Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1886-05-28

\ I HE W HEEL"
time for hcad-dress mantle, ana even
fan.
The Maltese have the mercantile
instinct. Everywhere they are found
doing trade. Harl-worlling, thrifty,
economic, industrious, sober but violent,
vindictive and Jealous, it is among the
lower classes that they are best worth
studying. They speak dialect OF which
the base is Arabic, the result of the con-
quest which followed the fall of the
Roman Empire; a language animated
and picturesque, lending itself easily to
metaphor and to poetry. They are good
sailors when you can keep them, and
bold fishermen falniliariZcd with danger
by their frequent storms
1t was in this island that Luigi pur-
sued his calling with us much uudacity
as if he had been Maltese, and here he
had lived for nearly fifteen years will
his sister Maria.
Valetta and its suburbs, we said.
There are really six towns on the Grand
and Quarantine harbors -Floriana, SEN
glca, Bighi, Burmola, Vittoriosa, Sliema,
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 capital which
boasts some twenty-five thousand inhabi-
tants.
1t was mt Valetta that the brother and
sister lived 1t would perhaps be more
correct to say under Naletta," for it
was kind Of subterranean quarter
known as the Manderaggio, the entrance
to which is on the Strada San Marco,
that they had found n lodging suitable
for their slender means and it was into
this hypogeum that Luigi led the Doc
tor as soon as the yacht was moored.
After declining the services of the
hundreds of boats that surrounded them
they landed on the quay Entering 10y
the Marine Gate, and deafened by the
pealing and ringing of the bells which
hover like sonorous atmosphere over
the Maltese capital, they passed beneath
the double casemated fort, and mounted
first steep slope and then narrow
staircase Between the high houses
and their greenish miradores and inches
with lighted lamps they arrived before
the cathedral of St John, and mingled
with crowd of the noisiest people in
the world.
When they had reached the back OF
the hill, little lower than the cathedral,
they began their descent towards the
Quarantine harbor there in the Strada
San Marco they stopped midway before
CT rvlich want off 10 thn WIGHT
down into the depths.
The Manderaggio runs along under
the ramparts with narrow streets where
the sun never shines, high yellow walls
irregularly pierced with innumerable
holes, which do duty as windows some
of them grated and most of them free.
Everywhere round about are flights of
steps leading to veritable sewers, low gate
ways, humid sordid, like the houses Of
o Kasbah, miserable courtyards and
gloomy tunnels, hardly worthy of the
name of lanes. And Mt every opening.
every breathing place, on the ruined
landings and crumbling foot-paths, there
gathers repulsive crowd of old women
with faces like sorceresses mothers
dirty and pallid and worn daughters of
all ages in rags and tatters boys half
naked. sickly, wallowing in the 9Th
bcggars with every variety of disease
and deformity ; men, porters, or fisher
folk, of savage look, capable of every
thing evil-and among this human
swarm a few phlegmatic policemen.
accustomed to the hopeless throng, and
not only familiarized but familiar with
it. A true Court of Miracles, but
transported into n strange underworld
the last qualifications of which open on to
the curtain walls on tho level Of the
Quarantine Harbor, and are swept by
the sun and the sea breeze.
1t was in one of the houses in the
Manderaggio, but in the upper portion
of it, that Maria and Luigi Ferrato lived
in two rooms. The Doctor was struck
with the poverty of the miserable lodg-
ing and also with it's neatness. The
hand of the careful housekeeper again
showed itself. rs it had done in the
house of the fisherman OF Rovigno.
AS the Doctor entered Maria rose
saying to her brother, MY child my
Luigi I"
Luigi embraced his sister, and intro
duced his friends.
The Doctor rotated in few words
how Luigi had rislied his life to save
ship in distress, and ut the same time he
mentioned Pierre rs the son of Stephen