Cambyses defeated the Egyptians, and here some five centuries later Pompey
the Great was treacherously murdered when he fled to Egypt, after the
Battle of Pharsalia.
To the southwest of Port Said, close to the wretched little fishing
village of Sais, situated on the southern shore of Lake Menzaleh, are the
magnificent ruins of Tanis (the Zoan of the Old Testament). These seldom
visited remains are only second to those of Thebes in historical and
archæological interest. It is a little curious that while tourists flock
in crowds to distant Thebes and Karnak, few take the trouble to visit the
easily accessible ruins of Tanis. The ruins were uncovered at great cost
of labor by the late Mariette Bey, and in the great temple were unearthed
some of the most notable monuments of the Pharaohs, including over a dozen
gigantic fallen obelisks--a larger number than any Theban temple contains.
This vast building, restored and enlarged by Rameses II., goes back to
over five thousand years. As Thebes declined Tanis rose in importance, and
under the kings of the Twenty-first Dynasty it became the chief seat of
Government. Mr. John Macgregor (Rob Roy), who was one of the first of
modern travellers to call attention to these grand ruins, declares that of
all the celebrated remains he had seen none impressed him "so deeply with
the sense of fallen and deserted magnificence" as the ruined temple of
Tanis.
The Suez Canal is admittedly one of the greatest undertakings of modern
times, and has perhaps effected a greater transformation in the world's
commerce, during the thirty years that have elapsed since its completion,
than has been effected in the same period by the agency of steam. It was
emphatically the work of one man, and of one, too, who was devoid of the
slightest technical training in the engineering profession. Monsieur de
Lesseps cannot, of course, claim any originality in the conception of this
great undertaking, for the idea of opening up communication between the
Mediterranean and the Red Sea by means of a maritime canal is almost as
old as Egypt itself, and many attempts were made by the rulers of Egypt
from Sesostris downwards to span the Isthmus with "a bridge of water."
Most of these projects proved abortive, though there was some kind of
water communication between the two seas in the time of the Ptolemies, and
it was by this canal that Cleopatra attempted to escape after the battle
of Actium. When Napoleon the Great occupied Egypt, he went so far as to
appoint a commission of engineers to examine into a projected scheme for a
maritime canal, but owing to the ignorance of the commissioners, who
reported that there was a difference of thirty feet in the levels of the
two seas--though there is really scarcely more than six inches--which
would necessitate vast locks, and involve enormous outlay of money, the
plan was given up.
The Suez Canal is, in short, the work of one great man, and its existence
is due to the undaunted courage, the indomitable energy, to the intensity
of conviction, and to the magnetic personality of M. de Lesseps, which
influenced everyone with whom he came in contact, from Viceroy down to the
humblest fellah. This great project was carried out, too, not by a
professional engineer, but by a mere consular clerk, and was executed in
spite of the most determined opposition of politicians and capitalists,
and in the teeth of the mockery and ridicule of practical engineers, who
affected to sneer at the scheme as the chimerical dream of a vainglorious
Frenchman.
The Canal, looked at from a purely picturesque standpoint, does not
present such striking features as other great monuments of engineering
skill--the Forth Bridge, the Mont Cenis Tunnel, or the great railway which
scales the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains. This "huge ditch," as it
has been contemptuously called, "has not indeed been carried over high
mountains, nor cut through rock-bound tunnels, nor have its waters been
confined by Titanic masses of masonry." In fact, technically speaking, the
name canal as applied to this channel is a misnomer. It has nothing in
common with other canals--no locks, gates, reservoirs, nor pumping
engines. It is really an artificial strait, or a prolongation of an arm of
the sea. We can freely concede this, yet to those of imaginative
temperament there are elements of romance about this great enterprise. It
is the creation of a nineteenth-century wizard who, with his enchanter's
wand--the spade--has transformed the shape of the globe, and summoned the
sea to flow uninterruptedly from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
Then, too, the most matter-of-fact traveller who traverses it can hardly
fail to be impressed with the genius loci. Every mile of the Canal passes
through a region enriched by the memories of events which had their birth
in the remotest ages of antiquity. Across this plain four thousand years
ago Abraham wandered from far-away Ur of the Chaldees. Beyond the placid
waters of Lake Menzaleh lie the ruins of Zoan, where Moses performed his
miracles. On the right lies the plain of Pelusium, across which Rameses
II. led his great expedition for the conquest of Syria; and across this
sandy highway the hosts of Persian, Greek, and Roman conquerors
successively swept to take possession of the riches of Egypt. In passing
through the Canal at night--the electric light seeming as a pillar of fire
to the steamer, as it swiftly, but silently, ploughs its course through
the desert--the strange impressiveness of the scene is intensified. "The
Canal links together in sweeping contrast the great Past and the greater
Present, pointing to a future which we are as little able to divine, as
were the Pharaohs or Ptolemies of old to forecast the wonders of the
twentieth century."
XII
MALTA
"England's Eye in the Mediterranean"--Vast systems of
fortifications--Sentinels and martial music--The Strada Reale of
Valletta--Church of St. John--St. Elmo--The Military Hospital, the
"very glory of Malta"--Citta Vecchia--Saint Paul and his voyages.
There is a difference of opinion among voyagers as to whether it is best
to approach Malta by night or by day; whether there is a greater charm in
tracing the outline of "England's Eye in the Mediterranean" by the long,
undulating lines of light along its embattled front, and then, as the sun
rises, to permit the details to unfold themselves, or to see the entire
mass of buildings and sea walls and fortifications take shape according to
the rapidity with which the ship nears the finest of all the British
havens in the Middle Sea. Much might be said for both views, and if by
"Malta" is meant its metropolis, then the visitor would miss a good deal
who did not see the most picturesque portion of the island in both of
these aspects. And by far the majority of those who touch at Valletta, on
their way to or from some other place, regard this city as "the colony" in
miniature. Many, indeed, are barely aware that it has a name apart from
that of the island on which it is built; still fewer that the "Villa" of
La Valletta is only one of four fortified towns all run into one, and
that over the surface of this thickly populated clump are scattered scores
of villages, while their entire coasts are circled by a ring of forts
built wherever the cliffs are not steep enough to serve as barriers
against an invader. On the other hand, while there is no spot in the
Maltese group half so romantic, or any "casal" a tithe as magnificent as
Valletta and its suburbs, it is a little unfortunate for the scenic
reputation of the chief island-fortress that so few visitors see any other
part of it than the country in the immediate vicinity of its principal
town. For, if none of the islands are blessed with striking scenery, that
of Malta proper is perhaps the least attractive.
Though less than sixty miles from Sicily, these placid isles oft though
they have been shaken by earthquakes, do not seem to have ever been
troubled by the volcanic outbursts of Etna. Composed of a soft, creamy
rock, dating from the latest geological period, the elephants and
hippopotami disinterred from their caves show that, at a time when the
Mediterranean stretched north and south over broad areas which are now dry
land, these islands were still under water, and that at a date
comparatively recent, before the Straits of Gibraltar had been opened, and
when the contracted Mediterranean was only a couple of lakes Malta was
little more than a peninsula of Africa. Indeed, so modern is the group as
we know it, that within the human era Comino seems to have been united
with the islands on each side of it. For, as the deep wheel-ruts on the
opposite shores of the two nearer islands, even at some distance in the
water, demonstrate, the intervening straits have either been recently
formed, or were at one period so shallow as to be fordable.
But if it be open to doubt whether night or day is the best time to make
our first acquaintance with Malta, there can be none as to the season of
the year when it may be most advantageously visited; for if the tourist
comes to Malta in spring, he will find the country bright with flowers,
and green with fields of wheat and barley, and cumin and "sulla" clover,
or cotton, and even with plots of sugar-cane, tobacco, and the fresh
foliage of vineyards enclosed by hedges of prickly pears ready to burst
into gorgeous blossom. Patches of the famous Maltese potatoes flourish
cheek by jowl with noble crops of beans and melons. Figs and pomegranates,
peaches, pears, apricots, and medlars are in blossom; and if the curious
pedestrian peers over the orchard walls, he may sight oranges and lemons
gay with the flowers of which the fragrance is scenting the evening air.
But in autumn, when the birds of passage arrive for the winter, the land
has been burnt into barrenness by the summer sun of the scorching sirocco.
The soil, thin, but amazingly fertile, and admirably suited by its spongy
texture to retain the moisture, looks white and parched as it basks in the
hot sunshine; and even the gardens, enclosed by high stone walls to
shelter them from the torrid winds from Africa, or the wild "gregale" from
the north, or the Levanter which sweeps damp and depressing towards the
Straits of Gibraltar, fail to relieve the dusty, chalk-like aspect of the
landscape. Hills there are--they are called the "Bengemma mountains" by
the proud Maltese--but they are mere hillocks to the scoffer from more
Alpine regions, for at Ta-l'aghlia, the highest elevation in Malta, 750
feet is the total tale told by the barometer, while it is seldom that the
sea cliffs reach half that height. The valleys in the undulating surface
are in proportion, and even they and the little glens worn by the
watercourses are bald, owing to the absence of wood; for what timber grew
in ancient times has long ago been hewn down, and the modern Maltee has so
inveterate a prejudice against green leaves which are not saleable that he
is said to have quietly uprooted the trees which a paternal Government
planted for the supposed benefit of unappreciative children. Hence, with
the exception of a bosky grove around some ancient palace of the knights,
or a few carob trees, so low that the goats in lack of humble fodder can,
as in Morocco, climb into them for a meal, the rural districts of Malta
lack the light and shade which forests afford, just as its arid scenery is
unrelieved either by lake, or river, or by any brook worthy of the name.
However, as the blue sea, running into inlet and bay, or ending the vista
of some narrow street, or driving the spray before the "tempestuous" wind,
called "Euroklydon," is seldom out of sight, the sparkle of inland water
is less missed than it would be were the country larger.
But Malta proper is only one of the Maltese group. As the geography books
have it, there are three main islands, Malta, Gozo, and between them the
little one of Comino, which with Cominetto, a still smaller islet close
by, seems to have been the crest of a land of old, submerged beneath the
sea. The voyager is barely out of sight of Sicily before the faint
outlines of these isles are detected, like sharply defined clouds against
a serenely blue sky. Yet, undeniably, the first view of Malta is
disappointing; for with Etna fresh in the memory of the visitor from one
direction, and the great Rock of Gibraltar vivid in the recollection of
those arriving from the other end of the Mediterranean, there is little in
any of the three islands to strike the imagination. For most of the
picturesqueness of Malta is due to the works of man, and all of its
romance to the great names and mighty events with which its historic
shores are associated. But there are also around the coasts of this major
member of the Maltese clump the tiny Filfla, with its venerable church;
the Pietro Negro, or Black Rock; Gzeier sanctified by the wreck of St.
Paul; and Scoglio Marfo, on which a few fishermen encamp, or which grow
grass enough for some rabbits or a frugal goat or two; and, great in fame
though small in size, the Hagra tal General, or Fungus Rock, on which
still flourishes that curious parasitic plant, the _Fungus Melitensis_ of
the old botanists, the _Cynomorium coccineum_ of latter-day systematists.
The visitor who has the curiosity to land on the rock in April or May will
find it in full flower, and perhaps, considering its ancient reputation,
may be rather disappointed with the appearance of a weed which at one time
enjoyed such a reputation as a stauncher of blood and a sovereign remedy
for a host of other diseases that the Knights of Malta stored it carefully
as a gift for friendly monarchs and to the hospitals of the island. It is
less valued in our times, though until very recently the keeper of the
rock on which it flourishes most abundantly was a permanent official in
the colonial service. The place indeed is seldom profaned nowadays by
human feet; for the box drawn in a pulley by two cables, which was the
means of crossing the hundred and fifty feet of sea between the rocks and
the shore of Dueira, was broken down some years ago, and has not since
been renewed. But, apart from these scientific associations of this
outlier of Gozo, the second largest island of the Maltese group is worthy
of being more frequently examined than it is, albeit the lighthouse of Ta
Giurdan is familiar enough to every yachtsman in the "Magnum Mare." For it
is the first bit of Malta seen from the west, and the last memory of it
which the home-coming exile sights as he returns with a lighter heart from
the East. Yet except for its classical memories (it was the fable isle of
Calypso, the Gaulos of the Greeks, the Gaulum of the Romans, and the
Ghaudex of the Arabs, a name still in use among the natives), the tourist
in search of the picturesque will not find a great deal to gratify him in
Gozo, with its bay-indented shore, rugged in places, but except in the
southern and western coast rarely attaining a height of three hundred feet
above the sea. Still, its pleasing diversity of hill and dale, its
occasional groves of trees, and the flourishing gardens from which
Valletta market is supplied with a great portion of its vegetables, lend
an appearance of rural beauty to Gozo seldom seen or altogether lacking in
the rest of the group. Gozo appears to have suffered less from foreign
invasions than Malta or even Comino. Its goat cheese still preserves
something of the reputation that comestible obtained in days when the
world had a limited acquaintance with dairy produce, and the "Maltese
jacks," potent donkeys (the very antipodes of their tiny kindred on the
Barbary coast) are mostly exported from this spot. But, like the peculiar
dogs and cats of the group, they are now getting scarce.
The appearance of the Gozitans also is somewhat different from that of
their countrymen elsewhere, and they speak the Maltese tongue with a
closer approach to the Arabic than do the inhabitants of the other
islands, whose speech has become intermingled with that of every
Mediterranean race, from the Tyrians to the Italians, though the basis of
it is unquestionably Phoenician, and is gradually getting dashed with the
less sonorous language of their latest rulers. Indeed, the lamps in daily
use are identical in shape with the earthenware ones disinterred from the
most ancient of Carthaginian tombs, and until lately a peculiar jargon,
allied to Hebrew, and known as "Braik," was spoken at Casal Garbo, an
inland village not far from the bay off which lies the General's Rock. But
the Gozo folk nowadays trade neither in tin nor in purple, their
gaily-painted boats crossing the Straits of Freghi with no more romantic
cargoes than cabbages and cucumbers for His Majesty's ships; and the
swarthy damsels who sit at the half-doors of the white houses are intent
on nothing so much as the making of the famous Maltese lace. Except,
however, in the strength, industry, and thrift of the Gozitans, there is
little in this island to remind the visitor of their Phoenician
forefathers, and in a few years, owing to the steady intercourse which
daily steam communication has brought about between them and their less
sophisticated countrymen, the "Giant's Tower" (the ruins of a temple of
Astarte) at Casal Xghara will be about the only remnant of these
pre-historic settlers. But Casal Nadur, with its robust men and handsome
women, the Tierka Zerka or Azure Window, a natural arch on the seashore,
and Rabato, the little capital in the center of the island, which, in
honor of the Jubilee year, changed its name for that of Victoria, are all
worthy of a walk farther afield than Migiarro, or the "carting place," off
which the Valletta steamer anchors. From the ruined walls of the citadel
the visitor can survey Gozo with its conical hills, flattened at the top
owing to the wearing away of the upper limestone by the action of the
weather and sinking of the underlying greensand, the whole recalling a
volcano-dotted region. Then, if he cares to tarry so long, the sightseer
may from this pleasant center tramp or drive to the Bay of Ramla, in a
rock overhanging which is another "Grotto of Calypso," or to the Bay of
Marsa-il-Forno, or to the Bay of Xlendi, through a well-watered ravine
filled with fruit-trees, a walk which offers an opportunity of seeing the
best cliff scenery in the island; or, finally, to the Cala Dueira, hard by
which is the General's Rock, which (as we already know) forms one of the
chief lions of Gozo. Comino with its caves will not detain the most eager
of sightseers very long, and its scanty industries, incapable of
supporting more than forty people, are not calculated to arouse much
enthusiasm.
The shortest route to Valletta from Migiarro is to Marfa; but most people
will prefer to land at once at Valletta. Here the change from the quiet
islands to the busy metropolis of the group is marked. Everything betokens
the capital of a dependency which, if not itself wealthy, is held by a
wealthy nation, and a fortress upon which money has been lavished by a
succession of military masters without any regard to the commercial
aspects of the outlay. For if Malta has been and must always continue to
be a trading center, it has for ages never ceased to be primarily a place
of arms, a stronghold to the defensive strength of which every other
interest must give way. All the public buildings are on a scale of
substantiality which, to the voyager hitherto familiar only with
Gibraltar, is rather striking. Even the residences of the officials are
finer than one would expect in a "colony" (though there are no colonists,
and no room for them) with a population less than 170,000, and a
revenue rarely exceeding £250,000 per annum. Dens, vile beyond belief,
there are no doubt in Valletta. But these are for the most part in narrow
bye-lanes, which have few attractions for the ordinary visitor, or in the
Manderaggio, a quasi-subterranean district, mostly below sea-level, where
the houses are often without windows and conveniences even more important;
so that there is an unconscious grimness in the prophetic humor which has
dubbed this quarter of Valletta (two-and-a-half acres in area, peopled by
2,544 persons) "the place of cattle." Yet though the ninety-five square
miles of the Maltese islands are about the most densely populated portions
of the earth, the soil is so fertile, and the sources of employment,
especially since the construction of the Suez Canal, so plentiful, that
extreme penury is almost unknown, while the rural population seem in the
happy mean of being neither rich nor poor.
[Illustration]
But the tourist who for the first time surveys Valletta from the deck of a
steamer as she anchors in the Quarantine Harbor, or still better from the
Grand Harbor on the other side of the peninsula on which the capital is
built, sees little of this. Scarcely is the vessel at rest before she is
surrounded by a swarm of the peculiar high-prowed "dghaisas," or Maltese
boats, the owners of which, standing while rowing, are clamorous to pull
the passenger ashore; for Malta, like its sister fortress at the mouth of
the Mediterranean, does not encourage wharves and piers, alongside of
which large craft may anchor and troublesome crews swarm when they are not
desired. Crowds of itinerant dealers, wily people with all the supple
eagerness of the Oriental, and all the lack of conscience which is the
convenient heritage of the trader of the Middle Sea, establish themselves
on deck, ready to part with the laces, and filigrees, and corals, and
shells, and apocryphal coins of the Knights of St. John, for any ransom
not less than twice their value. But in Malta, as elsewhere in the
Mediterranean ports, there are always two prices, the price for which the
resident obtains anything, and the price which the stranger is asked to
pay. To these tariffs a new one has of late years been added, and this is
that paradisaical figure, that fond legend of a golden age invoked only
when the buyer is very eager, or very verdant, or very rich, "the price
that Lady Brassey paid." However, even when the sojourner fancies that he
has made a fair bargain (and the appraisements fall suddenly as the last
bell begins to ring), the pedler is well in pocket, so well, indeed, that
it has been calculated every steamer leaves behind it something like two
hundred pounds in cash.