TRAVELS IN BRAZIL, 



35 



first Maltese Christians, who, to escape perse- 

 cution, built a subterraneous town } and the inha- 

 bitants therefore fancy that they can distinguish 

 the church, with the altar and the font, the dwell- 

 ings of the families, with the kitchens, cradles, and 

 tables, hewn in the rock. Others suppose them to 

 have been the repositories of the wounded Christians 

 brought hither during the crusades, or the burying- 

 places of those who died in that period. They 

 place their oiigin in an earlier age ; and consider 

 them to have been made partly to procure stones for 

 building, and partly in conformity with the custom 

 derived from the mother country, Carthage, and still 

 practised in the time of the Romans, to dig such 

 extensive receptacles for the dead. Those who 

 hold this opinion consider the remains of bones 

 sometimes found here to belong to that period. 



Some traces still seem to remain in the features 

 of the Maltese, of the affinity of Malta with old 

 Carthage ; or w^th the Moors, who possessed the 

 island till they were expelled by the Normans. 

 The yellow-brown complexion, — the lank black 

 slovenly hair, and black beard, — the black oblong 

 eyes, — high bushy eyebrows, which give them a ma- 

 licious look, — sharp, but not disproportionately high 

 cheek-bones, — the high, but blunt nose, — thick 

 lips, — the slender, lean, and rather hairy body, 

 seem to indicate partly an oriental origin, and 

 partly an affinity with the Neapolitans and Sicilians. 

 This oriental origin is remarkably confirmed by the 



