James Barber - The Overland Guide-book

Vide James Barber and Co.'s Circular.

Ladies will find Messrs. Thresher and Glenny's air-tight cases very useful, even in India. This firm, as general outfitters for the Overland Route, deservedly stand high, and merit every encouragement.

During the governorship of Sir Alex. Ball, public gardens for the accommodation or pleasure of the inhabitants of the various "casals" were formed, but fell into disuse, and remain a trifling memorial of a desire to inculcate good and friendly feelings in all classes, and has been responded to by these places being totally neglected for public use.

A calesse, the common carriage of Malta, a sort of Brobdingnag imitation of a Dutch toy, can travel anywhere; but those who wish to see the country must adopt some other conveyance. Fortunately, under the government of Lieut. – General Sir F. Bouverie, such attention was paid the roads in the island – a source of advantage to the population, in every point of view, and the public in general – that where, some twenty years ago or less, only two or three carriages on four wheels, the property of private individuals, could be found, they are now in pretty general use, and may be had on hire.

Casal Musta was singularly enough selected, by the commissioners of inquiry sent out to Malta in 1837, in reporting on the liberty of the press and the adoption of a newspaper – that it contained upwards of 5,000 inhabitants, of whom not more than 50 could read!

This sketch is intended simply as a guide to the superficial observer, on a few hours' detention in the island, and in no way with a view to geological disquisition. However, without any speculative theories, regarding the origin and present state of Malta – whether it arose by some convulsive throe from the ocean which surrounds it, or that the Mediterranean Sea, from remote causes, has lost its former elevation, being now found considerably below the level of the Red Sea, it may be mentioned, without dread of refutation, that these caverns, like numerous others in the island, show the water line at the period of their formation, as those under the black rock and the southern face especially. A recent writer on the statistics, &c., of the island of Malta and its dependencies, who visited Valetta, and knew little of Malta, informs his readers, that Malta is furrowed with what he designates valleys from S.W. to N.E. – following out the assertions of another and former resident in Malta – that the course of the various ravines was from west to east, as if to render subservient to geological theories, the mode or order in which Malta must have been formed; yet the slightest observation (which neither had exercised) proves these ravines to embrace each of the cardinal, and, perhaps, not less the subsidiary, points of the compass. In like manner, this writer on the statistics states very boldly that the island of Gozo has villages but no town ; Rubatto has its cathedral, numerous churches, religious establishments, with its imposing citadel for defence, occupying considerable extent of ground, and with a population exceeding 7,000 souls, and to which the late governor, Sir F. Bouverie, added an aqueduct, for a more certain supply of water. Mr. Martin never visited Gozo, and this, like other portions of his work, is merely gathered from report.