those days among people of the East. According to the authority from
which we have just quoted, Malta was in 1530 "intensely dry and hot,
with not a forest tree, and hardly a green thing to rest the eye upon."
This barren waste, however, was destined in the course of a few years to
put on a very different aspect, and to become an attractive example of
fertility and fruitfulness; in fact, a depot of vast importance, by the
exercise of energy and engineering skill.

The material improvements thus introduced, together with the protection
from foreign enemies which the Maltese gained, was to be considered with
many qualifications. Magdalen asylums and foundling hospitals, to which
priests and Knights could recommend their favorites for shelter, became
most suspiciously numerous. The inference is only too plain. The native
population, as usual, emulated not the virtues, but the vices of the
new-comers. That the group must have flourished greatly under the
Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, and Romans, there are plenty of
monuments still extant to prove; but under the Arabs and Sicilians it
had gradually declined, until the period when it came into possession of
the Knights of St. John, who began promptly to restore its fallen
fortunes, though, as has been intimated, at the expense of the morals of
the people.

The galleys of the order did not lie idle after the fraternity had
become fairly settled at Malta. They were promptly put in fighting
condition, and constantly swept the neighboring seas, capturing prizes
in all directions, even seeking the Turkish craft at the very mouth of
the Dardanelles, and the Algerines on their own coast. The Knights
filled the fighting ranks of the crews in their ships with Maltese, who
were admirable sailors, and reliable for all sorts of sea-service. A
score of Knights were quite sufficient to man each galleon, aided by a
hundred or thereabouts of the trained seamen of the island. The slaves
at the oars were not depended upon to act as belligerents, nor were the
few hands who managed the sails and the running gear of the vessels. The
Maltese had long before signalized themselves for valor and skillful
seamanship under their own commanders, by capturing the entire Venetian
fleet, together with Andrea Dandolo, the admiral who commanded it. At
another time they destroyed the large flotilla of the Republic of Pisa,
and thus raised the siege and blockade of Syracuse. Though the
protection afford