each, indeed, formed a kind of United Service Club, but subject to no regulations that I could at all make out. An aged buffo, who, years ago, performed his part at the opera, now fallen into the sere and yellow leaf,' has been mounted upon a table at a well-known café. Grog is to be his reward, and his song is worthy of his hire. If any are listening to the aria, I cannot tell; but certainly every one joins in with a recitative of his own. Gentlemen begin to be too much attached to their seats to approach an acquaintance previous to addressing him; all kind of conversation is carried on at the length and breadth of the room, and many are the cross-questions and crooked answers, the noise altogether becoming of an indescribable character. A new crotchet enters the heads of the revellers. Impatient of what they consider the slack attendance of the waiters, they hit upon the expedient of throwing their decanters and tumblers at the bar of the café, that they may be refilled with due expedition. Not wishing to intercept another man's glass or bottle, I now made my way out of the house. A crowd of boatmen, each with his lantern, were in waiting, all anxious for my custom. One actually offered to carry me to his boat, and row me on board for sixpence. Gentle reader, I did not look as though I required to be carried, but such is the humorous custom of some of their customers, who are at times to be seen mounted upon the shoulders of these active Maltese, darting down the streets of many-stairs towards the water. Strange to say, the bearers and their riders generally perform the trip in safety, though certainly at the risk of their necks. Preferring a walk to my boat, I made a more orderly descent to the harbour, and in a few minutes I was again on the tranquil waters, amid a flotilla of caïques, bearing the pleasure-seekers of the night to their respective ships, and thus ended my first day's cruize' in Valetta.

We have discovered a new way into Valetta, one that all strangers should certainly ascend upon a first arrival. Following a central road, ascending from the causeway of The Great Harbour,' we pass through Calcara gate,' leading to 'Floriana.' The grey-stone buildings of this suburban town, their sculptured balconies, cumbrous piazzas, and convent-towers, are on our left; before us lie the botanical gardens-a fashionable resort in the cool of the eveningand on our right hand, rising from a glacis of hot, sun-burnt earth, are the strong walls of Valetta. Here is situated Porta Reale,' which it will be recollected opens upon the principal street of the city. Again we find ourselves going up and down long hills, on either side of which are shops, and churches, and palaces. Yes! many of the auberges, once belonging to the knights of St. John, may well be termed palaces; and how must it grieve the ghosts of the proud warriors who conquered with La Valette, and set up their rest in those stately halls, to behold them, as they are now, turned from their original uses.

The auberge de Castile, abounding in ornamental sculpture, and possessing a staircase that might shame the palace of old St. James's at Westminster, is allotted to the officers of regiments as a barrack and a mess-house. The walls of the ancient auberge of England contain a bakery; the auberge of Duvergne is vexed by the presence of the courts of law; that of Provence combines within its precincts an auction-mart, a ball-room, and the chambers of The Valetta Union Club;' the auberge of Italy is the civil arsenal and gov

ernment printing-office, while the auberges of France, Germany, and Arragon, are made the residences of public functionaries.

Let us now enter the church of Saint John. Here the rich and the poor meet at last. The exterior is an inelegant mass of masonry: the towers that flank the principal entrance, surmounted by extinguisherlooking summits, appear heavy and ungainly. But, pass within the portals, a boldly-arched roof stretches high above us, where the pencil of no mean artist has depicted the most striking incidents of St. John's life. The colours are now fast fleeting, and the tapestry that hangs below, once worked to imitate, now rivals it in freshness; but enough remains to show the master-hand. The nave of the church is long and wide, the walls are fretted in curious devices, gilt with sequin gold (so say the chroniclers), and on approaching the aisles on either side, we behold, as through golden arches, a range of small domecrowned chapels, the altar-pieces of which are fair paintings; and here stand out in bold relief many noble monuments in marble and in bronze, with emblems and inscriptions, recording the triumphs and the virtues of the departed brave: they mark the mausoleums of Grand Masters of the Order. One chapel, hidden from the body of the church by the choir, is dedicated to the Virgin, and possesses a balustrade of massive silver before its altar; a coating of black paint saved this from French plunderers when the island of Malta fell under the dominion of Bonaparte. Here are to be seen the keys of three cities of strength, over which the Knights of St. John once ruled, Jerusalem, Acre, and Rhodes,-now all have passed from them! A similar vanity gives the title of Archbishop of Rhodes to the Bishop of Malta: by the way, he who now wears these mitres of the present and the past is an excellent old man, well worthy of all honour, and a fine specimen of the dignified Roman Catholic Ecclesiastic. But an arch bishop he must be if he can contrive to exercise any authority over the worshippers who now bend their heads to the dust in the desecrated church of St. John at Rhodes.

Return we to the church of St. John at Malta. Again we enter its portals. The high altar is before us, glistening with silver, and gold, and gems, its many tapers, like tiny columns, rising in the midst. This holiest of holies occupies the centre of the choir, and on either hand are low diasks beneath crimson canopies, with a solitary chair on each; one for the Bishop of Malta, the other dedicated to Protestant England's monarch, and above this seat are the royal arms: a Catholic mode of blending church and state. And now, turning from the pomp of worship, the eye rests in happy repose upon a work of fair statuary. Standing from out the dark paneling of the choir immediately behind the altar, sculptured in white marble, is represented The Baptism of Christ. This piece of sculpture, designed and wrought by Maltese artists of the seventeenth century, is a proud monument of native talent. But let us look down upon the pavement we have been treading-it is a mosaic-work of tombs! The warrior-knight sleeps no longer on his shield-the herald's blazonry is above his perishing remains in many-coloured marble, and 'the King of Terrors' supports the escutcheon of living pride, his bare ribs mottled with jasper, agate, and sardine-stone, making at once a mockery of life and death.

It is broad day; but the light that penetrates into the church of St. John through the deep-set windows high above us, falls with a

chastened ray upon the tapestry around. Still, ever and anon a wandering sunbeam lights up with splendour some pictured incident of sacred history.

Moving noiselessly from chapel to chapel, we find here and there a solitary devotee,-women young and old, but of men none, save the sexagenarian and the infirm,-apparently lost in pious contemplation. Again we go forth, and approach the high altar. An aged beggar, whose rags hung on him in such abundance that they would seem the gathering of long years, the only property of his misery, -kneels before the shrine, but afar off, as though he felt not worthy to draw near.

Having lingered so long in the church of St. John, we must now abruptly quit Valetta, or our memoranda on other parts of these shores will remain unrecorded. Let us mount our hacks, and at a more moderate pace than would please our friends the middies, start for Città Vecchia, or 'La Notabile;' and notable indeed is this ancient city, the earliest mentioned in the history of Malta, situated as it is in the midst, and on the most elevated part, of the island. The country through which we pass is such as might, at the first glance, deter a traveller from penetrating farther into a land where it would seem 'no water is.' The arid plains around look almost at a white heat; for little is there of verdure but what is concealed behind stone walls which impound the crops of wheat and clover, or cotton, melons, beans, and indian corn of this really productive soil. Now and then a few fig-trees look out from a similar inclosure, or a thicket of the prickly pear puts forth its ungainly proportions; while afar off in the distance there stands a solitary palm, seemingly a stranger in the land, a relic of the olden knights who had fought and ruled in a more eastern clime, though certainly not under a hotter sun. Villages, here called casals, are numerous on this part of the island,-gatherings of white, flat-roofed houses, around churches that in England might pass for little cathedrals. The facility of obtaining material, where the whole land may be worked as a quarry, and the ease with which it is hewn, while it makes strongly-walled habitations abound in Malta, fails not to adorn the worship of this most catholic country with stately temples.

But see! we approach the city on a hill. A broad and wellkept road winds up to it by a gentle ascent. Strangely, though the effect is highly imposing, do the ecclesiastical structures, surmounted with dome and spire, blend with the bastions of defence, making Città Vecchia no contemptible fortification; and well does that proud pile look the citadel of the knightly friars who once possessed it. Here, in days gone by, the inauguration of the Grand Master always took place, attended by a pageant half military half priestly.

But now to enter the Città Vecchia: pass we through strong portals within massive walls. Stately buildings are on every side; the ancient magisterial palace, where dwelt the hakem, or ruler, appointed by the Grand Master for the government of the town; the cathedral, a magnificent structure, said to have been built on the site of the house of Publius, the Roman governor of the island at the period of the shipwreck of St. Paul; the bishop's palace; the theological college; and if we take the suburbs of the city, called 'Rabbato," in our survey, we may count half a score of monasteries and cha

pels, besides two hospitals; and all these, thanks to the piety of other days, are well endowed. In Rabbato is St. Paul's cave. Here, according to tradition, the saint, with St. Luke the Apostle, as his companion, resided for three months, during his well-authenticated stay on the island. Whatever faith we may put in this story, a Spaniard, a citizen of Cordova, known by the name of Fra Giovanni, in the seventeenth century, found in his belief of the sanctity of the place a sufficient reason for abandoning country and kindred, that he might live and die in the saintly cell.

But we must descend even deeper than the cave of St. Paul, leaving the light of the bright sun to illume marble altars and jewelled shrines. All that we have yet seen is but of yesterday. A deserted city is beneath us, that has neither record nor tradition,-city built, not for the living, but for the dead, whence even the dead have departed-have become dust.. Such are the catacombs,--a vast labyrinth under the suburbs and town of Città Vecchia, extending far away among passages, the communications with which have been choked and walled up, that explorers, more curious than cautious, may not be lost within their intricacies. Descending by a well-worn staircase into these vaults, the tapers carried by our conductors show us that we are in the midst of numerous low galleries, branching away in every direction, and niched in the walls thereof, generally about breast-high, are cavities for the dead; some single sepulchres, long and narrow, wherein the resting-place for the head is distinctly marked, others in which husband and wife, friends, brothers, and sisters, have lain side by side.' As we go on, we find the last home of a whole family scooped within these walls; partitions for small, perhaps female frames, and some for tall men, and little cells where the infants of this unknown race, passing from the sleep of innocence to the sleep of death, have slept in peace, whatever might have been the creed of their sires. And now we reach a rude hall, in which either the dead were washed for the sepulchre, or the living assembled to hold the burial-feast; or, in times of persecution, the persecuted came to hide.

THE NIGHT-CAB.

'Now, sir, if you please!-cab, sir, cab ?' exclaimed the driver of No. 370 odd, in a voice that seemed the peculiar compound of gin and bad weather. I answered the man's appeal by a nod, and No. 370 odd was presently drawn up to a close parallel with the curb-stones. A fellow with a waddling run came bustling up, his body and arms shuffling about with an activity that seemed impatient to anticipate his legs, which were none the fleeter for a pair of wooden-soled shoes. He was the waterman of the stand, and immediately put in his oar.

'Come, old un, you take and mind the hoss, and I'll let the job in.' 'The job,' in so far as it consisted of two ladies who were with me, (my wife and sister,) was forthwith let in; while I mounted the box of the cab, adjusted a woollen comforter round my neck, closed up the breast-work of my great-coat, and put a friend into my mouth, in the shape of a cigar, which soon afterwards burned to do me service, and finally (by the way) exhausted itself in my behalf.

During these preliminaries, my previous doubts would not be wholly silent. From the stand to the farther end of the Mile-end Road, which was the place of our destination, seemed rather a long pull under existing circumstances.

Can I depend upon you to take us safely?' inquired I of the driver, as he settled himself at my side, and took the stunted whip and flabby reins into his gloveless hands.

'D'ye think I am too old, then?' answered the man, in a tone of some little asperity.

Nay,' said I, we'll say nothing about that. But the animal and the carriage-they certainly do appear to be considerably the worse for wear.'

'Pretty well for a night-cab, sir,' replied he, with an emphasis as distinctive as his foggy utterance could manage.

'There's plenty of go in it yet, master, though it ain't jest the dandy thing,' observed the waterman, shutting one eye, and with the other appearing to consider curiously our turn-out, while his hands rested upon his hips, and his mouth took its own private diversion by performing the office of a squirt.

We moved off at a very tardy rate, though I soon discovered that any pace at which we could go, with such a vehicle, must be a rattling one. The poor horse-a piece of half-animated frame-work, an article in osteology with a skin cover-was a moving object in the sense of passion still more than of action. The whip could not accelerate his course; it served only to galvanise his body,--for one of his legs was so lame, that it acted as a drag upon the other three, and kept down to a very low mark the maximum of his speed. In his efforts to get forward, his long ridgy back heaved painfully up and down, an epitome of the mountain in labour. His irregular deviations from right to left showed that he was what is called groggy-drunk with excess of toil. It was evident that the poor creature had long since gone through the whole duty of a horse; but life and labour are inseparable ideas in relation to horses; these noble animals, like the followers of Wallace, must do or die.' At length my fears with respect to the quadruped were somewhat abated, and I turned a closer attention to the charioteer. He was a man who must have seen more than sixty winters. His spare figure was inclined to stoop; and his face, forlorn and