ough Vallette
did not live long enough to see it reared to its present attractive
completeness, still the stamp of his genius, as shown in the grandeur of
its architecture, its palaces, churches, hospitals, and fortifications,
is his most lasting and appropriate monument. So rapidly did the
building of the new city progress after it was begun, that it is said to
have been practically completed in six years. To accomplish this,
hundreds of able mechanics and skilled artisans were brought from Italy
and other parts of Europe. If these stones, whose surfaces three
centuries have so wrinkled with age, could but speak, what interesting
facts might be revealed by them to illumine this period of the world's
history! We have famous telescopes which enable us to search out the
characteristics of far-away Mars. Would we could turn one of these giant
lenses upon the olden days in Malta, and obtain a tableau of its history
with photographic fidelity!

CHAPTER III.

The Maltese Group.--Comino.--Cave Life.--Verdant Gozo.--Isle
of Filfla.--Curious Lizards.--Loss of an Ironclad.--Mysterious
Wheel-Tracks.--Earthquakes.--Population.--Military Depot.--
Youthful Soldiers.--Quarantine.--Arrival of the Knights.--
Immorality.--Harbor Defenses.--Land Fortifications.--Charming
Photographic View.--The Stars and Stripes Abroad.--The Eight-
Pointed Maltese Cross.--Peculiar Sunset Scene.

We speak of Malta in the singular, which is the conventional form;
official documents say Malta and its dependencies, it being the name
which is also most commonly used to designate the capital; but it should
be understood that the Maltese group consists of three considerable
islands, namely, Malta, Gozo, and Comino. The latter lies midway in the
channel which separates the other two. Comino is nearly circular,
measures four miles across its surface, and contains some large and
curious caves, also a fort which was built in 1618. There are a few huts
in which the poor peasants reside, who labor on the soil, and send
fabulous numbers of watermelons to Valletta. It would seem that this
circumscribed bit of earth, or, more properly speaking, rock, breaking
the surface of the Straits of Freghi, was formerly considered to be of
more importance than it is in our day. One ancient author mentions it
under another name, that of Hephaestia, which means the island of Vulcan.
In the Middle Ages Comino was a very nest of Sara