1894] Malta and Count Strickland 163 



towns inland as far as Ghadames, but the policing of the country 

 district is done by the Arabs. They say these inland districts are fairly 

 secure for native travellers, but a great caravan, which started for 

 Wadai in the far south two years ago with £40,000 worth of goods, 

 was plundered there by Rabagh Ibn Zebeyr when he attacked Wadai 

 last year, and none of the merchants have yet returned. This has 

 caused great lamentation and distress in Tripoli. 



" We weighed anchor in the afternoon for Malta, there being no 

 direct steam communication between Tripoli and Egypt. 



" yth November: — We arrived off Malta by daylight, and got inside 

 the harbor at Valetta by nine o'clock, certainly a splendid place. I 

 called at once on Count Strickland, to whom Terence had given me a 

 letter. I was surprised to find him quite a young man, he is thirty- 

 four, and he reminded me that we had met already at Cambridge, when 

 he was an undergraduate and one of the chief officials of the Union 

 and I was down there with John Dillon only seven years ago ; now he has 

 been for six years secretary to the Malta Government, a post of no 

 small political importance, he being half a Maltese, through his mother, 

 a Countess della Catena, and having married De la Warr's eldest 

 daughter, Lady Edeline Sackville. I found him very busy preparing 

 for a debate on the estimates in the Maltese Legislative Council, an 

 annual event, the principal political one of the year. 



" The Council was to meet at half-past two, and he took me there 

 with him to attend the debate, an interesting display. The Governor, 

 Sir Arthur Freemantle, was in the chair, the six official members to 

 his left, the fourteen elected members to his right, three or four benches 

 at the end of the chamber being for the public. I was given an arm- 

 chair behind the Governor's. The Council Chamber is a splendid room, 

 and the ceremonial was dignified, but with a certain air of unreality 

 as in a debating club, though it was an important occasion, for politics 

 are running high in Malta just now. The leader of the opposition, 

 Savona, is a man of about fifty, keen-eyed, alert, professional, remind- 

 ing me a little of Freycinet. He knows English well, and made his 

 attacks sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, for both languages 

 are used optionally, the more animated speeches being in Italian. 

 There seemed to be a very full liberty of speech, but no applause or 

 dissent of the kind that makes our House of Commons a babel. To 

 me it was most interesting, as the questions treated turned on Consti- 

 tutional right, and were dealt with ably and with passion. Savona on 

 some previous occasion had been taunted by an official member with 

 having allowed the Estimates to pass untouched, and he was determined 

 now to reduce this year's on certain points in protest against an in- 

 fringement made three years before by an order of the Colonial Gov- 

 ernment of the Maltese Constitution. Elected members had been de- 



