The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1892-03-05
hut by tho shore and see tho red.coats
nc more toreyer!p
A plrfERESr GRIEF.

no more lOEeSer! ..ss Ng
A DIFFERENT GRIEF.
The grief Of my Tunisian fellow pas
senger was OF a different sort, though it
was mono the less real and poignant;
but 1t was mitigatcd also by the ianati.
cal belief that somctimetho Mussulman
iaitl, aud folk will prevail and rule all
lands.
christian pillage and dcspoilation,n
no wonld feelIngly say, "hayc been the
real motive OF every so.Called holy cru.
SADIE and expedition against us whom.
you call lniidcls,' but who alone worship
tho ono true God. The English havo
proGted greatest by conquest under COW
or OF pious pretencc."
called his attention to the fact that
with tho exception OF Eugland's quasi
occupation Of Egypt to secure payment
Tor monies advanced by English capt.
talists in connection with tho Suez
Canal scheme, and tho recent establish
ment OF u trading post ut: Cape Judy,
on the west Morocco coast, Great Brit
ian didnot claim to possess, or hold, Il
foot OF soil to which any Mussu!man
race lad tho slightest possible hereli-
tary right.
"Ah, but Gibraltar!-Malla"
This would bo uttered in passionate
exclamation aud with his face rs hate.
full as u ilend's.
''Thcy were oncc ours, with Andaluz,
and gave us the empire OF all Africa md
supremacy upon the Mediterranean"
"Surely, but only through invasion
and butchery," ! replied, marrying him
n little. "Simply for pillagc the Barber
invader, Tarik, took Gibraltar and over
ran Southern Spain in III; with tho
same purpose your Berber ancestors, in
79S, took possession OF and held the
Balearic Islands, for $50 years ; and
about q thousand years ago you seized
and held Malta until the .Normans dis.
possessed you. Moslem rights were not
deprived by your expulsion from lands
where you did not belong"
"But our imperial Barbary is cut into
pieces. We are no more a mighty peo-
pie. Our temples and our treasures are
gone!" he ~passionately ratorted.
$50 arc your pirates and slaves;' l
persisted unfeclingly. "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 extirpato any religion
or race that depriyes the lowliest of sit
followers and people, men or women, OF
equal Justice
He would not dwell upon this sim
piled contrast between Christianity
and Mohamedanism, but continually
bewailed the English possession Of Glib
raltar and Malta MS q menace to all
Oriental supremacy, and the direct
cause, or permissible cause, OF tho dis.
memberment and appropriation Of
Northern Africa, by Spain, Italy and
France. Ho admitted that its develop.
meut cspeciallygfint Tufts, I'ripoG and
Algeria had been marvellous within the
last quarter OF century; that Gibral-
tar and Malta in the hands OF the Eng
lish guaranteed permanent and peaceful
trade with all the Mediterranean coun-
tries bv the fleets OF the whole world;
and even confessed that without this
very English %stragetic supremacy in
tho ELECTROMAGNETIC safety with
his hides and wheat, in transit from
Tunis to any neiGhborng port, would
be extremely p%roblematic il not alto
gether improbable.
MALTA.
In such unusual converse with these
strange folk the voyage from2Palma to
Malta was passed.. ] was often&able to
lead the momentary topic from Moors
to Maltese, and thus secured much val
liable information concerning the real
as well as tho sentimental condition OF
the latter. Two very interesting facts
developed through the apparent extra
ordinary hatred OF English rulers by
the captain and sTunisian, Gnd their
seeming equal mutual affection for the
common people OF Malta, the folk who
were its peasantry even before its days
OF chivalry under tho olden Knight OF
Malta whose deeds and fame wero the
most luminous in all medieval history.
The first was the passionate love all
Maltese have for their sterile, sun
baked, sirocco-swept little hump OF rock
to which they cling, and nurture SO low
ingly that it returns them, conditions
being considered, tho most bountcous
and luxuriant rewards of any equal area
on tho face OF the earth. Glover OF
tho earth they call the treeIes spot.
My country adored" they ever name
the easel or village where they are
born. And as "the purgatory" OF pen
ance-spot they know any other land be-
meath tho sun to which necessity has
led them.
Ihave noticed this same almost path
etically desperate affection for ones
birth spot TO be true in other rugged
and sterile abodes OF mon. Nothing
could induce the half-frozen people Of
Labrador to quitthosc regions OF silence
and desolation. Tho Highland crofter
OF Scotland is aspiritless, heart-broken
man when forced from his wild slraths
and elens. Who that has stepped loot
on the Arran Islands, Oft Galway, cver
saw other such pictures Of hopeless
poverty and suffering? Yet for gcner-
ations their people have clnne to tile
rocks, like the dolorous putlins which
nest in their sides amid the Atlantic's
howlings, and no power has been SUI
ticient to tear them away from their
starvation and Indebtedness.
1t was a curious thing, too, to learn
from the Tunisian that the ~peasantry OF
Malta were more Berbor and Arab races
than OF Greek, Italian and Spanish. By
all afinities, save the ono OF religion, he
claimed them as brethren to q man. In
their customs, superstitions and many
OF their homeside ways, rs we'll rs in
nearly all methods, or rather want OF
method, in agriculture they are, he
claimed, precisely like the Berbcr tribe
farmers in tho valleys behind Tunis
and Algiors. But moro striking than
all else, in proof that the Maltese were
his kindrad. Was his claim which / havn