ootsteps of their forefathers, and
ignored all experiments, however promising. But tangible results were
convincing, and so steady improvement followed the efforts of the
Knights to enlighten the dull native brain.

It was the beginning of a new era for this isolated people. The spirit
of neglect which had so long reigned supreme upon the group was now
superseded by another instinct with life and enterprise. Though the
natives had not sufficient intelligence to originate ideas, yet when
placed before their eyes they could appreciate and adopt them. The mass
of the people seemed neither to know nor to care about the government
under which they lived, provided they did not experience any personal
harm or undue restrictions at the hands of those in power. They appeared
to be content so long as they were permitted to join in the almost daily
church processions and festivals, always remembering and demanding the
utmost freedom at recurrence of the annual Carnival. They entertained no
spirit of loyalty except towards themselves and their hereditary forms
and ceremonies. This was nearly four hundred years ago, but almost
precisely the same spirit prevails among the Maltese to-day.

At the time when the Knights first came hither, Malta was hardly
fortified at all. True, Fort St. Angelo existed in name, and it mounted
a few small guns, but a score of Algerine pirates could have landed and
taken possession, so far as any protection was afforded by this apology
for a fort.

The thin layer of soil which covered the rocks of the island here and
there was hardly sufficient to till, and no extensive effort at
agriculture or gardening seems to have been made by the natives before
the Knights came to Malta, or at least not for centuries. In any other
hands save those of this thrifty and determined semi-military
organization, the island would have been but a sorry gift. It is
described by a popular writer of that period as being "nothing better
than a shelterless rock of soft sandstone called tufa." Subsistence for
the dwellers upon the group, with the exception of fish, which were
plenty enough, was brought almost entirely from Sicily, or the mainland.
Frequent invasions of Saracens and Turks, continued for so many years,
had devastated the islands, discouraging and impoverishing the natives,
large numbers of whom had been carried away by the invaders and sold
into slavery. This was the usual mode of disposing of prisoners of war
in