Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1892-04-02
wAKEMAN,s wANDERINGs.

'" "
Malta and the Maltese-Malta Trans
formed From n Barren Rock TO n
Tropical Garden-Infinfte Patience
in Husbandry-Curious Land-Mak-
fng-Peasant Homes and Environ
Bent.
CHIoGGIA, Italy, Feb. 20.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Looking back from within the environ
ment Of the fisher folk OF the Adriatic,
arets of Venice in view across the opaline
waters of the flashing lagoons, the peas
antry of Malta are, to my eyes, set in
fair and sunny perspective.
They are thrifty and virtuous; loyal and
loving; kindly and pious; patient and good.
There is not a land under the sun where
natural conditions have been SO bravely
overcome, and where original sterility has
been SO transformed into permanent fruit
fulness and luxurisnce. Nearly the entire
face of Malta was originally barren des-
ert rock. Save upon minor portion of
Its western slope and within the tiny gar
dens OF the rich, when Charles v. gave it
to the Knights of st. John, there was not
natural soil enough upon the Island. in
which to bury the dead. Perhaps that
may account for Malta's thousands of rock
hewn tombs found in catacombs beneath
towns, cut in all accessible rocky lodges
and projections, or even sunk in surface
levels as have found them. And yet to-
day there is much aptitude in the boast of
the Maltese that their island of stone is
the Fiore del Monde, or "Flower of the
Word;" for it actually supports, from the
products of the soil it possesses, greater
population in proportion to its insignif-
cant area than can elsewhere be found out
side China and Japan.
The accretion of this soil during the
three hundred and sixty years between the
arrival of the knights and tho present day
has been a work of conservation of trifies
majestic in its miserliness and patience,
and is without parallel in economic histo-
~. The incorrect statement has been
made that Malta's entire soil has been
brought in ship-loads from Sicily. Some
uf is hos been But it has been chiefly
brought from all quarters of the globe.
There is no such thing as waste in Malta
The shell of an egg, the chaf packings of
merchandise, the entrails of fish, the
sweepings of ships decks and debris from
their holds, even the exuva of birds. are
all treasured, and these in other lands inf
nitely little and despised things, with the
pnrinnG rpathni nf hr
literally creating rod by rod, tiny addi-
tionsl patch of cultivable land, out of the
very rock of the islands face, has at last
given Malta its splendid luxuriance
Singularly, too, it is practically all hid |
den from sight. You can find it, but you
cannot see it in the general view. There
are few points in the entire island where
from the highways your eyes can rest upon
anything but rock. The road before you,
the walls beside you, the house-walls and
roofs wherever discernable, are all OF
stone. There are places in Cornwall
where for thousand years the earth has
been disemboweled for tin and every pros
pect is upon ridges of stone, blanched
mine refuse and upturned rock. I often
thought of this as 1 tramped along the
Maltese highways. Everywhere one looks
it is as though a surging sea had suddenly
been transformed by miracle of petrifac-
ton into ridges and dikes of pale saffrony
stone. The glare of a midsummer sun
upon such a landscape or rockscspe must
be binding indeed.
This has all come about in the terracing
and diking of the uneven surface of the
island, through the infinite patience and
labor of the Maltese peasantry since the
knights with the monks of their time
taught them how coil might be made to
flow from rocks and honey sucked from
the very stone," as have heard them tell |
in their almost plaintive Arab chants, |
which they are always half grooming and |
half singing when engaged in any manner
of labor.
Nine-tenths of all the cultivated lands
in Malta have been made by actually |
breaking up with pickaxes the surface of
the rock to the depth of nearly two feet,
leveling it, and piling upon this mass the |
same stone reduced to powder, as it is
very soft and easily pulverized, mixed |
with layers of pumice and everything in |
the nature of soil which has for long
time been scraped together and treasured |
against this most important of all times |
with the peasant tenant. To thus reclaim |
and make available another half, or forth, |
or tenth of acre is the proudest act of
the Maltese peasants life.
He has less pride in his wife, his chill
dren or his animals. They have wise
and serious way OF blessing the dead along
these patriotic lines. heard it at Dingli,
where, after mass the peasants were bera-
ting the memory of a mean and miserly
fellow but recently deceased. They said
very unpleasant things about him, until
one who had not previously spoken set the
current the other way in perfect torrent
of praise by the single remark: But
Luegi gave Malta another tumolo (about
one-third of an acre. of landl"
No peasant farmer owns his own land
A nobility grew up under the regime of
the knights which exists to this day. /
thought that of the Bslearic islands insig-
nifcant to the degree of travesty; but the
nobility of Malta are still less in numbers
and Importance. They are styled mar
quises, counts and barons. There are per-
haps a score of them all told; and 1
know of q certain Baltimoresn who con-
trolls twice as many acres of land in the
Highlands of Scotland for shooting"
as they collectively possess. About one
half of the one hundred thousand acres
of cultivable land is owned by these no.
blemen. The remainder is very equally
divided between the church and the Brit
ish crown.
Holdings are nearly all under short,
generally eight-year. leases; but there are
a number of ninety and one hundred year
leases, giving virtual ownership. These
tiny Maltese farms are very small. A
few comprise as many as FIVE salinas, or
about twenty-one acres. The most are
from one to three salinas. And 1 know
of many with no more than three mon
delli, or less than an eighth of an acre
of land in each. The rentals for these,
with all repairs and improvements at the
cost of the peasant tenant, range from
five to twenty dollars per acre.
If the peasants holding is little and
picturesque in its grouping of craggy ter.
snug and picturesque. There is not a
sQualid, poorly built rustic's abode upon