Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-11-15

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British fleet.
Assuredly there are English at Malta.
There is a Governor lodged in the ancient
palace OF tee Grand Master. there is an
admiral to look after the fleet aud the har-
0Ors, and a garrison of from four to five
thousand men; but there are Italians
who wish to be considered at home,
a floating cosmopolitan population as
at Gibraltar, and there are, OF course,
Maltese.
The Maltese are Africans. In the har-
bors they work their brightly-eolored
boats, in the streets they drive their We
hieles down the widest slopes, in the
markets they deal in fruits, vegetables,
meats, fish, making a deatening uprOar
under the lamp of some small sacred
daub. 1t is said that all the men are
alike, copper in color, with black, slightly
woolley hair, with piercing eyes, aud ro-
/ bust and of medium height. Ii seems as
/ though all the women We're OF the same
/ family, with large eyes and long lashes,
dark hair, charming hands, supple fg-
ures, and skin OF a wniteness that the
sun cannot touch beneath the "talzetta,"
sort of black silk mantle worn in Tuni-
sian fashion, common to all classes, and
/ Which answers at the same time for
/ head-dress, mantle, and even ian.
The Maltese have the mercantile in
stinct. Everywhere they are found doing
/ a trade. Hard working, thrifty. econOm-
/ &c, industrious, sober, but violent, vim
/ dictiVe and jealous, it is among the lower
classes that they are best worth study
/ ing. They speak dialect OF which the
/ base is Arabic, the result OF the conquest
which followed the fall of tn. Roman en-
/ pire, Il language animated and pictur-
esque, lending itself easily to metaphor
and TO poetry. They are good sailors when
/ you can keep them, aud bold fishermen
/ whom their frequent storms have tamil-
/ iariZed with danger.
/ 1t was IN this island that Luigi pur-
sued his calling with as much audacity as
! il he had been a Maltese, and here he had
/ lived for nearly fifteen years with his Sis
ter Maria.
Naletts and its suburbs, we said.
There are really six towns on the two
harbors of the Grand Marse and the
Quarantine, Floriana, La Seuglea, La
I CospiQua, La Nittoriosa, La Sliema, La
Misida, are hardly suburbs, nor even
mere assemblages of houses inhabited by
the poorer classes; they are regular cities
with sumptuous mansions, hotels and
churches, worthy Of a capital which
boasts some twenty-five thousand in
habitauts.
1t was at Valetta that the brother and
| sister lived. IL would perhaps be more
| correct to say under Naletta,' for II was
in kind OF subterranean quarter known
as the ManderaggiO, the entrance to
which is on the ouada san Marco, that
they had found a lodging suitable, for
their slender means; and 10 was into this
/ hypOgeum that Luigi led the doctor as
soon as the yacht was mOOred.
After declining the services Of the hun
dreds OF boats that surrounded them they
landed on the quay. Entering by the
Marine Gate, and deaiened by the peal
ing and ringing OF the bells which hover
Ike sonOrous atmosphere over the
Maltese capital, they passed beneath the
double casemsted fort, and mounted first
a steep slope and then naI row staircase.
Between the high houses with their
greenish miradoTes and inches with
lighted lamps they arrived before the
| cathedral of st. John, and mingled with
a crowd Of the noisiest people in the
world.
When they had reached the back of this
hill, a little lower than the cathedral,
they began their decent towards the
Quarantine harbor; there in the Strada
san Marco they stopped midway before a
staircase which wentOtt to the right, down
into the depths.
The ManderaggiO runs along under the
ramparts with narrow streets where the
sun never shines, high yellow walls ir-
regularly pierced with innumerable holes.
which do duty as windows, some of them
grated and most of them unguarded.
Everywhere round about are flights OF
steps leading to YertabIe sewers, low
gateways, humid, sOrdid, like the houses
OF a kasbah, miserable cOurtyards, and
gloomy tunnels, are hardly worthy Of the
name OF lanes. And at every opening,
every bra athing-place, on the landings,
the crumbling fOOtpaths, lrightiul
ruined population, OF old women with
faces like sOrceresses, Of mothers dirty
and pallid and worn through the poison
Gus atmosphere, daughters OF all ages IN
rags and tatters, boys half naked, sicklY,
wallOwing in the filth, beggars with every
variety OF disease ana defOrmity, men.
pOrters, or fisher folk, OF savage look
capable OF everything evil-and among
this human swarm a few pnlegmatic
policemen, accustomed to the hopeless
crowd, and not only familarized but
familiar with i'll A true Court OF Mira
clas, but transported into strage under
work, the last TamifcatiOns Of which
opened on to the curtain walls on The
level Of the Quarantine quay swept by the
sun and the sea breeze.
1t was in one Of the houses In this
ManderaggiO, but IN the upper portion OF
II, that, Maria and Luigi FerTatO lived in
two rooms. The doctor was struck with
the poverty OF the miserable lodging and
| also with its neatness. Inc hand OF the
careful hOusekeeper again showed itself
as it had done in the house Of the fisher
man Of Rovgno.
As the doctor entered, Maria rose,
saying to her brother, "My child! my
| LuigiV
From which it can be imagined what
had been her anguish during the torment
Of the previous night.
Luigi embraced his sister, and intro
duced his friends.
The doctor related In a few words how
Luigi had risked his life 10 save a
ship in distress, and at the sametimes
he mentioned Pierre as the son Of stephen
BathOry.
While he spoke, Maria looked at him
/ with 20 much attention and even emotion
that he feared for a moment she had re-
coQnized him. But IL was only q flash
/ that vanished from her eyes almost i'm
mediately. After fifteen years how was
il possible for her TO recognize man who
had only been ia her fathers house for a
few hours?
Andrea FerratO's daughter was then
thirty-tnree years Old. she had always
been beautiful owing 10 the purity other
features and the bright expression OF her
large eyes. The white streaks here and
there in her raven hair showed that she
had suffered less from the length than
from the severity OF her life. AGE had
nothing 10 DO with this prec0ci0us grey
ness which was due entirely 90 the
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