MALTA

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4235, 24 January 1940, Page 4

MALTA

A MICROCOSM OF WAR-SCARRED EUROPE. THE ISLAND AND ITS PEOPLE.

(By

Observer.)

During these distressful days of another great war, the thoughts of thousands of Australians who have visited Malta since the “Bay” liners made her a regular calling place have turned in anxious wonder to Britain’s famous stronghold. No Australian with imagination and historic sense can be entirely unmoved by contact with this wonderful microcosm of war-scarred Europe. It is so small in area, so barren to the casual eye, and yet so vital to Britain’s position in the Mediterranean Sea and so difficult a governmental proposition that its latest constitution consists of letters patent which were promulgated as recently as February 26, 1939—and probably already modified by the exigencies of the new war.

Malta is only 174 miles long by 84 broad, embracing 91 square miles. Yet the 260,000 inhabitants of Malta are the descendants of races, nations and dynasties whose beginnings go back to the Stone Age—as discoveries have demonstrated—and in whose blood mingle traces of Arab, Italian and Spanish forbears, flung far over the centuries. Their “modern” history begins with the Phoenicians, the ancient Greeks and Romans; passes through the invasion of Goth and Vandals; and then becomes inextricably entangled in the story of kings and emperors, reaching some stability when what was termed “perpetual sovereignty,” passed in 1530 to the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.

BRITAIN WAS PREFERRED. It is not without significance in November, 1839, that when this “perpetual sovereignty” was successfully challenged over 200 years later by the French, the Maltese not only revolted against their new overlords, but when the Treaty of Amiens a few years afterwards proposed to restore Malta to the Knights of St. John, they declared emphatically for British rule. British troops under General Pigot had ousted the French in 1798, and the Maltese were satisfied that those colonising British, whom Dr Goebbels daily abuses to-day, had a keener sense of Justice and fair play than any nation bordering their own seas. The decision of the Congress of Vienna in 1814, by which Malta was recognised as a European dependency of Britain, stands. Malta has a large trade with Britain and derives a great (benefit from naval expenditure. Her native nobility is still recognised in the order of precedence at the Court of St. James. British coinage has been legal tender since 1887, and the English language shares with Maltese as the legal and administrative vehicles of communication between man and man. The spoken Maltese language is an Arabic dialect, into which, however, many Italian and several English words have obtained entrance. A passionate patriotism actuates a sober, industrious people, who have, by intense cultivation and tireless patience, developed wonderful crops from thin soil. Their lace industry has won for them the admiration of the world. The apple of their eye, the Grand Harbour at the gateway to their chief city, has borne the galleons of a dozen nationalities and departed civilisations.

THE GRAND HARBOUR. Whether crowded with the battleships of England or filled with sparkling small craft, illuminated on the night of a water carnival, the Grand Harbour of Malta, surrounded by the mighty bastions of the battlements of Valletta, provides a panorama unequalled in any other great port in the Mediterranean. No such protected stretch of water, laving stones which have been scaled or assaulted by navies and armies from the beginning of European history, exists anywhere else in Europe. Its moods, its silences, its blood-curdling gloom in certain lights and its bizarre background of temples, churches, canyons of steps leading up to terraced streets of Valletta make it unique among the naval bases of the British Empire. The visitor is awed by the panoply of power spread out before him as he lands from his steamer by one of the high-prowed blue rowing boats and takes a lift up to the parapet of a bastion along! which stretches row upon row of ancient cannon. Then he is reassured as some British soldiers stroll by or he hears the bugle sounded on the deck of, say, “The Hood,” and sees the glistening water cut by the pinnace of a British naval commander. The sound of a telephone bell in one of the warehouses up the hillside and the whistle of a railway engine bound for Notabile restores his sense of reality and modernity. Still a brooding hour at sunset on the bastions of the Grand Harbour is an unforgettable experience. VALLETTA’S HERITAGE. The capital of Malta was founded in 1566. The Maltese spell it Vallet-

ta—the British Valetta. It is, surely, one of the earliest of the “planned” cities of the old world. It is built along a rocky ridge of land, its chief streets run parallel with the main thoroughfare, Strada Reale; and all roads are connected with the harbour, some 300 feet below, by canyons of very shallow steps. These shallow, easily trodden steps were it is alleged, so designed for the convenience of heavily weighted men-at-arms who had daily to negotiate them.

The city is so designed that there is excellent shade, and cool breezes can reach the centre of the city. It takes its name from Grand Master La Vallette (or Valette), who defended Malta against the Turks from May 18 till September 8, 1565. The Turks had 159 war ships and 30,000 men. The defenders comprised but 8500 men-at-arms and 700 Knights of St. John, who, unsupported, held the fortifications heroically despite terrible privations. The siege was raised by the arrival of a Neapolitan fleet.

The heritage of the capital in magnificent palaces, churches and walled gardens, is gorgeous. Each nation and dynasty concerned with the island, and the knights themselves, have made rich contributions. Every student of history knows of the magnificence of the Maltese cross surmounted cathedral of St. John, and of the beauty of the interior of the Governor’s Palace - formerly the home of the Grandmasters of the Order of St. John, some of whose Gobelin tapestry is shown in the picture of the Council Chamber which has been illustrated in many periodicals. Attached to the palace is a museum of ancient armour. Less well known are the aqueduct—Malta has no rivers, but many springs—which brings water to the city from a spot over 8 miles away, and the Antonio Gardens, which in early summer are carpets of gorgeous flowers.

THE FALDETTA. One is not long in the streets of Valletta or of Notabile—the ancient Citta Vecchia of past ages, known to Cicero as Medina—before the attention is drawn to the extraordinary costume worn by many of the Maltese ladies. It is called the Faldetta, and consists of a curious cardboardstiffened black head-dress shading, with a wide sweep, one side of the face, and fastened to a sort of winding cloak, which covers the body and falls down to the knees. When its history is examined conflicting stories face the inquirer. When a fierce wind is blowing the faldetta billows out, and its wearer looks like a topheavy sailing yacht scudding before the breeze. Clearly, the beauty of the thing worn is not the key to its origin. The generally accepted story is that in 1798, when Napoleon’s wild armies were in power in the island, Maltese women adopted the costume deliberately—to spoil their appearance and save themselves from the attentions of the French invaders. Finding it cool, distinctive and comfortable for outdoor wear, the women continued to use the costume when the ordered freedom and courtesies of British rule were the possession of the islanders. Maltese women are beautiful, with a dark, ivory-tinted, semi-southern, semi-eastern beauty.

THE LORDLY GOAT. Nothing astonished the present writer during his two visits to Malta than the supremacy of the goat in the streets and along the quayside of the capital city. The strong, powerful and frisky Maltese horses, with their camel-like .heads mounted on thick fiecks, were surprising. But the flocks of goats, with their huge, distended udders, cluttering up the nanow streets, and with their leaders’ necks carrying a tinkling bell, seemed much funnier. To the Maltese, however, they are not funny at all; they are a vital part of the city’s milk supply. To the Maltese proletariat the goat is the family milkman. When the bells are heard housewives and children run out with Jugs or cans; the goat’s udder is pressed, and a penny’s-worth of goat’s milk is provided by the patient animal. There have been riots over . attempts to banish the system, but, under wise control, the goat remains 28 years after- the report of an antagonistic commission lord of all. He is, as a rule, splendidly groomed, and certainly one witness can testify to the absence of smell.

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL. Any account of this wonderful island would be incomplete without some reference to a visit to Melita (Malta) of the Apostle Paul, and to the great commemorative cathedral of St. Paul at Notabile, which traditionally occupies the site of a palace of Publius. Close by the cathedral are great catacombs and the Grotto of St. Paul, where the Apostle is believed to have lived during his stay in Malta. From the environs of the cathedral may be glimpsed the scene of St. Paul’s shipwreck on the north side of the Bay of St. Paul.

Entering human history more than 1000 years before the birth of Christ, Malta has survived the rule of pagan, infidel, churchman, night master, emperor invader through the centuries. To-day she is, gladly, part of a great democratic Empire, which

will, doubtless, restore to her people at the end of the present war those full liberties of complete parliamentarianism, which the passions and unwisdom of certain leaders have caused to be suspended.—-Melbourne Age.