Explore "The Girl from Malta" by Fergus Hume on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tunisians, Maltese, English, Italians! Was there ever such a motley crowd as that collected in the principal street of Valletta? Bare-kneed Highlanders, in their picturesque tartans, elbowed wide-trousered Mahomedans from Tunis and Fez; swarthy, black-eyed Italians from Naples jostled against red-coated Tommy Atkins as he swaggered along, and the ascetic face of a priest, looking severely from under his long shovel hat, was seen close to the piquant countenance of a Maltese damsel, blushing under her ugly, black silk hood as she tripped gaily onward attended by her watchful duenna. Here and there parties of tourists came laughing and joking along the crowded pavement. English ladies, lithe and bright-looking in their neat-fitting yachting costumes, accompanied by smart young gentlemen, who had left their clubs and offices for a breath of the invigorating Mediterranean air, and crowds of ragged beggars were shrieking for money, and never satisfied with what they got.
Such a mass of colour, such a diversity of costumes, such a confusion of tongues, and over all the clear blue sky, with the hot sun blazing down on the tall white houses and steep narrow streets.