For tourists flocking to Malta from the UK this summer, the trip typically includes little more than a low-cost flight of a few hours, but 120 years ago the journey was a very different one.
“The most direct route is by the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Line, by way of Marseilles. These vessels depart every alternate Thursday, and make the passage in eight days, touching at Gibraltar, forming, perhaps, the most economical route,” writes the author of a travel guide to Malta written in 1893.
“If a land journey is preferred, the steamer can be taken at Naples, where the vessels of this line touch to receive and deliver the regular mails. The island, however, is accessible from England and the continent by many different routes, as the fancy of the traveller may dictate.”
The Story of Malta by Maturin Murray Ballou, a famous American travel writer of the 19th century, is halfway between tourist guidebook and history of the island. Written in flowing, poetic style, it offers a unique outsider’s perspective on life in Malta at the time.
Ballou’s view of Malta is of an ancient, mythical island torn between a thriving, cosmopolitan capital city and a poor, backwards underclass – in thrall to the overwhelmingly negative influence of the Catholic Church.
“The evil odors permeating the atmosphere in the vicinity are what might be expected from a people reveling in garlic and eschewing soap,” he writes of the “horde of poverty-stricken people” which visitors had to navigate on their first arrival in Valletta.
But closer to Strada Reale (Republic Street), Ballou gushes about the architectural wonders of the Knights and bustling commerce of the city, which he compares to Paris, Naples and Tunis.
“The numerous domes and towers of the city, though they are not minarets, have much the same Oriental effect upon the eye. Myriads of small boats, painted in bright, fanciful colors after the florid Maltese style, and having canvas coverings sheltering the stern, shoot hither and thither like birds upon the wing.”
Maltese merchants, he writes, all speak French, English, Italian and Maltese (“a mixture of Italian and Arabic, mingled with the patois which is common in the Grecian Archipelago”), while in the smaller streets of the city, “barbers, tailors, shoemakers, tinkers, and basket-makers, ply their several callings in public, quite unsheltered by any sort of device.”
Barefooted natives, whose lower garments are held in place by a gaudy sash tied about the waist
The Church, however, gets short shrift in Ballou’s assessment, blamed for wilfully keeping people in ignorance and poverty to preserve its power.
“[Clergymen] usually wear a characteristic black robe, together with an impossible hat, very broad of brim and turned up at the sides. There are said to be about two thousand priests in these islands, whose physical appearance certainly indicates free and generous diet, not to say luxurious living,” Ballou writes.
“The reader may imagine what a strong contrast they furnish to the hungry, begging masses of the town whom they pass by with the most utter indifference. The Maltese, unfortunately, have a paucity of reason and a plethora of priests.”
Ballou laments that few of the travellers who stop by Malta on mail ships, criss-crossing the Mediterranean and travelling as far afield as India, ever actually disembark. The few who do, he notes, “generally choose the Hotel Angleterre, on the Strada Stretta.”
But few places on earth, he writes, have as much culture and antiquity on offer in such a small place as this “solitary rock, a convulsive upheaval of the sea, reclaimed only by patient toil from utter sterility”.
With a typically colonialist view, he deplores “the ignorance of a large portion of the Maltese villagers” who “have no recognized language in literature and can neither read nor write”, but away from civilisation, Ballou allows himself plenty of time for self-reflection.
Detailing his travels to the ancient ruins of “Gebel Quim” and “El Menaidra”, the geological marvels of “Casal Caura”, and the green oases of “El Boscotto” and “San Antonio” (“one can never forget how brilliant was the floral display, how soft the atmosphere, and how glorious the sunshine”), Ballou appears transfixed by the beauty of Malta.
“Standing on this lonely shore,” he writes of the imposing cliffs at Ta’ Ċenċ, “there is a fascination in listening to the solemn moan of the restless sea, in whose bosom there is so much of sadness, of direful secrets, and of unspent power.”
The Epic Poetry of Għana
“The lowly country people have a genius for poetry; indeed, all Eastern tribes who speak the Arabic tongue are thus endowed. This talent finds expression in a sort of improvisation, by which means two persons will hold earnest converse with each other, asserting and denying in something very like epic poetry. They chant their words in a wild, Maltese sing-song, which appear exactly to accord one with the other, though the music seems to be equally improvised with the ideas of the singer. However unconventional the words and the music may be, there is still a certain rude harmony in both, evidently animated now and then by gorgeous gleams of fancy.”
The Bustle of Republic Street
“The Strada Reale of Valletta is thoroughly kaleidoscopic in its gay and fascinating presentment of humanity, forming a strange medley of colors, while its variety of nationalities recalls Suez and Port Said, where representatives of the East and West are so confusingly mingled. Here one sees English ladies and gentlemen clad in fashionable London attire; soldiers in smart red uniforms; barefooted natives, whose lower garments are held in place by a gaudy sash tied about the waist; brown-skinned peddlers, with fancy wares, jostled by a dignified Hindoo, a turbaned Turk, or a swarthy Spaniard of questionable purpose. There passes also an occasional Greek in picturesque national costume; a white burnoused Arab; a native woman in sombre dress, with her face nearly hidden by a dark hood (a faldetta), which takes the place of a Castilian mantilla.”
The Native Women
“Within the house, at the theatre, or other public entertainments, variety in dress is not wanting, nor the dazzling brilliancy of diamonds and other precious stones, to set off in attractive style the rich brown complexion, dreamy eyes, and fine features of the Maltese ladies. The effect of this peculiar hood as worn in public is both nun-like and coquettish – a seeming anomaly; but it is quite correct. The average woman of this mid-sea group speaks a universal language with her dark, expressive eyes, though only Maltese with her lips.”