Chapter V: Part II (2)

Down by the sea, in the cavernous recesses of overhanging rocks, are some curious corn mills, to which one descends by a steep paved path, the tiny mountain stream that works the mills raging and sluicing alongside in a polished aqueduct at such prodigious speed that upon touching the water your hand receives a smart blow.

Here upon a small headland below the village we ate our luncheon, among clumps of purple stock and bushes of bright green spurge—devouring the while a week’s budget of letters that Pépé had brought out with him; after which we rejoined our carriage and began the long ascent of the Col that lay between us and Palma. Like a snake does the white road wind in loops up the mountain side; the _Pinus maritima_ clothes the hill slopes to the very summit, but rarely attains an even respectable size. In this respect Majorca differs strikingly from Corsica, where grand forests of Laricio pine flourish in the rockiest of soils. Natural timber is indeed a feature entirely lacking in the greater part of Majorca, owing to the fact that whenever it is in any way possible to utilise the ground it is devoted to the more profitable culture of the olive and almond.

Leaving the mountains behind us we presently pass Esporlás, with its rushing stream bordered by Lombardy poplars, and its great cloth factory, where hanks of dyed cotton are hanging out to dry; and soon after reaching Establiments—a trim and prosperous townlet nine kilometres from Palma—the rain comes down in torrents. We meet flocks of drenched sheep, and tilted country carts returning from market, each carter fast asleep inside, with his head on a pile of sacks and a blanket drawn up to his chin, leaving all responsibility to the sagacious mule who steps aside to let us pass. The wheat fields are dripping, the wet air is heavy with the scent of flowering may, and Palma itself is spanned by a bright rainbow. Let it rain! we are back in comfortable quarters once more!

* * * * *

On the 2nd of April we went to spend a few days at Sollér—the one inevitable expedition for all visitors to Palma. By the most direct route the drive only occupies three hours, but it is best to make a _détour_ by way of Valldemósa and Miramár, so as to include the beautiful scenery of the north coast.

Long and straight and flat is the road to Valldemósa, the cornfields on either side decked out with blue borage, gladiolus, and pink allium, and bordered with a fringe of flaring yellow daisies—the kind known in English gardens as annual chrysanthemums. A brilliant touch of colour is given by a row of bright vermilion flower-pots, set out on the snow- white parapet of a country house; but actual flower gardens are as lacking among the homesteads of Majorca as among those of most southern lands—and the peasants would no doubt marvel greatly at the sentiment which induces an English cottager to allot so much valuable space to flowers when he might devote it to the utilitarian onion or the practical potato.

A couple of hours’ drive brings one to the foot of the mountains, and passing through a fine gorge the road ascends to the village of Valldemósa, perched upon a saddle among the hills. It was here that in the sixteenth century Santa Catalina was born—the pious maiden who on her walks used the leaves of the olive and lentisk as rosaries, and who from her cell heard mass being celebrated in Palma Cathedral, ten miles distant; but Valldemósa’s chief claim to fame lies in her great Carthusian monastery, a huge yellow pile occupying the ridge above the village. Originating as the summer palace of the Moorish rulers of Majorca, the great building was subsequently used as a residence by the kings of Aragon, and it was not till the year 1400 that it fell into the hands of the monks; fortified, restored, and added to at various times, the monastery eventually covered an enormous area of ground, and sufficient still remains to amaze us at the lavish style in which twelve Carthusian friars and their Father Superior were housed.

When the monastery was suppressed in 1835, the Spanish government made over the newer wing of the building to private persons, and nine Majorcan families occupy the monks’ old quarters to this day. Very charming are these monastic residences, entered from the cool, whitewashed cloisters; each set of rooms is quite secluded from the rest, and each has its small terrace garden to the south, where lemon- trees bask in the sunshine, screened by the high walls that divide each monk’s territory from that of his neighbour on either side. From the low parapet in front one looks out over a steep declivity of orange groves and ranges of hills stretching down to the gorge—the gate of the plains.

It was in one of these apartments that George Sand passed the winter when she visited the island with her two children in the year 1838, accompanied by the invalid Chopin. The accommodation provided for one Carthusian friar—three good-sized rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, with as many bedrooms above stairs—afforded ample living room for the party of four; but the winter proved bitterly cold, and all the comforts of a northern home were lacking in an island where open fireplaces are unknown, and a brazier filled with charcoal is the only means of warming a room. At great expense an iron stove was brought up to Valldemósa and installed in one of the rooms, where it smelt abominably. In other matters the unfortunate strangers were no happier; the grand piano—imported from France—gave such endless trouble at the Palma customs that they would willingly have had it sunk in the harbour— but even that was not permitted. It was only after protracted wrangling that it was finally liberated upon the payment of four hundred francs.

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“_It was here that George Sand passed the winter when
she visited the island with her two children in 1838, accompanied
by the invalid Chopin._”

(page 80)
]

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“_The mountain ranges stretch back in splendid perspective
to where the faint blue battering-ram of the Dragonéra is
dimly visible in the distance._”

(page 76)
]

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The attitude of the Valldemósans too was anything but pleasant or conciliatory to the French exiles; the expulsion of the monks was too recent for them to have become reconciled to the occupation of the monastery by lay residents, and they looked with intense suspicion on these foreigners who never came to church and who scandalised society by allowing a little girl of nine to roam the country attired in rational costume.

There were doubtless faults on both sides; if the peasants regarded George Sand as a heathen, she looked upon them as uncharitable and bigoted barbarians, and she contrasts the result of their so-called religion with the abomination of desolation of philosophy in which—as she ironically remarks—her own children were brought up.

Life in Majorca seems to have offered few attractions to the foreigner in those days; setting aside the difficulties of transit—difficulties rendered doubly trying in the case of an invalid—the discomfort of the pig-boat by which one came to Palma, and the shocking state of the roads, to which I have previously alluded—setting all this aside, the very character of the islanders seems to have been radically different when George Sand sojourned amongst them from what it is now. According to her, the Majorcans were dirty and impertinent; they cheated one shamelessly at every turn; they were calculating, selfish, and utterly heartless where their own interest was concerned; letters of recommendation to twenty Palma residents would hardly suffice to prevent a stranger from wandering homeless about the town on arrival; and if any luckless foreigner presumed to complain of the treatment he received, or so much as ventured to express disapproval at the presence of scorpions in his soup, a torrent of indignation and contempt descended on his head.

Now our own impressions of the Majorcans differed so wholly from the above description that it is difficult to realise that the writer was referring to the same people. Our experience of the island was, however, necessarily a brief and superficial one—and though I have endeavoured faithfully to record all that befell us on our travels I am open to the charge of having taken too _couleur-de-rose_ a view, or—in the more pithy Minorcan phrase—of having unconsciously resembled “the ass of Moro, who was enchanted with everything.”

I therefore quote the following words written by one not open to this charge—the Austrian Archduke Louis Salvator, who for more than twenty years made the island his home, who travelled about among the peasants, and who probably knows the island and its inhabitants more intimately than do most of the natives themselves:—

“The Majorcans,” he writes, “are gentle, cheerful, open-hearted, compassionate, and charitable to the poor; faithful in friendship, and extremely attached to their wives and children; _very hospitable, like all the Balearic peoples_—this applies to rich and poor alike, who all heap kindness upon the stranger and entertain him with their best.”

How to reconcile this opinion with that of George Sand I do not know—for it is not usual for the racial characteristics of an island people to alter so completely in fifty years. I can only imagine that the French authoress must have arrived in Majorca at an inauspicious moment; that she unintentionally roused the animosity of her neighbours, and that she may have been actually unlucky in the people with whom she came in contact; while anxiety over the condition of her sick friend did not improve her temper. It must not be supposed, however, that her winter at Valldemósa was one long Jeremiad; she thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of the scenery and the flowers, and her vivid imagination, her spirit, and her sense of humour carried her through trials that would have depressed many another person.

An apology is due to her memory for the deliberate charge brought against her in Murray’s guide-book of having damaged a certain “priceless historical document” during her stay in the island. The document in question is a curious illuminated map of Europe and the north coast of Africa, made for Amerigo Vespucci in the year 1439 by a Majorcan draughtsman; and George Sand is most unjustly held up to the reprobation of all future travellers as having obtained permission to copy this map, and as having upset her inkpot over it.

That an inkpot _was_ upset over it she herself records in dramatic narration, but her account of the affair goes to show that she had neither part nor lot in bringing about the accident; her hair stands on end with horror as she recalls the scene....

She was being shown the library collected by Cardinal Despuig, uncle to the then Count of Montenegro, when the house-chaplain volunteered to show her the precious map—the gem of the collection. Spreading it on a table he unrolled the beautiful illuminated parchment—whereon large cities share the Sahara with equally large savages mounted on camels; but the vellum was reluctant to remain flat, seeing which, a servant placed a full inkstand upon a corner of the map to keep it open. But alas! its weight was insufficient! The scroll gave a crack—a leap—and lo! it was again rolled up, _with the inkstand inside_!

Horror and confusion reigned; the chaplain fainted away; the servants were petrified—and then, losing their heads, dashed up with sponges, brooms, and pails of water, and fell upon the map with zeal so fatal that kingdoms, oceans, isles, and continents were overwhelmed in common ruin.

George Sand declares she was not even touching the table at the moment of the catastrophe—but adds prophetically that she quite supposes the blame of it will to all time be laid at her door. The map was subsequently restored by skilful hands to nearly its pristine glory, and is now to be seen under glass in the house of the Count of Montenegro at Palma.

The big monastery-church of Valldemósa contains little of interest beyond some good marble mosaics, and hanging on the wall is a curious apparatus not unlike a pool-marker, with lettered pegs that fit into holes—the talking board used by the silent monks when they wished to communicate with one another.

From Valldemósa an hour’s drive brings one to Miramár, the large estate purchased in 1872 by the Archduke Louis Salvator. Before arriving at the house itself one passes the roadside _hospedéria_, kept up—with true Majorcan hospitality—by the lord of the manor for the benefit of travellers: free quarters for three days, with firing, salt, and olives, are offered to all comers, and the woman in charge cooks the food that visitors bring with them. This hospice makes an excellent centre from which to explore the north coast of the island, and good walkers would discover countless delightful rambles amongst the pinewoods that clothe the cliffs down to the water’s edge.

The Archduke’s own house is a plain building standing 2,000 feet above sea-level; the name Miramár—Sea View—has attached to the site ever since the thirteenth century, when Don Jaime II.—acting on the recommendation of Rámon Lull, his seneschal—founded a college there. Never was a name better deserved; like a silver mirror the placid Mediterranean lies outspread below one, its motionless surface flecked with tiny fishing boats; dark, fir-clad cliffs slope precipitously to the sea, and far below lies the red rock Foradada like some gigantic saurian in the blue water. Look-out points, or _Miradórs_, are constructed in various parts of the grounds, commanding glorious views; and perched upon a rocky spur lower down the hill is a tiny chapel, recently built, dedicated to St. Rámon Lull. One of its foundation stones was brought from Bougie in Algeria—where the saint met his death by stoning—and another from San Francisco, in memory of the missionary Juan Serra, the Majorcan founder of the Pacific city.

For the last eight years the Archduke has not resided at his Majorcan home, greatly to the regret of the people; the house is uninhabited, but is shown to visitors by the caretaker.

Its chief interest consists in the entirely native character of its contents; everything in the house is Majorcan—the thick, soft matting on the floors, the string-seated rocking-chairs and the fat stools of stuffed basket-work; the handsome brass braziers and the carved four- post bedsteads; the inlaid chests and cabinets, and the splendid collection of faïence ware, of which the owner is a connoisseur. Majorcan too is the vulture in the garden—a fierce, brown bird, who hisses at visitors, and jumps wrathfully from branch to branch of the aviary in which he has lived for seventeen long years.

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“_The port of Soller is a fishing village of narrow
streets_....”

(page 89)
]

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“_We came up with a palmer from the Holy Land, posting
along at five miles an hour._”

(page 87)
]

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The Archduke is the author of a very exhaustive and profusely illustrated work on the Balearics, “_Die Balearen in Wort und Bild_”; but unfortunately it is too costly a work to become generally known, or it would bring many travellers to visit the islands which the author loves so well.

On leaving Miramár we continue along the coast to Deya, a picturesque village of clustered houses and steep streets of steps, perched upon an isolated peak and backed by high mountains. Here we caught sight of a strange figure striding along the road ahead of us, and presently we came up with a holy palmer, who might have stepped straight out of the twelfth century—with cockleshells and staff, and with his sandal shoon. He was posting along at five miles an hour with a dog at his heels.

“Whither away, O Father?” we asked with respectful salutation.

“Over the whole world, my children,” replied the old man, turning upon us a rugged face framed in long grey locks.

We learnt that he was a native of Spain, and had for years been on a pilgrimage to the most sacred shrines in all lands; he had been in the Holy Land and in Egypt—had visited St. James of Compostella, and Rome, and Lourdes—and now was on his way to the shrine of Our Lady of Lluch. His wallet contained his papers—viséd at his various halting places— together with a few treasured relics from the Holy Sepulchre; of money he had no need, since the faithful everywhere would give him food and a night’s lodging, for the labourer is worthy of his hire. But he dare not tarry, for he had yet far to go, and with a “_Buen viaje!_” we drove on and soon lost sight of the solitary pilgrim who in this strange fashion was working out his own salvation.

The town of Sollér lies almost at sea-level, in a spacious valley ringed round with mountains around whose grey peaks buzzards and ravens—dwarfed by distance to the size of midges—circle and slant for ever to and fro.

Warm and sheltered, rich with orange and lemon groves, date palms and loquats, and entirely enclosed with hills but for an opening down to the little port on the north, Sollér is Majorca’s garden of the Hesperides. Though it is only April 3rd, the roses are running riot in the gardens of _Son Angelāts_, a fine house on the outskirts of the town belonging to a Marchésa who only resides there in summer time; it has terraces overlooking Sollér, and large grounds laid out with orange groves, tall palms, and flowering shrubs; roses cover the terrace walls and climb up into the grey olive-trees from whence they fall back in festoons—and the gardener breaks off branch after branch for us as we go along, great yellow Marshal Niels, pink La France, crimson tea roses, butter-coloured Banksias, miniature _roses de Meaux_, and fragrant Madame Falcot; we have more roses than we can carry. The borders are full of pansies and polyanthus, Parma violets and carnations; we are given bouquets of spirea, freesias, peonies, and heliotrope, and we drive away with our little _carreta_ decked out as if for the Carnival.

The Marchésa has beautiful grounds—carriages and horses, and many servants; and to these possessions she adds, with true Southern incongruity, a most remarkable approach to her entrance gate; several yards of decayed cobble paving—bestrewn with loose blocks of stone and full of deep holes—over which a small stream swirls rapidly, intervene between her carriage gate and the road outside. The bumps and crashes with which our cart forded the water nearly threw the pony down, and we feared at one time that a wheel was coming off, but we got through intact. That the marchioness should enjoy this episode as part of her daily drive strikes even the natives, I think, as a little strange.

The modest little hotel _La Marina_ at Sollér is a great improvement on the ordinary village _fonda_; the cooking is good, the bedrooms plainly but suitably furnished, and the proprietor and his daughters spare no pains to make their guests happy. Mules can be procured in the town for mountain expeditions, a carriage and pair is kept for hire, and there is a toy _carreton_ belonging to the hotel in which one may drive out alone—feeling somewhat like a coster going to the Derby; the minute white pony hurries one along at extraordinary speed and stops for nothing but the Majorcan word of command—Poke-a-parg!

The port of Sollér, about half an hour distant, is a little land-locked harbour with a fishing village of narrow streets and picturesque houses. Majorca’s northern coast is in general so precipitous and inhospitable that the safe anchorage offered by the Sollér harbour was a great attraction to the corsairs of the Middle Ages, and many and terrible were the struggles that took place in the sixteenth century between them and the inhabitants of Sollér; on one of these occasions they sacked and then burnt to the ground the great Oratory of Santa Catalina, which stands on a headland at the mouth of the harbour. After this a castle was built, whose guns commanded the entrance to the port; but of this nothing remains except part of a tower, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-house.

There are many expeditions to be made on foot and on muleback into the mountains that surround Sollér; stalwarts can make the ascent of the snow-crowned _Puig Mayor_—Majorca’s highest peak, five thousand feet above sea-level—or visit the _Gorch Blau_, a ten hours’ expedition, with several miles of rock steps to come down on the way back, but both of these require strength and endurance. Then there is the _Barránco_, a ravine, clean cut as with a knife, upon the summit of a grey mountain ridge from whence a splendid view is obtained; and there is the _Torrent de Pareys_ on the north coast, to be reached by boat on a calm day in about two hours.

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“_The white town of Soller lying in the lap of the hills,
framed by converging mountain slopes_ ...”

(page 92)
]

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“_Many of the houses at Fornalutx are extremely old, with
quaint staircases and old stone archways._”

(page 91)
]

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Of the shorter excursions one well worth making is to the hill village of Fornalutx; the road runs up the valley of the Torriente, a bubbling hill stream with banks of blue and white periwinkle and a masonry bed overhung with thousands of orange and lemon trees, beneath which lie oranges in golden mounds, like cider apples in a Somerset orchard. In spite of the scale disease, which in latter years has wrought havoc in many groves—blackening the fruit and destroying the foliage—the oranges of Sollér are still famous, and fetch market prices ranging from a penny to fivepence a dozen, according to quality, while a dozen of the best lemons are here sold for twopence.

The streets of Fornalutx are principally flights of broad cobbled steps, and many of the houses are extremely ancient and fascinating, with quaint wooden balustrades, carved window frames, and old stone archways. One of those we visited had an oil mill on the premises, and we were shown the stone bins into which the panniers of olives are first emptied, and the great trough in which they are subsequently crushed with a millstone turned by a mule; the olive pulp is then placed in flat, circular baskets, and when these are piled up in layers to a considerable height, boiling water is poured over them and they are crushed flat by an immense baulk of timber that descends upon them from above. The exuding liquid flows into a tank below, where by the happy provision of Nature the oil is able to be drawn off by a surface pipe while the water is carried away by one at the bottom. The olive harvest takes place in October and November; the oil is much used in Majorcan cookery—though not to any unpleasant extent—and children are often seen eating slices of bread spread with oil in place of the jam or dripping with which it would be flavoured in our own country.

* * * * *

Our stay at Sollér was cut short by the unkindness of the weather. For two days the rain held off, grudgingly; but on the third we awoke to find the whole valley enveloped in a dense Scotch mist; our host looked up at the blurred outlines of the mountains, and he looked at the gusts of cloud that were blowing through the _barranco_, and he shook his head; he was honest, and he confessed that the prospect was not hopeful. A rain wind sobbed round the house as we sat over the wood fire that evening, and from an adjoining room came the singularly monotonous chant—high, nasal, and quavering—with which a Majorcan servant girl can accompany her sweeping for hours at a time. The effect was indescribably triste, and our thoughts turned to the flesh pots of Palma.

The following morning showed no improvement, so our host’s victoria was requisitioned and we set out on our return to the Grand Hotel. For an hour and a half our two sturdy horses toiled up out of the valley, the winding zigzags of the road affording us now and again a backward glance at the little white town lying in the lap of the hills, framed by converging mountain slopes. On reaching the top of the pass we met a fresher air, and we rattled merrily down the beautifully graded road towards the plain, drawing up presently at the wayside villa of Alfádia.

Alfádia is an ancient caravanserai that still bears traces of its Moorish origin; passing under the high entrance gateway, which has a Moorish ceiling of carved and painted wood, one enters a vast courtyard, surrounded by stables and containing a fountain and a pepper-tree of immense size and age. When first we entered the great quadrangle it was absolutely deserted, but no sooner did our camera mount its tripod than with the mysterious suddenness of Roderick Dhu’s men figures emerged from all sides, anxious to be included in the picture.

Hardly had we regained our carriage when the rain that had long been threatening began to come down—first gently, then harder, and finally with a terrific clap of thunder we were overtaken by a kind of cloudburst. Whipping up the horses our driver made a dash for a wayside inn on the Palma road, and driving in under the deep verandah-like porch running along the whole front of the building we drew up and were gradually joined by other refugees till every inch of standing room was taken up. Cheek by jowl with us were white-tilted orange carts from Sollér, a countryman and his cow, a post cart, sundry mules, and a number of pedestrians who arrived half drowned beneath their umbrellas; and in this most welcome shelter we all remained imprisoned while for the next half hour it rained as I have never seen it rain before. Cascades fell from the edge of the verandah roof, the road became a river, and from the olive grounds gory floods were descending and were struggling and leaping through the culverts like the legions of red rats charmed out of Hamelin by the pied piper.

It is with diffidence that I venture to observe that a _very unusual_ amount of rain fell around Palma this spring—for there is a growing feeling of incredulity on the subject of unusual seasons. I have heard of a man who had lived for thirty years in Algiers, and who asserted that in that time he had experienced thirty unusual seasons. Few winter resorts perhaps could equal this record, but I fancy that in most places abnormal seasons of one kind or another are sufficiently common for the really normal one—when it does make its appearance—to be almost, if not quite, as unusual as the rest.

* * * * *

On April 16th we took the train for Alcúdia and set out on our fourth and final tour in Majorca. When I say that we took the train for Alcúdia I mean that we went as far in that direction as the train would carry us, for with a strange perversity the railway line, instead of running right across the island from Palma to Alcúdia and so connecting the latter and its Minorcan service of boats with the rest of the world, stops short some ten miles from the coast, perhaps with a view to annoying possible invaders.

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“_Alfadia is an old caravanserai.... In its great courtyard
is a fountain and an enormous pepper tree_....”

(page 93)
]

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“_We passed out of the town of Alcúdia by the Roman gate
called the Puerta del Muelle._”

(page 95)
]

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Two hours after leaving Palma we descended at the terminus of La Puébla, where we and five other persons scrambled with difficulty into an immensely high two-wheeled carrier’s cart covered with a canvas tilt. For an hour and a half the stout horse jogged slowly along a flat road, and then we drove under the great fortified gateway of San Sebastian and entered Alcúdia, an ancient town of dingy-looking houses, with paved alleys so narrow that our horse had to put his head right in at people’s front doors in order to turn the sharp street corners.

Alcúdia is still surrounded by strong walls and a moat, fortifications dating partly from Roman and partly from Moorish days. During the great peasant revolt of the sixteenth century the Aragonese nobles came here for refuge; their yoke had been a heavy one, and since the annexation of the island by the crown of Aragon discontent and unrest had filled the population. Oppressed and heavily taxed, they at last rose in insurrection, and forming themselves into armed bands laid siege to Alcúdia till the arrival of a Spanish fleet turned the scales against them. Their leader, Colom, was beheaded, and his head sent to Palma, where for more than two hundred years it hung in an iron cage at the _Puerta Margarita_, near to which is a square that still bears his name.

We did not stop in Alcúdia, but passing out of the town by the fine Roman gate called the _Puerta del Muelle_ we drove on to the harbour, about a mile distant.

The _Fonda de la Marina_ on the seashore is a large and quite civilised inn, with whitewashed corridors and rows of numbered deal doors; it is a very marine _fonda_ indeed, being situated actually on the water’s edge, so that our driver before putting us down takes a short turn in the sea to wash his cart wheels. Fishing-smacks lie under our windows, and Francisca the general servant—in whose absence everything is at a standstill and who is being perpetually screeched for from the front door—comes up hurriedly in a small boat from the mole where she has been buying fish for our dinner.

Our host informed us that two visitors were already installed in the house, but when we inquired their names and nationality he was hopelessly vague. To the Majorcan innkeeper foreigners are foreigners, and as such will naturally know all other foreigners; and he describes bygone guests by their appearance, age, and such traits as he has observed in them, confident that they will be at once recognised by the person to whom he speaks. To his disappointment, however, we entirely failed—in spite of his most graphic description—to identify our fellow guests, and it was not till we were sitting at table that evening, over our raisins and cabbages, our lobster salad and cutlets, that we saw two strangers enter whom we perceived to be English. They told us they had been here more than a week, and had thoroughly enjoyed their stay.

Very peaceful is the great bay of Alcúdia, with its sand dunes and pine woods, its reedy marshes, and its sickle-curve of dazzling white sand encircling the deep blue water. One may wander for miles along the lonely shore, watching the ways of the burying-beetles that live in large colonies among the bee orchises and cistus bushes above high-water mark, or searching for shells and fragments of coral among the seaweed rissoles of the _Poseidonia oceanica_ that bestrew the beach in countless numbers.

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“_Very peaceful is the bay of Alcúdia with its sickle curve
of snow-white sand encircling the turquoise-blue water._”

(page 96)
]

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“... _one of the_ norias _introduced by the Moors, and
still used in Majorca for raising water from wells_.”

(page 99)
]

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There are many excursions in the neighbourhood that good walkers can easily accomplish on foot. Between the harbour and the town of Alcúdia are the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, supposed to mark the site of the old Pollentia—long disappeared; on a rocky slope, converted into a wild flower garden by a gorgeous tangle of yellow daisies, convolvulus, borage, asphodel and mallow, can be traced partial tiers of seats and flights of steps cut in the rock; and in a depression of the ground are seen the caves originally destined for wild beasts, but now inhabited by nothing more ferocious than a family of black pigs couched upon a bed of seaweed.

Here and there among the flowers one stumbles into a grave; there are rows upon rows of these Roman graves—narrow, shallow tombs cut in the surface of the rock and half filled with earth. Fragments of Roman pottery, broken lamps, skulls and bones are constantly picked up, and two years ago a grave was found intact by some men who were quarrying freestone. Like the rest, it was quite shallow, and in it was found a quantity of gold jewellery that had evidently belonged to a Roman lady. We were shown the ornaments, which comprised a brooch set with rubies, an oval locket—which at one time had apparently contained a portrait—a long chain necklace with clasps, set with small pearls and two emeralds; two handsome gold and pearl earrings, and a few smaller trinkets. In another tomb was found a gold bracelet, and a silver coin said to be of the reign of Tiberius. All these are now in the possession of the finder.

Close to the Roman cemetery are some other graves, half hidden by rough grass. As our guide turned over the earth with his foot he disclosed a jawbone furnished with a row of splendid molars; from the style of burial and other indications these graves have been decided to be Moorish, but as far as we could learn no systematic investigation of the ground has yet been attempted.

The following morning we drove to the _Castillo de Moros_, in one of the usual tilted carts, drawn by a big mule that for some time showed no sign of being able to go at any pace but a walk; our remark, however, that a horse would have been swifter, put the driver on his mettle, and, declaring that his mule had great velocity, he urged the animal into a fast trot which was kept up as long as the condition of the road rendered it in any degree possible.

Skirting the town by an arrow track cut in the bedrock, and dating probably from Roman times, we struck out across country to the Moorish fort that stands on a promontory overlooking the bay of Pollensa. In spite of its age the little _Castillo_ is in good preservation; moat and bastions are almost intact, and a squat pylon of yellow freestone gives entrance to the building and to a broad, flagged terrace on the side towards the sea. Goats browse around the ramparts among palmetto and lentisk, cactus and asphodel; and framed in the embrasures of the masonry is the gorgeous blue of the bay, with the long serrated ranges of Cap Formentór visible in the far distance.

Below us, silhouetted against the distant headland of the Cap de Pinár, stood one of the _nórias_, or Persian wheels, introduced by the Moors and still used in the island for raising water from wells. Bushes of pink stock clambered into the ancient stone aqueduct, which led away from the nória across the bean fields; some sheep were grazing the stony ground, watched by a boy in an enormous straw hat, who stood in the shade of a clump of pines. It was a pretty pastoral scene, typical of the peaceful tide of life that flows on around the Moors’ old fort.

The southern shore of the Bay of Pollensa is very beautiful, and by an amazingly bad road it is possible to drive a considerable way along it, to the Cap de Pinar, a wild headland where we spent a delightful hour; at our feet—far, far below—lay the waters of the bay, and beyond it the trackless sierra of Cap Formentór stretches its arm northwards till it ends in a bold cliff that plunges sheer into the sea. Behind us is a mountain range, on the slopes of which is visible the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Victory, and looking inland we can see the pale blue pyramid of the Puig Mayór.

It was a _fête_ day, and crowds of holiday makers were returning from the Cap—whole family parties laden with palmetto roots slung over their shoulders; the heart of this dwarf palm is considered a delicacy by the Majorcans; the plant is chopped out of the ground with an axe, and the lower leaves trimmed off close, leaving only a tuft of young shoots at the top, which gives the root an almost precise resemblance to a pineapple. But it is a woody form of nourishment, and not a taste to be acquired after childhood I should imagine.

On April 18th we left Alcúdia for Pollensa. A gale had arisen in the night, and we awoke to find the bay flecked with foam caps and the white sand flying like smoke along the shore. The Barcelona boat was many hours overdue, and the fishing fleet could not put out to sea, so that the men, who had stocked their boats overnight with kegs of water and provisions, instead of being off at daybreak as was their wont, were reduced to mending their nets and splitting firewood while they waited, with all the philosophic patience of their kind, for the wind to abate.

Pollensa is about an hour and a half’s drive from Alcúdia. Surrounded by ancient olive groves and rockeries planted with patches of beans and wheat, the old town lies secluded among the hills, out of sight and out of sound of the sea—only three miles distant. On one side of the town rises the green Calvary hill, on the other the bare grey _Puig de Pollensa_, crowned by a pilgrimage church and _hospedéria_; this passion for building a church on the highest and most inaccessible spot attainable is a really curious phenomenon.

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“_Very picturesque is the little blue bay of San Vicente,
with its cliff walls and jagged peaks._”

(page 103)
]

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“_The generation now dying out is the last that will be
seen in the dress worn by their forefathers for a thousand
years past._”

(page 101)
]

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An atmosphere of old-world tranquillity pervades the place; undisturbed by railways, approached by only one good road—that from La Puebla—and brought in touch hardly at all with the outside world, Pollensa is the most characteristically Majorcan town in the whole island. The older men still wear the wide Moorish breeches, the woollen stockings and strong leather shoes latched across with a bow, which the younger ones have forsaken in favour of the less picturesque modern garb. The generation now dying out is the last that will be seen in the dress worn by their forefathers for a thousand years past, and I am glad to have visited the island before the costume has become a mere tradition.

Castillian is little spoken in Pollensa, and our stay at the inn of Antonio de Sollér was complicated by the fact that our good host and his daughter knew rather less Spanish than we did ourselves. The old woman who swept the floors was, I think, a little touched in the head, and she annoyed us considerably for some time by pausing in front of us with uplifted broom—as we sat in our rocking chairs, peacefully reading—and haranguing us in Majorcan, of which she knew we did not understand a word.

“_Les silents ont toujours tort_”—and at last we turned the tables on her by suddenly bursting forth in emphatic English, which had the effect of silencing her completely, and she departed, muttering darkly, no doubt more convinced than ever that we were mad.

We found our inn to be comfortable, and, in spite of being in the middle of the town, exceedingly quiet. The Majorcan cookery is always good, and though liable to become monotonous, a certain variety of diet is obtained by moving from place to place. Chicken stewed with rice, or a ragout, supplemented by fish and an omelette, form the staple dishes of Majorcan _fondas_; and each inn has its own idea of what a sweet course should be, to which it rigorously adheres; at Felanitx we got into a stratum of enormous jam puffs—larger than I could have conceived possible; at Arta it was figs, stuffed with aniseed; at Alcúdia, slabs of quince jelly; at Pollensa heavy pastry starfish, which made their appearance twice a day with unfailing regularity.

For breakfast coffee can always be obtained—although it must be remembered that coffee does not necessarily imply milk, unless specially ordered; and with the coffee it is the custom to eat an _ensaimáda_—a kind of sweet sugar-besprinkled bun. Except at Palma and Sollér, butter is not to be had; we usually supplied its place with jam we carried with us, but at Pollensa we found ourselves reduced to our last pot, and that pot we decided to save up as emergency rations, for rumour had it that at Lluch, whither we were bound, we might be glad of anything at all.

The morning after our arrival at Pollensa we drove out to the _Cala de San Vicente_, a bay on the north coast of the island; after driving over a bad road for some miles we left the _galaréta_ and walked down to the sea by a charming path leading through pine woods and a wild rock-garden of pink and white cistus and yellow broom, where for the first time we heard the nightingale. Near the shore are large freestone quarries— smooth-walled pits of cream-coloured stone—where men are employed in detaching great blocks with wedges, and shaping them with saw and axe; so plentiful is the freestone in many parts of the island that not only the houses, but the field-walls and even the pigstyes are built of it. It is extremely soft and easy to work when first quarried, and has the invaluable property of hardening more and more as time goes on, when exposed to the air. This causes many of the ancient buildings—such as the Lonja and others—to look quite disappointingly modern, owing to the smooth, unweathered surface of the walls and the sharp lines of all angles.

Exceedingly picturesque is the little blue bay of St. Vincent, with its enclosing cliff walls and jagged peaks; on a small headland stands a ruined _ataláya_ of curious construction, the tower being rounded on the land side, but forming an acute angle towards the sea.

Amongst the prickly pear and boulders of this headland we noticed a large, almost circular, block of stone that attracted our attention from its bearing traces of a rude square cut in its upper surface. We asked the daughter of our _fondista_, who was with us, whether there was any legend attaching to the ancient stone, but she was interested not at all in pre-historic man:

“That _mésa_,” she explained—_mésa_ means table, and is the term applied to all the megalithic altars in the Balearics—“that _mésa_ is there for visitors to have their luncheon upon.”

This lack of observation and of intelligent interest in their surroundings we found not uncommon among the people, who have an almost Oriental incuriosity with regard to things that do not practically concern them. Many a time did we draw the attention of a native to some conspicuous plant growing in profusion around his home, and ask him what kind of flower it bore when in bloom; whereupon he would reply without hesitation that that particular plant never flowered at all, and consider himself well out of the matter.

I remember being told by a traveller in Spain that once when in the very centre of the liquorice industry he inquired of his landlord what part of the plant was used, to which he replied that it was the root:

“And what kind of plant is it that supplies these roots?”

“Oh, there is no plant at all—nothing to be seen above ground.”

Pursuing his inquiries further, he found a man who admitted that there was certainly a plant, but he maintained that it never flowered. This was in the neighbourhood of acres of the plant, then in full flower!

In the afternoon our host drove us to Aubercuix in a tilted cart, with an old flea-bitten Rosinante in the shafts. Passing the quaint _Fuente de Gallo_—an urn-shaped stone fountain presided over by a spruce cock, where all day long the women fill their water jars—we had not proceeded more than half a mile on our way when the back bench of our conveyance, on which we both were sitting, broke down with a loud crack, and in the confusion our best umbrella fell out in front and got badly kicked by the horse. Our host was aghast; he jumped down and repaired the damage as quickly as possible—propped up the seat with some chunks of firewood that happened to be in the cart—disengaged the umbrella from the horse’s hind leg—and tried to assure us that all was well. But it was far from well. Our appearance had for some time past not been our strong point; repeated wettings and dryings had not improved our hats; our clothes were almost worn out—and now the best umbrella was just as baggy and bent and stained as the other, and, moreover, would only open in a lop- sided way.

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“_The_ Fuente de Gallo, _an urn-shaped stone fountain,
presided over by a spruce cock_.”

(page 104)
]

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“... _the fine old Roman bridge at the entrance to
Pollensa_.”

(page 107)
]

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We were not a little annoyed at this mishap, but our annoyance was soon quenched in amusement, so curiously unconventional was our host’s style of driving; hollerin’ and bellerin’ like Prince Giglio of immortal fame, as though driving half a dozen plough teams at once, our good host urged the old horse to speed with a running accompaniment of vituperation and ceaseless objurgations, ranging from threats to cajolements, thence to sarcasm, and occasionally rising to heights of scathing laughter, which startled the old horse more than anything else. It must not be imagined, however, that our progress was rapid; the noise served to clear the road for half a mile ahead of us, it is true, but the old horse had to be allowed to walk down every descent, while on the flat he was not expected to exceed a gentle trot; he understood his master perfectly, and feared him not at all. Never did we see an animal ill-treated in Majorca.

The road to Aubercuix takes one down to the port of Pollensa, and thence round the bay as far as the little lighthouse on the opposite point; beyond this one can only penetrate into the _Cap de Formentór_ by a bad mule track, or by taking a sailing boat and landing in some little cove along the coast.

Wonderful was the view, glorified by the golden evening light, that we obtained as we wound along the water’s edge and followed the gravelled causeway leading to the _Fáro_; across the bay shone the white town of Alcúdia, seemingly built on the seashore, though in reality far inland; looking back towards Pollensa the scene was of marvellous beauty—in the foreground the curve of the shore, broken by black clumps of rushes, a few stunted trees, and an upturned boat lying on the sand; beyond, some fishermen’s huts, with here and there a dark pine-tree, sharp-cut against the dim distance of the sierra. Rank behind rank, their planes parted by the evening mist, veiled in shimmering tints of pink and violet, dove colour and indigo, and melting away into the sunset sky itself, stretched the mountain chains behind Pollensa. Their peaks were tinged with flame, and the rays of the setting sun descended like fire- escapes of golden web into the azure mist that filled the valleys.

For a few minutes the unearthly light lingered, and then the sun sank out of sight; a chill sea-breeze sprang up as we set our faces homeward, and the stars were shining serenely before we regained our _fonda_.

* * * * *

The following morning we rode to the _Castillo del Rey_, the route taking us, soon after starting, over the fine old Roman bridge at the entrance of the town. For an hour and a half we pursued a good mule- track up the gorge of the Ternallas, a mountain stream dashing down through woods of ilex and pine, with bare grey peaks towering overhead; leaving the forest we came out into a grassy and boulder-strewn trough among the hills, and presently arrived at the foot of the crag on which the castle stands. So inaccessible does the rock look, crowned by the skeleton ribs of the old banqueting hall—yellow rock and yellow masonry welded in one—that at first sight one wonders how the ascent is to be even attempted. Up a steep hillside, covered with rocks, loose stones, and prickly shrubs, we scrambled and toiled on foot for nearly half an hour; more and more desperate grew the path as we advanced, larger and larger the rocks to be surmounted; but at last, with a final effort, we scaled a boulder over six feet in height and were hauled up by our muleteers into the arched doorway of the old fortress.

The origin of the castle is lost in the mists of antiquity; it is supposed to have existed in the time of the Romans, and under the Moors it formed an important stronghold to which they retreated after evacuating Palma. Later on the flag of Jaime III. still waved over the _Castillo del Rey_ after the whole of the rest of the island had gone over to Pedro of Aragon, but in the year 1343 the loyal garrison was forced to surrender after a siege of more than two months.

Not much of the fortress survives at the present time; three pointed freestone arches belonging to the central hall form the most conspicuous feature of the ruins. Beyond this there is little except some subterranean chambers, and a few fragments of rock-like wall and pointed battlement, still untouched by time, that survive amidst a chaos of masonry. From the northern edge of the cliff—an appalling precipice descending sheer to the sea—a magnificent view over the coast and the surrounding mountains is to be had on a clear day, but on the occasion of our own visit ominous stormclouds were closing in around us, and the horizon was a blank pall of rain.

Hardly had we sat down to luncheon when heavy drops began to fall; seizing our cutlets and oranges we fled to the rock tunnel leading from the entrance to the interior of the castle, and in that narrow and draughty passage continued our interrupted meal; but to our dismay rivulets soon began to invade our retreat, the heavens poured down water through a machicolation overhead, and before long we were sitting, like the Blessed Catalina, on stones in the middle of a river bed, while a growing torrent flowed beneath our feet. Our men wrapped their blankets around them and squatted patiently in the doorway. Presently footsteps were heard, and a wet stranger scrambled breathlessly in at the tunnel’s mouth, accompanied by a guide in wide indigo breeches soaked to the consistency of jelly bags, while rivulets ran from the brim of his felt hat.

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“_Presently we came in sight of the Castillo del Rey
... built upon a crag crowned by the skeleton ribs of the
ancient banqueting hall—yellow rock and yellow masonry
welded in one._”

(page 108)
]

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“_We found the Gorch Blau filled with a rushing whirl of
foaming, emerald-green water_....”

(page 115)
]

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Still it poured—steadily—without intermission; the landscape below us was blotted out by a veil of driving rain; banks of cloud were sweeping in from the sea and settling in woolly folds upon the hills, which appeared and disappeared as one storm after another broke over them and passed on. For two hours we waited, and then there came a lull; sallying out in desperation we slid and scrambled down the slippery rocks and soaking vegetation of the steep hillside, and rejoining our equally wet mules set out for home. The red path was now a quagmire under foot, and the little watercourses were leaping and chasing down the hills to join the river; but the rain held off and we got back in safety, being met at the inn door by a chorus of inquiries as to how we had fared, laments over our wetting, and an optimistic assurance that on the morrow the weather would be very _bonito_ indeed.