Under England's flag — Themes and Context

d we get into a chaise to be driven to some place of note not seen before, we all know there is a sort of interest and stretching of necks as we come near to form some notion of what it will be like. But how much greater the interest when we get into a ship, spread our sails to the wind and our keel to the dark blue water, and set forth to visit some far-famed island long heard and read of as a far-distant thing, and now find ourselves skirting along swiftly by the very shore that girdles in its cities and its wonders; and the more barren, rocky, unadorned, and forbidding the first range of the shore we approached, the more we thirsted to see the high bastion of the capital frowning over the bright blue deep.

_July 18._--A light air rose with the morning and wafted us into the harbour of Valetta. Here, as at Gibraltar, some of our comrades come off to welcome us, and though unknown at present, the strong bond of belonging to the same service, wearing the same coat, and hatched, as one might say, in the same military shell, induces them to hold out to us the ready hand of brotherhood and friendship.

Impatient as we were to get on shore and satisfy our curiosity, we had for the present enough to do in remarking the grandeur of the buildings, the spaciousness, security, and many branches of the harbour, and, above all, the stupendous character of the fortifications.

Valetta altogether appeared to me the most magnificent city I had ever beheld. Everything contributed to imbue the scene with traits fit for some splendid picture of growing Carthage; nothing mean or sullied, nothing to stain the clear clean hue of every colour; the sea, the sky, the transparent air, the chiselled stone, the native rock--all seemed as stainless, bright, and _soignée_ as a Venetian painting, while the masses of shipping of every description, whose decks displayed a masquerade of divers costumes, brought the image of all nations before us, the gondolas and open boats, with gentlemen dressed as if for Court, with powdered heads uncovered, under umbrellas of every colour, and wearing silk coats, looking so enviably cool as they touched from ship to ship. All was so curious, so undeniably _abroad_, that we loved to realise all the anticipations of imagination, and might, I doubt not, have been amused during a much longer confinement than it was our lot to encounter.

_July 19._--One day was all the trial our patience underwent, as on the 19th we were permitted to land and regale ourselves, like children, with touching and turning over the forms we had been viewing at a distance. From the point at which we landed, to which the fine streets of the city themselves descend, the ascent to the heart of the city is gained by stairs of vast width and breadth, but each giving a small and imperceptible rise. The whole street, indeed, is a grand _escalier_, of which the continuous houses of rich merchandise on either hand form the banisters. These stairs appear to be carved out of the native rock, and look as if a carriage and horses might safely descend, though I do not remember that they do.

We were now on shore, mixed up in the quarters of our brother officers, previously established here, and began a very pleasant kind of life, in despite of nightly mosquitoes and daily heat intense, reflected and reproduced from the glaring rock on which it everywhere smote; and this memorandum of the heat remains fixed in my memory--the noble streets of Valetta are extremely regular, and run in broad parallels at right angles with each other--when the sun, therefore, begins to decline, the streets which lie north and south are divided by broad lines of shade and sunshine--down the broad shade then the different parties walk and talk and lounge, with sauntering pace and head uncovered; but when one of the broad crossings must be passed, exposed to the sun’s fierce ray, you see every man put on his hat and dart swiftly across the bright space, as if escaping through a fire. Various commanders and married officers helped to furnish our society. Our new-found brethren put all their resources at our command, and mounting us on the beautiful barb or Arabian horses, or the scarce less beautiful ass of Malta, “showed us all the qualities o’ the isle.”

Stationed at Gozo was Edward Ker, one of my boyish friends, and one of our excursions was to visit him. We were delighted to meet, and though baked and broiled by sea and land in exploring curiosities, whatever we saw seemed to compensate our labour.