as we have tried to show, are naturally a thrifty, hard-working people, neither rich nor poor. The reader would be surprised to see how much of seeming plenty, comfort, and contentment exists among these sturdy natives under such adverse circumstances. Notwithstanding their uncultured condition, 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.
These Maltese are a prolific race, marry quite young, rear large families, and are very fond of their children. Brides only thirteen years of age are common among the working classes. It is a touching sight to watch these childlike mothers with a crude instinct gently fondling their tiny babes, – dolls, we were about to write. It recalled far-away Japan, where the daily life of the humbler classes presents similar domestic tableaux. Japan is a land of babies, where the annual crop is marvelously sure. In both instances, these youthful mothers, as may naturally be supposed, grow old in appearance at a comparatively early age. It requires no prophet to declare that premature maternity entails premature old age.
We do not intend to convey the idea that ignorance and its natural consequences do not prevail among the Maltese peasantry, when we say that there is much of seeming comfort and contentment to be found among them. As an average class, these children of the soil exhibit only too clearly their want of culture and intelligence. The priests oppose all efforts to improve them by schools. Education is virtually tabooed by the church, it being held that devotion to the Roman Catholic religion is all that is necessary for their spiritual or earthly welfare. Said a famous English general: "Thinking bayonets are dangerous. What we require in a soldier is a machine that knows just enough to obey orders." So it is with the followers of the Roman Catholic faith; people who can read and reason for themselves are "dangerous," so far as putting trust in that bigoted creed is concerned. What the church requires is machines which will obey orders, and yield up their hard-earned wages to support the priesthood and the regal Romish palace of the Pope at Rome. Any unprejudiced observant traveler in Spain, Italy, Mexico, or South America will bear witness to the truth of this statement. Not one twentieth of the inhabitants of this Maltese group can read and write. In populous, overcrowded China, eight tenths of the inhabitants can read and write, and yet the Western nations look upon them as semi-barbarians.
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