there is ample material from which Ali Baba might
recruit his Forty Thieves. May not this fellow who is crying in Arabic
some mysterious merchandise upon the Strada Reale have new lamps to
exchange for old ones? We only require a score of over-laden donkeys and
a few mournful looking camels to complete the Oriental picture.

CHAPTER IX.

Ophthalmia.--Profusion of Flowers.--Inland Villages.--
Educational Matters.--Public Amusements.--Maltese Carnival.
--Italian Carnival.--Under English Rule.--No Direct
Taxation.--Code of Laws.--A Summer Palace.--Governor-General
Smyth.--San Antonio Gardens.--Wages.--Oranges.--Life's
Contrasts.--Swarming Beggars.--Social Problem.--Churches
crowded with Riches.--Starving Population.--A Mexican
Experience.

Nearly every locality which is visited by travelers is found to have
some special annoyance which is active in its warfare upon humanity.
Thus diseases of the eye prevail among the common people of Malta as
they do in Egypt, a trouble in both countries which is caused by the
fervor of the sun's rays and the general lack of shade, not forgetting
also an evident want of cleanliness. The author has seen native
camel-drivers come into Egyptian cities from across the desert quite
blind for the time being from continuous exposure to the sun's rays and
the powerful reflection of the heated sand. The same effect arises from
the yellow stone dwellings of Valletta, and the bare rocks inland
aggravate the prevailing trouble. So Arctic explorers, living amid the
constant glare of the snow-fields, are subject to ophthalmia, an
affliction which they guard against by wearing snow-goggles. In the
Maltese capital, as in Cairo, there is a fine dust permeating the
atmosphere when the wind blows, c