MALTA AND SICILY. 
‘23 
plank, and having retired, the health-guardian 
comes forward, closes the box, and sends the 
pestiferous contents to the fumigating-office. 
Among many others who came down to 
the Mole to look at the packet on the day 
we arrived were two Barbary Jews, who were 
so disgusting and so unlike' human beings in 
their appearance, that at first sight I almost 
thought that a couple of the monkeys had 
come down from the top of the rock to pay 
us a visit. They were dressed in loose, dirty 
gowns and yellow slippers, but their legs, 
which were of a mahogany colour, were quite 
bare. They regarded us with so much as¬ 
tonishment that we concluded they had never 
seen a steam-vessel before, and their wonder 
wtis expressed by a great deal of baboon- 
like chattering and gesticulation. 
The three days that we remained here on 
our first visit were so dismally wet that we 
