MALTA AND SICILY. 
233 
seen. These were a number of women and 
young girls standing, bare-legged, nearly up 
to their knees in the water, employed in 
washing clothes, which they rubbed with 
great vehemence on some large flat stones on 
the bank, giving by this rough treatment no 
small encouragement to the linen and cotton 
trades. I very unintentionally gave offence 
by stopping to contemplate this amusing 
group. One of the party addressed me in 
a manner which was evidently intended to 
convey a reproof; and though I was not 
sufficiently acquainted with the language to 
understand the words she used, the expres¬ 
sion of her face and the tone of her voice 
said as plainly as possible, “ Go along about 
your business, you impertinent fellow, do ! ” 
I now bent my course towards the sea¬ 
shore, to the southward of the town, climb¬ 
ing over a very nigged bed of lava, part of 
