And the barbarous people - See the notes on Romans 1:14. The Greeks regarded all as barbarians who did not speak their language, and applied the name to all other nations but their own. It does not denote, as it does sometimes with us, “people of savage, uncultivated, and cruel habits, but simply those whose speech was unintelligible.” See 1 Corinthians 14:11. The island is supposed to have been populated at first by the Phoecians, afterward by the Phoenicians, and afterward by a colony from Carthage. The language of the Maltese was that of Africa, and hence it was called by the Greeks the language of “barbarians.” It was a language which was unintelligible to the Greeks and Latins.
The rain - The continuance of the storm.
And ...of the cold - The exposure to the water in getting to the shore, and probably to the coldness of the weather. It was now in the month of October.