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FAREWELL VISIT TO MEHEMET ALI.

the curse of Heaven. It must be thrown overboard: by keeping it, you would be sure to bring upon the vessel fresh and perhaps irreparable calamities.

Mehemet Ali left his capital almost at the same time that I did. Being informed of his arrival here, I thought that I could not avoid paying him a farewell visit. I went yesterday to his palace. Rumour had already told him of my crocodile and my mummy: he made them for a moment the topic of conversation. "Your highness," said I, laughing, "I am persuaded that a traveller returning from Egypt cannot decently show his face in Europe without a mummy in one hand and a crocodile in the other." This piece of pleasantry tickled him much, and gave me reason to suspect that he is pleased to see us natives of the West attach so much value to Egyptian relics.

He

Our consul-general, the excellent chevalier Acerbi, has not ceased to load me with civilities and kindness. has placed at my disposal his library, and his collections of minerals and shells, which are extremely beautiful. My most agreeable moments are spent in examining them, especially when I can at the same time profit by the instructive conversation of the consul-a pleasure which business does not allow him to afford me so frequently as I could wish.

P. S. At length an opportunity offers for Malta: it is a Maltese brigantine, called Le Coradino, from Constantinople. She will, probably, sail in less than a fortnight.

PASSAGE TO MALTA.

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LETTER LVII.

PASSAGE FROM ALEXANDRIA TO MALTA-QUARANTINE-BISHOP OF MALTA ST. PAUL-HISTORY OF MALTA-KNIGHTS OF ST. JOHN of JERUSALEM-DISSOLUTION OF THE ORDER - PRUDENCE OF THE ENGLISH AT MALTA-GENERAL PONSONBY-MARQUIS OF HASTINGS--MR. FRERE REMARKABLE OBJECTS AT MALTA.

Malta, September 25th, 1833.

I left Alexandria, my dear Charles, on the 5th of July at nine in the morning, after bidding adieu to some friends, and pressing to my heart the excellent chevalier Acerbi, whom I shall never forget.

Our captain and crew were but sorry seamen. Luckily, we had on board M. Besson, a Frenchman, chef d'escadre in the service of Mehemet Ali, the same who undertook to convey Bonaparte to America after his defeat at Waterloo. The advice of this officer, a very clever and not less amiable man, was of the greatest utility to us during the passage.

On the thirtieth day we came to an anchor in the harbour of Malta, and on the following day I entered the lazaretto. The building appropriated to this purpose is magnificent: it is a house formerly belonging to the Order. According to the regulations, I was to perform quarantine for twenty-one days: I obtained a reduction of it to twenty. During this kind of imprisonment, which seemed very tedious, I had the honour to receive several visits from the Austrian consul, the chief vicar-general, and the private secretary of the bishop of Malta, archbishop of Corfu, a prelate of great piety and distinguished merit, to whom I was recommended by a letter from the sacred congregation. The presence and

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BISHOP OF MALTA.

the conversation of those gentlemen enabled me to await more patiently the day when I should be set at liberty. At length it arrived. The secretary came in the bishop's carriage to fetch me, and took me forthwith to the episcopal palace. I begged permission first to pass a moment in the chapel, to thank God for our prosperous voyage, and then went to pay my respects to the bishop, who had had the attention to invite me to dinner, and to ask the Austrian consul and a large party of the clergy and nobility to meet me. The venerable prelate received me with extreme kindness, and loaded me with civilities. He took pleasure in inquiring the particulars of the long pilgrimage which I had just completed, and appeared to feel great interest in them. An apartment had been prepared for me by his direction at the monastery of the barefooted Carmelites. When I was retiring, he begged me in the most amiable manner to remember that his palace and carriage were at my disposal, and directed a person to accompany me to the good Fathers, where a truly cordial and paternal welcome awaited me.

Malta, which the ancients called Melita, on account of the abundance and the excellence of the honey produced there, was originally but an almost bare rock, inhabited by barbarians. After it had belonged to the Carthaginians, it fell under the dominion of the Romans, and was in their possession at the birth of Christ. It is celebrated in the history of Christianity, to which it was converted about the third year of the reign of Nero, for the preaching and the miracles of St. Paul, who, having been cast on its shore by shipwreck, was taken by a centurion to Rome to be there tried :

SHIPWRECK OF ST. PAUL.

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"And when they were escaped," says St. Luke, "then they knew that the island was called Melita.

"And the barbarous people shewed us no little kindness for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain, and because of the cold.

"And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks, and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat, and fastened upon his hand.

"And when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves, No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he hath escaped the sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live.

"And he shook off the beast into the fire, and felt no harm.

"Howbeit they looked when he should have swollen, or fallen down dead suddenly: but, after they had looked a great while, and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds, and said that he was a god.

"In the same quarters were possessions of the chief man of the island, whose name was Publius, who received us and lodged us three days courteously.

"And it came to pass that the father of Publius lay sick of a fever, and of a bloody flux: to whom Paul entered in, and prayed, and laid his hands on him, and healed him.

"So, when this was done, others also, which had diseases in the island, came and were healed:

"Who also honoured us with many honours; and when we departed, they laded us with such things as were necessary." (Acts xxviii. 1-10.)

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KNIGHTS OF MALTA.

Historians are not agreed as to the point where the great apostle landed; but an immemorial tradition in the country relates that it was on a neck of land on the north coast, which the people still visit with reverence, and which is habitually denominated Calle of St. Paul.

According to the same tradition, this Publius, who in the Acts of the Apostles is called the chief man of the island, was the Roman governor. He became not merely a disciple of the faith, but bishop of Malta, and the house in which he dwelt, converted into a church, was consecrated for divine worship.

From the Roman dominion Malta passed successively under that of the Goths, the Saracens, and the counts and kings of Sicily, till at length in 1540 it devolved, by the cession of Charles V., to the knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. It thenceforward acquired an importance with which were connected the highest interests of European civilization: it was the bulwark of Christendom. Plunged in a stupid indifference, how many persons are there at this day, who know not that the waves of Mahometanism, which threatened so long to overwhelm the West, were broken by the rocks of Malta, defended by its brave knights, and that if our Europe, so smitten with the charms of liberty and independence, is not now ignominiously dragging the chains of slavery under the yoke of some sultan, it is owing, in part, at least, to those heroes of the faith, to those pious warriors, whose institution so it was decreed by Providencesprang up in an hospital, amidst paupers, and in the city where Christ, the supreme model of devotedness, died for the salvation of mankind.