THE MARINA OF VALETTA. 121 properly belonging to that scientific structure, the tablet, which records the elevation of a clock moved by a pendulum, in the year 1142, by order of king Roger, is inserted in the side-wall of the royal chapel. The inscription not only evidences the introduction of what was then a rare and recent invention into Sicily, but establishes the fact that three languages were then in familiar use in that island, being repeated in Latin, Greek, and Arabic characters. This is, perhaps, one of the earliest recorded instances of a pendulum-clock, and it is conjectured that it must have been the workmanship of Aldrissi, the Saracen, a friend and favourite of Count Roger, who is known to have made for his royal master a silver globe, and to have written also a work called the Geography of Nubia, or, Roger's Book. In the infancy of navigation, when the mariner trembled at losing sight of the shore; when he knew little of the use, though all of the beauty of the starry skies; and never heard of that attractive property which, from the first hour of time, lay asleep upon the bosom of nature, until Flavio appeared, it may easily be conceived that an unproductive rock, standing out from the habitable lands, and in the midst of deep water, was little known, and scarce ever visited. Its great distance from the continent, which confers upon it some of its present importance as an asylum for foreign shipping, was one reason for the long neglect it suffered; and the great depth of its harbours, now its chiefest recommendation to commercial nations, was a property unknown to the few and unwilling visitors of its shores in by-gone years. The extent of Malta does not exceed an area of twenty miles in length by twelve in breadth; its distance from Cape Passaro, the nearest point of Sicily, is fifty-five miles; and from Cape Bon, in Africa, two hundred. The surface is considerably varied, and traversed by many vales that run almost parallel with each other: the glen of Melleha nearly bisects the island; but the vale, which is terminated by Valetta, is the most fertile. The geological structure of the island is limestone, of unequal degrees of crystallization, but generally of a soft quality, and readily disintegrating when exposed to the action of the weather. A thin stratum of earth reclines upon this rocky surface, 122 THE MARINA OF VALETTA. derived partly from the crumbling of the rock itself, but partly also carried over by the inhabitants from Sicily. As the native earth abounds in carbonate of lime, after continued rain a deposition or incrustation is formed on the subjacent rocky surface, completely stopping the drainage in the winter: to remedy this inconvenience, it is the practice to remove the soil at stated intervals, and clear away the deposition. By this process the soil of Malta is rendered prodigiously fertile, in proportion to its clay-clad area, and the climate derives, in consequence, some additional salubrity. The highest point of the island does not rise more than twelve hundred feet above the level of the sea, and the south shore consists of cliffs, some precipitous, others shelving, but all unapproachable by the mariner: the ports of Marsa Scala and Marsa Sirocco, afford shelter to numerous vessels of any burden; but those of "Marsa Musceit," and "The Great Harbour," the ports of Valetta, are the principal harbours of the island. Classical investigation has never been able to dissipate the mists of antiquity that hang over the early ages of Maltese history: about one thousand five hundred years before the birth of Christ, fabulous accounts call the gigantic race that fed on this barren rock, Phæacians, who, according to the same authorities, were expelled by the Phoenicians; but it is highly probable that there is here a confounding of names, or that the former appellation merely signified the inhabitants of sunny, warm climates. This colossal family, however, whose name is perpetuated by a tower in the Isle of Gozo, soon found the inferiority of physical to moral force, by being compelled to yield the tenure of their sea-girt isle to the most enlightened nation of "the great sea." For seven centuries the Phoenician power retained the rock of Melit, as a secure retreat from the winds, until the rising greatness of Greece overwhelmed and expelled them. From this period, about the year 736 before Christ, it was named Melita. Two centuries rolled away, when the Carthaginian planted his foot securely on the solid rock, and commenced that struggle with the reigning power, that ended in his fall, and left Malta as an emporium or depôt for merchandise exported from the shores of Africa. The power, wealth, and enterprise of the Carthaginians so raised the character, so improved the value of this marine position, that all-absorbing Rome, her insatiate rival, resolved to add Melita to her growing dominions. In the first Punic war, the wealth of Malta became the spoil of Attilius Regulus, and Cornelius seized the island in the name of Rome. Driven out by the Carthaginians, they once more returned, and the Roman eagle established his eyry more permanently on the rock, when the victory of Lutatius had humbled the power of the enemy. Not only Malta, but all the islands of "the great sea" between Africa and Italy, were ceded to aspiring Rome, by the conditions of a treaty made in the year 242 before Christ. Proud of the acquisition, although insensible to the cruel mode of acquiring it, the new masters encouraged by every means the industry of the inhabitants, and conciliated anxiously the attachment of the Grecian settlers. The temples of the gods were re-edified by the liberality of the conquerors: the cotton and linen manufactured here found a preference in the estimation of the Roman merchants, and were counted amongst the articles of Roman luxury. When the empire was divided, Malta was THE MARINA OF VALETTA. 123 placed in the eastern division, and fell to the lot of Constantine; but soon the Eastern empire falling to decay, new powers, of physical force alone, arose, seized on the possessions, enslaved the people, and defaced the features of civilization. The Vandals possessed themselves for a while of Malta, but scarce enjoyed ten years of usurpation, when the Goths poured in like a wave from the ocean, and, about the year of our Lord 164, obliterated their government and their name. These savage masters are believed to have conquered from a love of plunder solely: they ruined as they ran; desolation marked their progress, and their policy obliged them to seek new conquests, each country that they visited being quickly and completely wasted and impoverished. Commerce fled from Malta at their approach, nor did she revisit these shores again for seventy years, when the noble Belisarius landed here, and promised milder treatment, and more fostering care of government in future. From Justinian's reign until the cruel treatment of the Arab pirates, Maltese history presents a blank tableau: but again affliction visited the land, the plunderers slew the husbands, and seized their treasure, selling their wives and children as slaves, and placing the island under the government of the emir of Sicily. These Arabs, who probably were the first to adopt the name of Malta, built and fortified the city of Notabile, founded a strong castle on the rocky pedestal that now sustains the impregnable fortress of St. Angelo, and made the place the pirates' home. To these Saracenic conquerors the modern Maltese owe their dark complexion and peculiar language. Nearly at the same period that England accepted a new master, Malta submitted to a foreign prince, both adventurers having emigrated from the same territory: in 1060, William, Duke of Normandy, succeeded to the crown of England; and in 1070, Count Roger, the Norman, united Malta to his lately-acquired kingdom of Sicily. For seventy years the Normando-Sicilians extended the blessings of their mild and improving institutions to the Maltese, establishing a senate, consisting of nobles, clergy, and representatives of the people, erecting churches, and founding charitable asylums. In the year 1226, Constantia, princess and heiress of Sicily, marrying Henry VI. of Germany, son of the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Malta was added to the Western empire, and converted into a county and marquisate. When Charles of Anjou, brother of Louis IX., king of France, succeeded to the possession of Sicily, he added Malta to his dominions, about seventy years after it had been assigned as a royal marriage-portion. Peter of Arragon wrested the usurped possession from the house of Anjou, and left it to his successor Alphonso, from whom the Maltese purchased their emancipation at the price of thirty thousand florins. It formed part of the plighted kingly promise that Malta should not again be separated by the princes of Anjou; but the emperor Charles V., reckless of this pledge, in 1530 granted, in perpetual sovereignty, to the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who had been expelled from Rhodes by Soliman the Magnificent, the islands of Malta and Gozo, together with the city of Tripoli. This grant was ratified by the pope, first to the knights of Rhodes, afterwards to those of Malta. The object of Charles in conferring these isles upon the military monks was, perhaps, the ambition of being called the restorer of that ancient order; those Christian warriors being the |