799] 
In the interior of the ifland are two 
cafals, or country-houfes, of the ci-devant 
Grand Matters. In one of thefe, St. 
Anthony, lying between Valetta and 
Civita Vecchia, they had of late years 
cut down a fhady grove of old orange- 
trees, and in its place formed a parterre 
or flower-garden in the French tafte, and 
which was reckoned here a very great 
curiofity. 
of the General of the Gallies. Thefe 
edifices are neither of them great or mag- 
nificent; but they are admirably well 
adapted to a het climate, by the defirable 
fhade of fine orange-groves which they 
afford, and other contrivances. Jn the 
other cafal, called the Bo/quetta, or the 
Caftle of Mount Verdalle, was a park well 
ftored. with Corfican ftags and Iceland 
deer; and the menagerie (which in this 
climate would preferve the animals of any 
country) contained fome gazels, which 
are accounted the handfomelt, {wifteft, 
and mott delicate of all quadrupeds: their 
eyes reprefent the gallant comparifons of 
oriental lovers while celebrating the beauty 
of their miftreffes; their motions are 
aftonifhingly agile, and their legs are fa 
very flender, that the beholder is con- 
ftantly airaid of their breaking. The 
cattle, or palace, exhibits nothing par- 
ticular, except the furniture, which is 
three or four hundred years old, and 
carved in the moft Gothic ftyle ima- 
ginable: the Grand Mafter, however, 
jeldom or never refided here. The pro- 
ipect from the top of it is celebrated as 
very fine. What they call a foreft, in 
the vicinity, and their annual hunt in it, 
do not merit thofe names, there being 
only a few {cattered trees hereabouts: it 
is, however, the only thing like a wood 
in the ifland. ‘This wood is fituated in a 
well-watered valley, and tends greatly to 
relieve the eye, fatigued with the aridity 
of the furrounding land{cape. The fal- 
conry at the foot of the valley is a de- 
lightful place, and the only wild and 
rural retreat by which the Maltefe can 
form any. analogeus idea of the forefts of 
other countries. The old large orange- 
trees, which grow thereabouts, are watered 
by ftreams which flow from plentiful 
fprings, and diffufe a frefhnefs the more 
gratetul, as water is fcarcer and more 
defirable in that quarter than in other 
places. 
The reft of the ifland, or what they call 
the country, {carcely deferves the appella- 
tion; for it feems almoft as well. covered 
with buildings as the cities and villages : 
it alfo appears fortified ig a remarkable 
Contiguous to this is the villa" 
Hiftory and Defeription of Malta. tig 
manner by their large continued white 
walls, which hold up or incafe what little 
earth is on the ifland, as well as what is 
fabricated there; for by grinding fimall 
the foft rock, and mixing it with what 
earth they have, filling the bottom with 
the beft of it, and watering the whole, 
the induftrious natives have formed a {foil 
well calculated for cultivating cotton, and 
the other produce of their country. Here 
are alfo ditches of a vaft fize, with baf- 
tions, all cut out of the folid rock, and 
extending many miles into the ifland. 
> 5 . 
Thefe great works, which have been ex- 
_pedited by their fituation, require no other 
repair but a, final! cement applied to the 
natural crevices of the ftone. . 
The drefs and ornaments of the Mal- 
tefe peafants, or farmers, are extremely 
light. ‘They wear long breeches, a blue 
linen fhirt, and a broad fafh, and leave their 
arms and feet entirely naked. In the ci- 
ties, their coftume is nearly the fame as 
inItaly. Their featuresareas completely 
Arabian as their language, which laft 
however, is rather a kind of diale& i: 
the Arabian, and is reprefented by fome 
writers as a. rude jargon, without rules 
and without orthography: it is alfo in- 
termixed with fome remains of the Phe- 
nician, or Carthaginian, the Greek, the 
Spanifh, andthe Italian. In the towns 
the Italian ig commonly fpoken. Their 
manners {till retain the traces of their 
Avabian conquerors, and their charafter 
feems compounded of the charaéters of 
the different nations to which they have 
been fucceffively fubje&t.  Interefted and 
careful in their bargains, they are feru- 
pulouily exaét in fulfilling every engage- 
ment, by which means commercial inter- 
courfe with them is at once fafe and eafy. 
Their women, as in the Levant and 
among the-eaftern nations, are exempted 
from labour of every kind, which is per- 
formed by the men, even to the moft trif- 
ling occupation of houfhold work. From 
a cuftom prevailing here, that in their 
marriage contracts the women take care 
to have a claufe inferted, obliging their 
hufbands to conduct them to the different 
feftivals celebrated in the ifland every 
year: it feems as if the liberty which 
they enjoy is extremely reftrained. “The 
fair fex here, being limited to the fole 
department of pleafure, arejuftly reckon- 
ed beautiful; they have as fair a fkin and 
fine complexions as the inhabitants of the 
north, with all the impafficned expreffion 
of the Orientals; they have almoft all, large 
eyes, with long eye-lids, under which 
love feems to li¢ in ambufh, and though 
under 
