nt just spoken of is a good-looking body of
well-drilled men, though lacking the _esprit de corps_ of English-born
soldiers. This regiment is officered by Englishmen, and is called the
Royal Maltese Fencibles, being mostly employed to man the outlying forts
of the group.

We may be permitted a few words upon the subject of the garrison of
Malta. One watches with special interest the soldiery of various
nationalities. The author has seen the representatives of the English
army in Egypt, China, Ceylon, Aden, and in all of the colonies of Great
Britain except those of Africa. The men are, on an average, far too
youthful for military service. Such boyish applicants would not pass
examination for enlistment in our American army as we find enrolled in
the English regiments here. Large numbers are under seventeen years.
Even Lord Wolseley, in a late published report, admits this glaring
defect of the British service. In round numbers, the English army
consists of two hundred and ten thousand men of all arms, half of which
number is kept at home, that is, in England, while over seventy thousand
are stationed in India, and thirty-two thousand in various colonies. The
empire of India is an expensive plaything, which the people of Great
Britain support for the amusement of the Queen and the pride of the
nation. The seventy thousand soldiers distributed over that widespread
territory are hardly able to keep the natives in subjection. To
maintain her grasp upon India, as we all know, has cost England rivers
of blood and mountains of treasure, though she has no more legitimate
right to possess the land than she has to Norway and Sweden.

Sweeping pestilence and frequent wars have not seemed to interfere
materially with the rapid increase of the population of Malta.
Visitations of the cholera and the plague have at different times
created great havoc with human life in the group. So late as 1813,
thousands of the inhabitants fell victims to the much-dreaded plague,
brought hither from the East, where the seeds of the scourge seem to be
only slumbering when they are not bringing forth fatal fruit. The local
records of the devastation of the plague in Malta are terribly forlorn,
dreary, and saddening, and characterized by the calmness and dignity of
despair. Since that experience, strict quarantine measures have been
enforced, especially toward vessels coming from Egypt. Many travelers
who have visited this group of islands have been o