The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). Frederick Whymper
had enabled them to already strongly fortify the place. La Valette had 500 knights and 9,000 soldiers, while the Turks had 30,000 fighting men, conveyed thither in 200 galleys, and were afterwards reinforced by the Algerine corsair, Drugot, and his men. A desperate resistance was made: 2,000 Turks were killed in a single day. The latter took the fortress of St. Elmo, with the loss of Drugot—just before the terror of the Mediterranean—who was killed by a splinter of rock, knocked off by a cannon-ball in its flight. The garrison was at length reduced to sixty men, who attended their devotions in the chapel for the last time. Many of these were fearfully wounded, but even then the old spirit asserted itself, and they desired to be carried to the ramparts in chairs to lay down their lives in obedience to the vows of their order. Next day few of that devoted sixty were alive, a very small number escaping by swimming. The attempts on the other forts, St. Michael and St. Angelo, were foiled. Into the Eastern Harbour (now the Grand), Mustapha ordered the dead bodies of the Christian knights and soldiers to be cast. They were spread out on boards in the form of a cross, and floated by the tide across to the besieged with La Valette, where they were sorrowfully taken up and interred. In exasperated retaliation, La Valette fired the heads of the Turkish slain back at their former companions—a horrible episode of a fearful struggle. St. Elmo alone cost the lives of 8,000 Turks, 150 Knights of St. John, and 1,300 of their men. After many false promises of assistance, and months of terrible suspense and suffering, an auxiliary force arrived from Sicily, and the Turks retired. Out of the 9,500 soldiers and knights who were originally with La Valette, only 500 were alive at the termination of the great siege.
This memorable defence was the last of the special exploits of the White Cross Knights, and they rested on their laurels, the order becoming wealthy, luxurious, and not a little demoralised. When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the confiscation of their property in France naturally followed; for they had been helping Louis XVI. with their revenues just previously. Nine years later, Napoleon managed, by skilful intrigues, to obtain quiet possession of Malta. But he could not keep it, for after two years of blockade it was won by Great Britain, and she has held it ever since. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, our possession was formally ratified. We hold it on as good a title as we do Gibraltar, by rights acknowledged at the signing of the Peace Treaty.86
The supposed scene of St. Paul’s shipwreck is constantly visited, and although some have doubted whether the Melita of St. Luke is not the island of the same name in the Adriatic, tradition and probability point to Malta.87 At St. Paul’s Bay, there is a small chapel over the cave, with a statue of the apostle in marble, with the viper in his hand. Colonel Shaw tells us that the priest who shows the cave recommended him to take a piece of the stone as a specific against shipwreck, saying, “Take away as much as you please, you will not diminish the cave.” Some of the priests aver that there is a miraculous renovation, and that it cannot diminish! and when they tell you that under one of the Maltese churches the great apostle did penance in a cell for three months, it looks still more as though they are drawing on their imagination.
CATACOMBS AT CITTA VECCHIA, MALTA.
The great catacombs at Citta Vecchia, Malta, were constructed by the natives as places of refuge from the Turks. They consist of whole streets, with houses and sleeping-places. They were later used for tombs. There are other remains on the island of much greater antiquity, Hagiar Chem (the stones of veneration) date from Phœnician days. These include a temple resembling Stonehenge, on a smaller scale, where there are seven statuettes with a grotesque rotundity of outline, the seven Phœnician Cabiri (deities; “great and powerful ones”). There are also seven divisions to the temple, which is mentioned by Herodotus and other ancient writers.
To come back to our own time. In 1808, the following remarkable event occurred at Malta. One Froberg had raised a levy of Greeks for the British Government, by telling the individual members that they should all be corporals, generals, or what not. It was to be all officers, like some other regiments of which we have heard. The men soon found out the deceit, but drilled admirably until the brutality of the adjutant caused them to mutiny. Malta was at the time thinly garrisoned, and their particular fort had only one small detachment of troops and thirty artillerymen. The mutineers made the officer of artillery point his guns on the town. He, however, managed that the shots should fall harmlessly. Another officer escaped up a chimney, and the Greeks coming into the same house, nearly suffocated him by lighting a large fire below. Troops arrived; the mutineers were secured, and a court-martial condemned thirty, half of whom were to be hanged, and the rest shot. Only five could be hanged at a time: the first five were therefore suspended by the five who came next, and so on. Of the men who were to be shot one ran away, and got over a parapet, where he was afterwards shot: another is thought to have escaped.
Colonel Shaw tells the story of a soldier of the Sicilian regiment who had frequently deserted. He was condemned to be shot. A priest who visited him in prison left behind him—purposely, there can be little doubt—his iron crucifix. The soldier used it to scrape away the mortar, and moved stone after stone, until he got into an adjoining cell, where he found himself no better off, as it was locked. The same process was repeated, until he at last reached a cell of which the door was open, entered the passage and climbed a wall, beneath which a sentry was posted. Fortunately for the prisoner, a regular Maltese shower was pouring down, and the guard remained in his box. The fugitive next reached a high gate, where it seemed he must be foiled. Not at all! He went back, got his blanket, cut it into strips, made a rope, and by its means climbed the gate, dropped into a fosse, from which he reached and swam across the harbour. He lived concealed for some time among the natives, but venturing one day into the town, was recognised and captured. The governor considered that after all this he deserved his life, and changed his sentence to transportation.
Before leaving Malta, which, with its docks, navy-yard, and splendid harbours, fortifications, batteries, and magazines, is such an important naval and military station, we may briefly mention the revenue derived, and expenditure incurred by the Government in connection with it, as both are considerable. The revenue derived from imposts of the usual nature, harbour dues, &c., is about £175,000. The military expenditure is about £366,000, which includes the expenses connected with the detachments of artillery, and the Royal Maltese Fencibles, a native regiment of 600 to 700 men. The expenses of the Royal Navy would, of course, be incurred somewhere, if not in Malta, and have therefore nothing to do with the matter.
Our next points of destination are Alexandria and Suez, both intimately identified with British interests. On our way we shall be passing through or near the same waters as did St. Paul when in the custody of the centurion Julius, “one of Augustus’ band.” It was in “a ship of Alexandria” that he was a passenger on that disastrous voyage. At Fair Havens, Crete (or Candia), we know that the Apostle admonished them to stay, for “sailing was now dangerous,” but his advice was disregarded, and “when the south wind blew softly” the master and owner of the vessel feared nothing, but
“The flattering wind that late with promis’d aid,
From Candia’s Bay th’ unwilling ship betray’d,
No longer fawns beneath the fair disguise,”
and “not long after, there arose against it a tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” before which the ship drave under bare poles. We know that she had to be undergirded; cables being passed under her hull to keep her from parting; and lightened, by throwing the freight overboard. For fourteen days the ship was driven hither and thither, till at length she was wrecked off Melita. Sudden gales, whirlwinds, and typhoons are not uncommon in the Mediterranean; albeit soft winds and calm seas alternate with them.
On the 22nd May, 1798, Nelson, while in the Gulf of Genoa, was assailed by a sudden storm, which carried away all the Vanguard’s topmasts, washed one man overboard, killed an unfortunate middy and a seaman on board, and wounded others. This ship, which acted her name at the Nile only two months afterwards, rolled and laboured so dreadfully, and was in such distress, that Nelson himself declared, “The meanest frigate out of France would have been an unwelcome guest!” An officer relates that in the middle of the Gulf of Lyons, Lord Collingwood’s vessel, the Ocean, a roomy 98-gun ship,