MALTA AND SICILY. 
87 
haps this ingenious contrivance might be 
useful to the fishermen on our own coasts. 
The market in Valetta is well supplied 
with all kinds of eatables, especially with 
fruit: oranges, lemons, pumpkins, (two feet 
or more in diameter,) water-melons, apples, 
pears, pomegranates, dried figs, nuts, wal¬ 
nuts, chesnuts, prickly-pears, &c. are in 
great abundance and very cheap ; many of 
these fruits are brought from Sicily. Potatoes 
are not very good, though I have eaten worse 
in England, but the cauliflowers are of a 
prodigious size, and very cheap. They have 
here a curious sort of a turnip, which grows 
on a stem, four or five inches from the 
ground, the leaves sprouting out from the 
sides of the bulb; this, when boiled, is su- 
• 
perior to the common turnip. Meat is cheap 
and tolerably good ; fresh butter and cow’s 
milk are very dear, but good salt butter may 
