each time, while the landlord and the groups about the tables began to
edge away and to reach for something handy and solid to use on a crazy
man. I backed out then, and by the time I was outside I realized my
slight error in the choice of words. I did not go back to correct my
inquiry. I merely told Laura that those people in there did not seem
very intelligent, and that was true, or they would have known that
anybody is likely to say "why" when he means "where," especially in
German.
There are too many languages in the world, anyway. There is nothing so
hopeless as to hunt for information in a place where not a soul
understands your language, and where you can't speak a word of his. The
first man at your very side may have all the information you need right
at his tongue's end, but it might as well be buried in a cellar so far
as you are concerned.
I am in deep sympathy with the people who invented Volapuk, and are
trying to invent Esperanto. I never thought much about it before, but
since I've been to Genoa I know I believe in those things. Only, I wish
they'd adopt English as the universal speech. I find it plenty good
enough.
Laura and I made our way uphill and climbed some stairways, met a
_gendarme_, got what seemed to be information, climbed down again, and
met a man with a fish-net full of bread--caught in some back alley, from
the looks of it. Then we followed a car-track a while along the deserted
street, past black, desolate-looking houses, and were cold and
discouraged and desperate, when suddenly, right out of heaven, came that
guide, who had been following us all the time, of course, and realized
that the psychological moment had come.
We could have fallen on his neck for pure joy. Everything became all
right, then. He could understand what we said, and we could understand
what he said; we tried him repeatedly and he could do it every time.
That was joy and occupation enough at first. Then we asked him "Where
was Cook's?" and he knew that too. It was wonderful.
We grew to love that guide like a brother. It's marvellous how soon and
fondly you can learn to love a rescuer like that when you are a stranger
in a strange land and have been sinking helplessly in a sea of unknown
words.
He was a good soul, too; attentive without being officious, anxious to
show us as much as possible in the brief space of our visit. He led us
through the narrow, cleft-like streets of the old city; he pointed out
the birthplace of Columbus and portions of the old city wall; he
conducted us to the Hotel de Ville (the old Fieschi Palace), where we
decided to have luncheon; he led us back to the ship at last, and
trusted me while I went aboard to get the five _lira_ of his charge.
Whatever the Genoese guides were in the old days, this one was a jewel.
If I had any voice in the matter Genoa would inscribe a tablet to a man
like that and put his bones in a silver box and label them "St. John the
Baptist" instead of the set of St. John bones they now have in the
Cathedral of St. Lorenzo, which he pointed out to us.
But the Cathedral itself was interesting enough. It was built in the
ninth century, and is the first church we have seen that has interested
us. In it Laura noticed again the absence of seats; for they kneel, on
this side of the water, and know not the comfort of pews.
We passed palaces galore in Genoa, but we had only time to glance in,
except at the Fieschi, where we lunched, and later were shown the rooms
where the famous conspiracy took place. I don't know what the conspiracy
was, but the guide-book speaks of it as "the famous conspiracy," so
everybody but me will know just which one is meant. It probably
concerned the Ghibellines and the Guelphs, and had strangling in it and
poison--three kinds, slow, medium, and swift--these features being
usually identified with the early Italian school.
The dim, mysterious streets of Genoa interested us--many of the houses
frescoed outside--and the old city gates, dating back to the crusade;
also some English signs, one of which said:
DINNER 3 LIRA, WINE ENCLOSED,
and another:
MILK FOR SALE, OR TO LET.
I am in favor of these people learning English, but not too well. The
picturesque standard of those signs is about right.
Our new passengers were crowding aboard the ship when we returned. They
were a polyglot assortment, English, German, French, Hungarian--a
happy-looking lot, certainly, and eager for the housing and comfort of
the ship. But one dear old soul, a German music-master--any one could
tell that at first glance--was in no hurry for the cabin. He had been
looking forward to that trip. Perhaps this was his first sight of the
sea and shipping and all the things he had wanted so long. He came to
where I was looking over the rail, his head bare, his white hair blowing
in the wind. He looked at me anxiously.
"Haben Sie Deutsch?" he asked.
I confessed that I still had a small broken assortment of German on
hand, such as it was. He pointed excitedly to a vessel lying near us--a
ship with an undecipherable name in the Greek character.
"Greek," he said, "it is Greek--a vessel from Greece!"
He was deeply moved. To him that vessel--a rather poor, grimy
affair--with its name in the characters of Homer and Aeschylus was a
thing to make his blood leap and his eyes grow moist, because to him it
meant the marvel and story of a land made visible--the first breath of
realization of what before had just been a golden dream. I had been
thinking of those things, too. We did not mind the cold, and stood
looking down at the Greek vessel while we sailed away.
But a change has come over the spirit of our ship. It is a good ship
still, with a goodly company--only it is not the same. We lost some
worthy people in Genoa and we took on this European invasion. It is
educational, and here in the smoking-room I could pick up all the
languages I need so much if I were willing to listen and had an ear for
such things. I could pick up customs, too. It is after dinner, and the
smoking-room is crowded with mingled races of both sexes, who have come
in for their coffee and their cigarettes, their gossip and their games.
Over there in one corner is a French group--Parisian, without
doubt--the women are certainly that, otherwise they could not chatter
and handle their cigarettes in that dainty way--and they are going-on
and waving their hands and turning their eyes to heaven in the interest
and ecstasy of their enjoyment. Games do not interest them--they are in
themselves sufficient diversion to one another.
It is different with a group of Germans at the next table; they have
settled down to cards--pinochle, likely enough--and they are playing it
soberly--as soberly as that other group who are absorbed in chess. At
still another table a game of poker is being organized, and from that
direction comes the beloved American tongue, carrying such words as
"What's the blue chips worth?" "Shall we play jack-pots?" "Does the
dealer ante?" and in these familiar echoes I recognize the voices of
friends.
The centre of the smoking-room is different. The tables there are filled
with a variegated lot of men and women, all talking together, each
pursuing a different subject--each speaking a language of his own. Every
nation of Europe, I should think, is represented there--it is a sort of
lingual congress in open session.
The Reprobates no longer own the smoking-room. They are huddled off in a
corner over their game of piquet, and they have a sort of cowed,
helpless look. Only now and then I can see the Colonel jerk his hat a
bit lower and hear him say, "Hell, Joe!" as the Apostle lay down his
final cards. Then I recognize that we are still here and somewhat in
evidence, though our atmosphere is not the same.
That couldn't be expected. When you have set out with a crowd of
pleasure-seeking irresponsibles, gathered up at random, and have become
a bit of the amalgamation which takes place in two weeks' mixing, you
somehow feel that a certain unity has resulted from the process and you
are reluctant about seeing it disturbed. You feel a personal loss in
every face that goes--a personal grievance in every stranger that
intrudes.
The ship's family has become a sort of club. It has formed itself into
groups and has discussed its members individually and collectively. It
has found out their business and perhaps some of the hopes and
ambitions--even some of the sorrows--of each member. Then, suddenly,
here is a new group of people that breaks in. You know nothing about
them--they know nothing about you. They are good people, and you will
learn to like some of them--perhaps all of them--in time. Yet you regard
them doubtfully. Rearrangement is never easy, and amalgamation will be
slow.
Oh, well, it is ever thus, and it is the very evanescence of things that
makes them worth while. That old crowd of ours would have grown deadly
tired of one another if there hadn't been always the prospect and
imminence of change. And, anyhow, this is far more picturesque, and we
are sailing to-night before the wind, over a smooth sea, for Malta, and
it has grown warm outside and the lights of Corsica are on our starboard
bow.
[Illustration]
XIII
MALTA, A LAND OF YESTERDAY
We came a long way around from Algiers to "Malta and its dependencies,"
the little group of islands which lies between Sicily and the African
coast. We have spent two days at sea, meantime, but they were rather
profitable days, for when one goes capering among marvels, as we do
ashore, he needs these ship days to get his impressions sorted out and
filed for reference.
We were in the harbor of Valetta, Malta, when we woke this morning--a
rather dull morning--and a whole felucca of boats--flotilla, I mean--had
appeared in the offing to take us ashore. At least, I suppose they were
in the offing-- I'm going to look that word up, by and by, in the ship
dictionary, and see what it means. They have different boats in each of
the places we have visited--every country preserving its native pattern.
These at Malta are a sort of gondola with a piece sticking up at each
end--for ornament, probably--I have been unable to figure out any use
for the feature.
We leaned over the rail, watching them and admiring the boatmen while we
tried to recognize the native language. The Diplomat came along and
informed us that it was Arabic, mixed with Italian, the former heavily
predominating. The Arabs had once occupied the island for two hundred
and twenty years, he said, and left their language, their architecture,
and their customs. He had been trying his Arabic on some natives who had
come aboard and they could almost understand it.
The Patriarch, who had been early on deck, came up full of enthusiasm.
There was a Phoenician temple in Malta which he was dying to visit. It
was the first real footprint, thus far, of his favorite tribe, and
though we have learned to restrain the Patriarch when he unlimbers on
Phoenicians, we let him get off this time, softened, perhaps, by the
thought of the ruined temple.
The Phoenicians had, of course, been the first settlers of Malta, he
told us, thirty-five hundred years ago, when Rome had not been heard of
and Greece was mere mythology; after which preliminary the Patriarch
really got down to business.
"We are told by Sanchuniathon," he said, "in the Phoinikika, which was
not only a cosmogony but a necrological diptych, translated into Greek
by Philo of Byblus, with commentary by Porphyry and preserved by
Eusebius in fragmentary form, that the Phoenicians laid the
foundations of the world's arts, sciences, and religions, though the
real character of their own faith has been but imperfectly expiscated.
We are told--"
The Horse-Doctor laid his hand reverently but firmly on the Patriarch's
arm.
"General," he said (the Patriarch's ship title is General)--"General, we
all love you, and we all respect your years and your learning. We will
stand almost anything from you, even the Phoenicians; but don't crowd
us, General--don't take advantage of our good-nature. We'll try to put
up with Sanchuniathon and Porphyry and those other old dubs, but when
you turned loose that word 'expiscated' I nearly lost control of myself
and threw you overboard."
The bugle blew the summons to go ashore. Amidst a clatter of Maltese we
descended into the boats and started for the quay. Sitting thus low down
upon the water, one could get an idea of the little shut-in harbor, one
of the deepest and finest in the world. We could not see its outlet, or
the open water, for the place is like a jug, and the sides are high and
steep. They are all fortified, too, and looking up through the gloomy
morning at the grim bastions and things, the place loomed sombre enough
and did not invite enthusiasm. It was too much like Gibraltar in its
atmosphere, which was not surprising, for it is an English
stronghold--the second in importance in these waters. Gibraltar is the
gateway, Malta is the citadel of the Mediterranean, and England to-day
commands both.
But Malta has had a more picturesque history than Gibraltar. Its story
has been not unlike that of Algiers, and many nations have fought for it
and shed blood and romance along its shores, and on all the lands about.
We touched mythology, too, here, for the first time; and Bible history.
Long ago, even before the Phoenicians, the Cyclops--a race of one-eyed
giants--owned Malta, and here Calypso, daughter of Atlas, lived and
enchanted Ulysses when he happened along this way and was shipwrecked on
the "wooded island of Ogygia, far apart from men."
I am glad they do not call it that any more. It is hard to say Ogygia,
and it is no longer a wooded isle. It is little more than a rock, in
fact, covered with a thin, fertile soil, and there are hardly any trees
to be discovered anywhere. But there were bowers and groves in Ulysses'
time, and Calypso wooed him among the greenery and in a cave which is
pointed out to this day. She promised him immortality if he would forget
his wife and native land, and marry her, but Ulysses postponed his
decision, and after a seven-year sample of the matrimony concluded he
didn't care for perpetual existence on those terms.
Calypso bore him two sons, and when he sailed away died of grief.
Ulysses returned to Penelope, but he was disqualified for the simple
life of Ithaca, and after he had slain her insolent suitors and told
everybody about his travels he longed to go sailing away again to other
adventures and islands, and Calypsos, perhaps, "beyond the baths of all
the western stars." Such was life even then.
The Biblical interest of Malta concerns a shipwreck, too. St. Paul on
his way to Italy to preach the gospel was caught in a great tempest, the
Euroclydon, which continued for fourteen days. Acts xxvii, xxviii
contain the story, which is very interesting and beautiful.
Here is a brief summary.
"And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up in the
wind, we let her drive....
"And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and
no small tempest lay upon us, all hope that we should be
saved was taken away."
Paul comforted them and told how an angel had stood by him, assuring him
that he, Paul, would appear before Caesar and that all with him would be
saved. "Howbeit, we must be cast upon a certain island."
The island was Melita (_i.e._, Malta), and "falling into a place where
two seas met, they ran the ship aground."
There were two hundred and sixteen souls in the vessel, and all got to
land somehow.
"And the barbarous people showed us no little kindness: for
they kindled a fire and received us every one, because of
the present rain, and because of the cold."
Paul remained three months in Malta and preached the gospel and
performed miracles there, which is a better record than Ulysses made. He
also banished the poison snakes, it is said. It was the Euroclydon that
swept the trees from Malta, and nineteen hundred years have not repaired
the ravage of that storm.
Gods, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans,
Germans, Spanish, Knights of Jerusalem, French, and English have all
battled for Malta because of its position as a stronghold, a watch-tower
between the eastern and western seas. All of them have fortified it more
or less, until to-day it is a sort of museum of military works,
occupied and abandoned.
After the Gods, the Phoenicians were the first occupants, and with all
due deference to the Patriarch, they were skedaddling out of Canaan at
the time, because Joshua was transacting a little business in warfare
which convinced them that it was time to grow up with new countries
farther west. The Knights of Jerusalem--also known as the Knights of St.
John and the Knights of Rhodes--were the last romantic inheritors. The
Knights were originally hospital nurses who looked after pilgrims that
went to visit the Holy Sepulchre, nearly a thousand years ago. They
became great soldiers in time: knightly crusaders with sacred vows of
chastity and service to the Lord. Charles V. of Spain gave them the
Island of Malta, and they became the Knights of Malta henceforth. They
did not maintain their vows by and by, but became profligates and even
pirates. Meantime they had rendered mighty service to the Mediterranean
and the world at large.
They prevented the terrible Turk from overrunning and possessing all
Europe. Under John de la Valette, the famous Grand Master, Malta stood a
Turkish siege that lasted four months, with continuous assault and heavy
bombardments. The Turks gave it up at last and sailed away, after a loss
of over twenty thousand men.
Only seven thousand Maltese and two hundred and sixty knights were
killed, and it is said that before he died each knight had anywhere from
fifty to a hundred dead Turks to his credit. It must have been hard to
kill a knight in those days. I suppose they wore consecrated armor and
talismans, and were strengthened by special benedictions. And this all
happened in 1565, after which La Valette decided to build a city, and on
the 28th of March, 1566, laid the corner-stone of Valetta, our
anchorage.
It is a curious place and interesting. When we landed at the quay our
vehicles were waiting for us, and these were our first entertainment.
They resembled the little affairs of Gibraltar, but were more absurd, I
think. They had funny canopy tops--square parasol things with fancy
edges--and there was no room inside for a tall man with knees. I was
only partly in my conveyance, and I would have been willing to have been
out of it altogether, only we were going up a steep hill and I couldn't
get out without damage to something or somebody. Then we passed through
some gates and entered the city.
I don't think any of us had any clear idea of what Malta was like. It is
another of those places that every one has heard of and nobody knows
about. We all knew about Maltese cats because we had cats more or less
Maltese at home, and we had heard of the Knights of Malta and of Maltese
lace. But some of us thought Malta was a city on the north shore of
Africa and the rest of us believed it to be an island in the Persian
Gulf.[2]
However, these slight inaccuracies do not disturb us any more. We have
learned to accept places where and as we find them, without undue
surprise. If we should awake some morning in a strange harbor and be
told that it was Sheol, we would merely say:
"Oh yes, certainly; we knew it was down here somewhere. When can we go
ashore?"
Then we would set out sight-seeing and shopping without further remark,
some of us still serene in the conviction that it was an African
seaport, the rest believing it to be an island in the Persian Gulf.
But there were no Maltese cats in Malta--not that I saw, and no knights,
I think. What did strike us first was a herd of goats, goatesses I mean,
being driven along from house to house and supplying milk. They were the
mildest-eyed, most inoffensive little creatures in the world, and can
carry more milk for their size than any other mammal, unless I am a poor
judge. They did not seem to be under any restraint, but they never
wandered far away from their master. They nibbled and loafed along, and
were ready for business at call. They seemed much more reliable than any
cows of my acquaintance.
But presently I forgot the goats, for a woman came along--several
women--and they wore a black head-gear of alpaca or silk, a cross
between a sunbonnet and a nun's veil--hooped out on one side and looped
in on the other--a curious head-gear, but not a bad setting for a
handsome face. And those ladies had handsome faces--rich, oval faces,
with lustrous eyes--and the faldette (they call it that) made a
background that melted into their wealth of atramentous hair.
We have not seen handsome native women before, but they are plentiful
enough here. None of them are really bad-looking, and every other one is
a beauty, by my standards.
We were well up into the city now, and could see what the place was
like. The streets were not over-wide, and the houses had an Oriental
look, with their stuccoed walls and their projecting Arab windows. They
were full of people and donkeys--very small donkeys with great pack
baskets of vegetables and other merchandise--but we could not well
observe these things because of the beggars and bootblacks and would-be
guides, besides all the sellers of postal cards and trinkets.
It was worse than Madeira, worse than Gibraltar, worse even than
Algiers. England ought to be ashamed of herself to permit, in one of her
possessions, such lavish and ostentatious poverty as exists in Malta.
When we got out of the carriages we were overwhelmed. They stormed
around us; they separated us; they fought over us; they were ready to
devour us piecemeal. Some of us escaped into shops--some into the
museum--some into St. John's Cathedral, which was across the way.
Laura and I were among the last named, and we drew a long breath as we
slipped into that magnificent place. We rejoiced a little too soon,
however, for a second later we were nabbed by a guide, and there was no
escape. We couldn't make a row in a church, especially as services were
going on; at least, we didn't think it safe to try.
It _is_ a magnificent church--the most elaborately decorated, I
believe, in all Europe. Grand Master John L'Eveque de la Cassar, at his
own expense, put up the building, and all Europe contributed to its
wealth and splendor. Its spacious floor is one vast mosaic of memorial
tablets to dead heroes. There are four hundred richly inlaid slabs, each
bearing a coat of arms and inscriptions in colors. They are wonderfully
beautiful; no other church in the world has such a floor. Napoleon
Bonaparte, who was a greater vandal than a soldier, allowed his troops
to rifle St. John's when he took possession of Malta in 1798. But there
are riches enough there now and apparently Napoleon did not deface the
edifice itself.
The upper part of the Cathedral can only be comprehended in the single
word "gorgeous." To attempt to put into sentences any impressions of its
lavish ceiling and decorations and furnishings would be to cheapen a
thing which, though ornate, is not cheap and does not look so. There are
paintings by Correggio and other Italian masters, and rare sacred
statuary, and there is a solid silver altar rail which Napoleon did not
carry off because a thoughtful priest quickly gave it a coat of
lampblack when he heard the soldiers coming.
The original keys of Jerusalem and several other holy places are said to
be in one of the chapels, and in another is a thorn from the Saviour's
crown, the stones with which St. Stephen was martyred, and some
apostolic bones. These things are as likely to be here as anywhere, and
one of the right hands of John the Baptist, encased in a gold glove, was
here when Napoleon came. Napoleon took up the hand and slipped off a
magnificent diamond ring from one of the fingers. Then he slipped the
ring on his own finger and tossed the hand aside.
"Keep the carrion," he said.
They hate the memory of Napoleon in Malta to this day.
The ceiling of the church is a mass of gold and color, and there are
chapels along the sides, each trying to outdo the next in splendor. I am
going to stop description right here, for I could do nothing with the
details.