Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-03-05

clamation and with his face as hateful as {
fend's
''They were once ours, with Anduluz
and gave us the empire of all Africa and
supremacy upon the Mediterranean.
s'Surely, but only through invasion and
butchery," replied, marrying him little.
'Simply for pillage the Berber invader,
Tarik took Gibraltar and overran Southern
Spain in I'll; with the same purpose your
Berber ancestors in 1893, took possession of
and held the Balearic Islands for $50 years;
and about 200 years ago you seized and
held Malta until the Normans dispossessed
you. Moslem rights were not deprived by
your expulsion from lands where you did
not belong"
Barbary Cut Into Pieces.
| ssBut our imperial Barbary is cut into
pieces We are no more a mighty people.
| Our temples a1d our treasures are gone p
he passionately retorted.
$50 are your pirates and slaves" I
| persisted unfeelingly. 'Those are the sort
| of things civilization will never again
| tolerate. 1t will never disturb an earnest
and jealous religion; but it will surely
| eventually extirpate any religion or race
that deprives the lowliest of its followers
and people, men or women, of equal JUS
tice'
He would not dwell upon this implied
contrast between Christianity and Mo-
hamedanism, but continually bewailed the
English possession of Gibraltar and Malta as
a menace to all Oriental supremacy, and the
direct cause, or permissible cause, of the
dismemberment and appropriation of
France. He admitted that its de-
velopment especially in Tunis, Tripoli and
Algeria had been marvellous within the
last quarter of a century; that Gibraltar
and Malta in the hands of the English
guaranteed permanent and peaceful trade
with all Mediterranean countries by the
fleets of the whole world; and even con-
fessed that without this very English
stragetic supremacy in the Mediterranean
his own safety with his hides and wheat, in
transit from Tuuis to any neighboring port,
would be extremely problematic if not
altogether improbable.
In such unusual converse with these
strange folk the voyage from Palma to
Malta was passed l was often able to lead
the momentary topic from Moors to NAL
tese, and thus secured much valuable in
formation concerning the real as well as the
sentimental condition of the latter.
Brethren to Man.
1t was a curious thing, too, to learn from
the Tunisian that the peasantry of Malta
were more Berber and Arab races than of !
Greek, Italian and Spanish. By all affni-
ties, save the one of religion, he claimed
them as brethren to man. In their Gus
toms, superstitions and many of their home
side ways, as well as in nearly all methods,
or rather want of method, in agriculture |
they are, he claimed, precisely like the
Rerber tribe farmers in the valleys behind |
1nie Rrfrn vii hoy,
all else, in proof that the Maltese were his |
kindred, was his claim which / have since |
found to be true, that while nearly all spoke |
a sort of English, Italian or Spanish patois, |
every one could at any moment cross into |
Northern Africa and converse with the na- |
tives in a measurably pure Arabic tongue
''We are at Malta, senior. Would you look
upon sleeping Valetta from the sea in the
early morning."
Such was the CHEEKY call of our Captain as
we approached the most famous island of |
the Mediterranean. When 1 reached the |
deck our craft lay a league distant from
port, almost imperceptibly moving toward |
the white island and whittier city over a rip
pleless sea, with sails scarcely filled by the
faintest of breezes which merely whispered |
Of the morning; for the sun seemed to stand |
q tremendous globe of crimson on the sea
horizon, away over there between Greece
and Crete.
My eyes never before beheld so tran
scendent ard radiant a scene. The whole
bosom of the sea seemed enveloped in a
downy mantle of pearl, gold and crimson,
which, lying low upon the water, showed |
countless matchless changes of color and
possessed the added marvellous effect of lift
ing all discernable objects to an unwonting
Our brigantine with other craft here and |
here about us, appeared to ride upon an
opalescent. intangible yet palpable surface
Of softly flaming cloud. Though Sicily lay
30 miles to the north, its shore-line, lifted
vertically, and not in mirage, showed
strangely near, with the huge cone of jEtna
ike spear-head of silver above.
A Beautiful Pen Picture.
But where are the words with which to
paint for another's seeing the island and its
Incient city of the Knights as they rose out
# the pulsing, throbbing tints of that
:lorious morning witchery? If one could
iream that the gods had transformed the |
ga into bed of cameo rose, and, through
ycles of time, with their most cunning |
rtifcers wrought it into miracles of iligree'
md then chiseled upon it white relief of
he islands area, whose wondrous design |
lad illuminated in outlines and detail of
Massive grandeur and matchless simplicity
There the city of fortresses and palaces
TODD, vague hint of this morning scene |
ould come with the dreaming and seeming.
And on this morning as We slowly glided | '
nto the eastern of the two ports, and the
deal gradually resolved into the real, the s
mind, following the imagery of the cameo. i
IS setting, and those who wrought, lovedto '
niger on the thought that those who had q
ullt had left their miracle of labor silent
nd still, as a ghostly and stately housing
Or all who came. Utter silence brooded q
yer the vast bleached battIements. Es- q
arpments. terraces bastions, entablatures 7
nd huge flat roofs were lifeless and still. c
he shipping was fagless, apparently
rewless, and still as though craven s
rom onyx into the picture. Not
n oar stirred the mirroring harbor Not. r
lore still or pregnant with mystery is the I
ybian Sphinx than was every strange OBJ '
,ct upon which the eye might rest Not
1ing having life stirred or was visible, save
hen our craft swung around and tugged
entity at her anchor, the rays of the sun, :
1ooting over Vittoriosa's ramparts, struck .
Ike golden spears upon ST. Elmo's bastions.
hey routed a myriad drowsy jackdaws, q
hich rose in 1ocks and hoarsely screamed. I
his was our only welcome to Malta and
npregnable Valletta. L
EDGAR L. WAKEMAN. 3
/