MALTA AND SICILY. 
63 
large unoccupied room makes an excellent 
tennis-court for us. 
Our windows command a fine view of the 
opposite town of Valetta, and of the har¬ 
bour ; and the scene is made very lively and 
amusing by multitudes of boats continually 
passing to and from the lazaret, and the 
vessels in quarantine. These boats bring 
us for sale various kinds of fruits, and 
among others pomegranates, which are about 
the size of an orange, and are full of seeds 
enclosed in a red juicy pulp. There may 
be something agreeable in the idea of eating 
pomegranates in the land of their growth, but 
in my opinion they have little to recommend 
them, except the beautiful colour of the pulp. 
When we purchase anything, the boatmen 
hand it up to us in a sort of scoop or shovel, 
in which we place the money, which, however, 
is not washed in the sea as at Gibraltar. 
