George French Angas : a visitor’s gaze on the Maltese Islands in 1841

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, many foreigners visited the Maltese islands. Several of them left testimonies, travelogues, observations, and drawings, which sources help readers today to better understand the life and times of the locals in British Malta. This article will concentrate on one such visitor in 1841, bringing forth some of his experiences of Malta and Gozo. What he saw, felt, and observed, his impressions and reactions, as recorded in his travelogue A Ramble in Malta and Sicily, may help to give colour and body to a bygone Malta, while also throwing some light on how Malta and its people were seen by foreigners. Though Angas travelled far and wide around the Maltese islands, the present article will look specifically at his excursions and experiences of the rural and coastal areas rather than the urbanised localities of the first decades of nineteenth-century Malta and Gozo.