248 DR. HOOKER'S MISSION TO INDIA. 
or her representative in Malta. After all, the street views and 
enormous proportion of nobly-faced buildings are the main 
attractions of Malta. ‘oe 
The harbour is always charming and enlivening, from the 
number of fruit-boats and the beauty of the surrounding waters, 
studded with white-sailed ships of all nations, from noble line-of- 
battle ships, smart frigates, and terrible-looking steamers, down to 
the gay pleasure-boats, and beautiful lateen-rigged vessels of the 
Mediterranean ports. Bands of music are playing all day long: 
they flock under the sterns of all vessels of high degree, such as 
the “Sidon,” playing by turns, for a few coppers, the prettiest 
operatic airs, and remarkably well too. You are awakened in the 
morning by them, and in the evening again they re-assemble. 
On Saturday morning I went on board the “Vengeance,” to 
call on young Beaufort, the son of Admiral Beaufort, the 
Hydrographer, (who had come to Malta for health,) and I break- 
fasted with her Captain. We then went ashore, where I bought 
some carved stone for the Geological Museum. In this work 
the natives excel ; and I procured a beautiful fluted pedestal, more 
than a yard high, with an elaborately sculptured vase of doves, 
ivy-leaves, and flowers, for twenty shillings. Afterwards we rode 
out into the country to the ancient capital, Medina, or Città 
Vecchia, as it is now called. The country is everywhere flat, and 
wofully barren, consisting of ledges of limestone rock, with scarcely 
any native vegetation, and here and there rudely ploughed and | 
sown with wheat and vegetables. The number of churches — 
is remarkable: in our six miles’ ride I did not see fewer than 
ten or a dozen, all very large, and abounding inside with — 
wax effigies of our Saviour and Saint Paul, rudely painted, — 
and very frightful to behold. Every hamlet has its church ; and 
any one of the latter would hold half the population of Malta. 
Stone-cutting and carving is indeed the besetting employment of 
the Maltese; and the facility afforded by the limestone has the 
same effect on this their hereditary disposition, that a soft deal 
bench has on a school-boy. At Città Vecchia there 1s little of D 
note, but a huge church, some curious catacombs, and an extensive — 
