s fine,
and the travellers began to feel the freshness and elasticity of
European air. At length they arrived at Malta, and heard for the first
time for years, the striking of clocks and the ringing of church-bells.
They were at length in Europe. But there is one penalty on the return
from the East, which always puts the stranger in ill-humour. They were
compelled to perform quarantine. This was intolerably tedious,
expensive, and wearisome; yet all things come to an end at last, and,
after about a fortnight, they were set at liberty.

Malta, in its soil and climate, belongs to Africa--in its population,
perhaps to Italy--in its garrison and commerce, to Europe--and in its
manners and habits, to the East. It is a medley of the three quarters of
the Old World; and, for the time, a medley of the most curious
description. The native carriages, peasant dresses, shops, furniture of
the houses, and even the houses themselves, are wholly unlike any thing
that has before met the English eye. Malta, in point of religious
observances, is like what St Paul said of Athens--it is overwhelmingly
pious. The church-bells are tolling all day long. Wherever it is
possible, the cultivation of the ground exhibits the industry of the
people. Every spot where earth can be found, is covered with some
species of produce. Large tracts are employed in the cultivation of the
cotton plant--fruit-trees fill the soil--the fig-tree is
luxuriant--pomegranate, peach, apple, and plum, are singularly
productive. Vines cover the walls, and the Maltese oranges have a
European reputation. The British possession of Malta originated in one
of those singular events by which short-sightedness and rapine are often
made their own punishers. The importance of Malta, as a naval station,
had long been obvious to England; and when, in the revolutionary war,
the chief hostilities of the war were transferred to the Mediterranean,
its value as a harbour for the English fleets became incalculable. Yet
it was still in possession of the knights; and, so far as England was
concerned, it might have remained in their hands for ever. A national
sense of justice would have prevented the seizure of the island, however
inadequate to defend itself against the navy of England. But Napoleon
had no such scruples. In his expedition to Egypt, he threw a body of
troops on shore at Malta; and, having either frightened or bribed its
masters, or perhaps both, plundered the churches of thei