Chapter VI: Part II (3)

But when morning dawned it was far from being _bonito_—it could hardly look worse. Nevertheless we determined on making the march to Lluch—a ride of about four hours across the mountains. The charge for a mule with its attendant muleteer is six pesetas for this journey if they return the same day; but if, as in our case, they are retained at Lluch for further expeditions, an additional five pesetas is asked for the return trip to Pollensa. One of our mules was a very smart-looking beast, ridden with the iron noseband which in Majorca usually takes the place of a bit, and carrying the English side-saddle we had brought with us, covered with a sheepskin to lessen the slipperiness so fatiguing to the rider when going up or down a steep mountain path for hours at a time. The other one was a sturdy pack animal, bridled in inferior manner with a hemp halter and furnished with pack saddle and panniers.

These pack saddles are extremely comfortable to ride on if they are well balanced; one sits as on a broad, soft platform between the panniers, dangling a foot on either side of the mule’s neck, the idea being that if the beast falls you will alight on your feet and get clear of him whichever way he rolls. As a matter of fact you find it impossible to move at all, partly owing to the adhesive nature of the sheepskin on which you are seated, and partly to a heterogeneous mass of luggage— rugs, valises, and fodder bags—piled high on either hand, while umbrellas and tripod-legs close your last avenue of escape.

The mounting of a laden pack-saddle is a problem in itself, and to the last I could discover no system upon which the feat is accomplished; a wild, spasmodic leap, taken from some wall near the animal, usually—but not always—lands one in the saddle, and once in position a fatalistic calm is the best attitude with which to confront the perils of the ensuing ride. The most well-meaning of mules has habits which do not conduce to the happiness of his rider upon a mountain track; he will pause on a hogsback ridge of slippery cobbles in the middle of a swift stream, to gaze entranced, with pricked ears, at the distant landscape; with an absolutely expressionless countenance he carries one under a low bough—or anchors himself in front by fixing his teeth firmly in a tough shrub as he strides by, and then falls over himself as his stern overtakes him. In short he awakens in his rider a lively sympathy with Dr. Johnson, who was carried as uncontrollably on a horse as in a balloon.

The paths were in an unusually bad state that day owing to the recent heavy rain; great parts of the track were under water; every torrent was swelled to twice its normal size, and miniature Lauterbrunnen falls were leaping down the faces of the cliffs. We forded several streams, slithered down causeways of loose sliding blocks, and scrambled up slippery rock steps where it was all the mules could do to keep their feet and avoid falling backwards.

For the first hour we rode in drenching rain through dark ilex woods and fine mountain scenery; but as we got higher the weather improved—the sun came out, the birds began to sing, the scent of wet cistus bushes filled the air, and emerging on to a grassy plateau we presently came in sight of the monastery of Lluch, lying in a level valley high up among the hills—a great pile of yellow buildings backed by grey rocks and ilex- trees.

Crossing the wide green, with its long range of stabling, its poplar- trees and fountain, we dismount—wet and tired—under the entrance archway, and pass into a large quadrangle formed by the college, the _hospedéria_, the priests’ house, and the oratory, an ornate chapel hung with embroidered banners presented to Our Lady of Lluch.

The history of this oratory goes back to a date shortly after the conquest in the thirteenth century, when a herd-boy named Lluch—or Lucas—while driving his flock home one night, noticed a strange light upon the mountain side; on relating this to a priest, the latter went to examine the spot whence the light proceeded, and there discovered a stone statue of the Blessed Virgin and Child, which was installed forthwith in a little chapel built for the purpose; and this Virgin of Lluch—the _Máre de Deu_ as she is called—became in course of time the patroness of the Majorcans, and a great power in the land. Bequests of money and land were made to her, and in the fifteenth century the Oratory was founded, together with a college for the instruction of twelve poor children. The original college now forms the _hospedéria_ for visitors, having been superseded by a newer building where to this day twelve boys receive education and instruction in church singing from the four priests who inhabit the _rectoria_.

The wants of visitors are attended to by six lay brothers, and at times the resources of the establishment are strained to their utmost. We were told that at Easter no fewer than six hundred people had made the pilgrimage hither, coming from all parts of the island and staying two or even three nights; those for whom there was no room in the _hospedéria_ were bedded in the corridors and stables, while the rest slept in their carts and carriages outside.

Until recently all comers had to bring their own food, but some few years ago a kind of restaurant—independent of the monastery—was established, where visitors can get simple meals at a very moderate charge. The wife of the _fondista_ cooks well, and though neither meat, milk, nor butter are to be had, the staple provisions of sausage, sardines, cheese, bread, coffee, and condensed milk—with the addition of a fowl or an omelette—constitute a diet with which any traveller may be content. After supper one crosses the great quadrangle to the _hospedéria_, which contains some fifty beds, placed two, three, and even four in a room.

In answer to the bell at the iron grille a lay brother made his appearance and took us upstairs and down a long, spacious, echoing corridor to one of the whitewashed cells, where he presented us with a key and a pair of damp sheets and left us to our own devices. The room was sparsely furnished, and contained two beds, with a pile of mattresses and blankets, a small table, a chair, a diminutive tripod supporting a basin, an equally diminutive towel, and an earthenware jar with some water.

For the moment it did not strike us that we were expected to make our own beds, and after waiting some time we sent an urgent message to our friar by a young man we met on the stairs and who seemed faintly amused at the errand. No one came, however—and neither on that nor on any subsequent occasion did Brother Bartholomew condescend to attend to us in any way whatever, or even supply us with more water, so that on the second morning we were reduced to a kind of _nettoyage à sec_. The only thing he did for us was to come and rattle our door loudly at five o’clock in the morning to make us get up—and failing in his attempt, to go away, having either by accident or with malice aforethought turned the key in the door and locked us in.

It was not till breakfast time that we discovered our plight, and we should have been constrained ignominiously to call for help from the window had we not succeeded in picking the lock with a buttonhook and so regained our freedom.

At nine o’clock we set out on our mules for the _Gorch Blau_, a two hours’ ride from the monastery. It is hopeless to ascertain beforehand from one’s muleteers the nature of the road that lies before one, for they admit no difference between one mountain path and another, and assure one invariably that the road will be good the whole way; nor are they in any way abashed when presently you come to a slippery rock staircase, so impossible that they advise you—in your own interest—to dismount and proceed on foot. The ride to the Gorge includes, as far as I can remember, only one really _mauvais quart d’heure_—but the rain had converted the paths into sloughs, and our poor men soon had their shoes soaked through and through, in spite of making _détours_ wherever possible to avoid the floods through which our mules splashed recklessly.

But if all this water increased the difficulties of the march it also added immensely to the beauty of the landscape. As we wound along the heights we could hear the _Torrent de Pareys_ in its deep cañon bed, thundering down in flood to the sea, and we found the _Gorch Blau_ filled with a rushing whirl of foaming emerald-green water instead of containing—as it often does—a supply so scanty as hardly to deserve the name of torrent at all.

Towering fern-clad cliffs close in upon a ravine a few yards only in width, through which the water dashes at racing speed with a noise that prevents one from hearing oneself speak. An ancient pack-bridge spans the stream, and a path cut in the side of the water-worn cliff leads through the gorge into a broad open valley—a valley of desolation, ringed round with walls of bare grey rock, and strewn with innumerable stones, amongst which sheep and goats pick up a scanty living. For another hour we followed the course of the stream, now flowing tranquilly over a pebbly bed, and then reached a spot known as the _Pla de Cuba_—a higher valley among the hills, through which runs the path to Sollér, five hours distant. Here we made a two hours’ halt, and while the mules ate carob beans and cropped the coarse _carritx_ grass covering the hillside, we explored the rocky slopes in search of the pink orchises and white cyclamen that grow here in profusion.

These high regions have a far larger annual rainfall than the rest of the island, and the comparative dampness of the atmosphere is seen in the mossy trunks and fern-clad limbs of the ilex woods, as also in the unusual girth of the trees—one grand old ilex, said to be the largest tree in Majorca, having a diameter of fully eight feet.

Clouds gather every evening upon the mountain tops around Lluch, and the plateau itself, sixteen hundred feet above sea-level, is often shrouded in fog for days together. In bad weather a stay at the monastery is by no means enjoyable, and when we woke on the second morning and found the rain falling fast, we were not sorry to think that the _galaréta_ we had ordered from Inca to fetch us would arrive in an hour or so. Our shoes and skirts had never dried thoroughly since the soaking they got on our ride from Pollensa, and the unwarmed rooms felt miserably chilly.

Going across to the restaurant, where we breakfasted at an icy marble- topped table, we found four young Frenchmen, who had arrived overnight, stamping their feet on the cold stone floor and bitterly bewailing their fate; they had come with the sole object of seeing the Gorch Blau—and now, not only was the expedition out of the question, but they were imprisoned in this dismal place—for _voila!_ by this frightful weather it was impossible even to depart. What to do! _Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_

We could offer little comfort beyond suggesting that some misguided visitor might turn up during the morning, in whose conveyance they could make their escape—a contingency which both they and we felt to be very unlikely ... but even as we spoke, we saw to our surprise _two_ empty carriages cross the green and draw up before the monastery.

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“_The_ Pla de Cuba _is a high valley through which runs
the mule path to Soller, five hours distant_.”

(page 115)
]

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“_Now and again we got a peep of the plain and its white
town far below_....”

(page 117)
]

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Two blacks may not make a white—but two mistakes may result in a remarkably good arrangement. Owing to a misunderstanding with our late host of Pollensa—who, it must be remembered, spoke nothing but Majorcan— a _galaréta_ had been sent up from La Puebla for us, besides the one which we ourselves had ordered from Inca. Behold, then, a solution of the difficulty! We stowed ourselves into one carriage—our four enchanted fellow-visitors into the other—and away we bowled towards Inca, a two hours’ drive on a splendid road engineered in giddy spirals down the mountain side, with ever and again a peep of the plain and its white town far below us, seen through a break in the hills.

As we get down into the zone of olives again, a warmer air meets us—the rain has been left behind, and we are once more in sunshine; passing the picturesque village of Selva, with its church perched on the very top of a hill, we soon find ourselves at Inca—a large and prosperous-looking town of fine stone houses and shops.

Here we took the train for Palma, and packed ourselves and our valises into a little first-class compartment which we shared with an aristocratic-looking old gentleman travelling with a large wicker basket, apparently containing the week’s wash, and with a lady in a graceful black mantilla, who had a market basket, and a big bundle done up in a check tablecloth. She was evidently leaving home for a few days, and many and anxious were the parting messages given to the two honest servant-girls who stood at the carriage window and with a hearty embrace bade their mistress goodbye before the train started.

The terms upon which master and servant meet in Majorca—and I fancy all over Spain—are very much freer than with us.

* * * * *

Palma at the end of April is a very different town from the Palma of a few weeks ago; the trees along the Borne are greening fast, and the country is a mass of leafage. The swifts have arrived, and are wheeling and screaming over the town in thousands; the masses of dwarf blue iris by the seashore are over, but the waist-high corn is spangled with poppies and corn daisies, gladioli, and a handsome crimson and yellow scrophularia. The roads are deep in dust—the river dry as a bone. Our rooms maintain a steady temperature of 66° Fahrenheit, and the heat in the middle of the day is already sufficient to make us appreciate the draughtiness of the cool, narrow streets of the town.

Palm Sunday is celebrated by a palm service in the cathedral, and by a palm fair—the _Fiesta de Rámos_. At the palm service the bishop, mitred and coped, and accompanied by priests, choristers, mace-bearers, and all the dignitaries of the cathedral, processes around the outside of the building—and all carry consecrated palm branches in their hands. These palms are afterwards distributed amongst the townspeople, who fasten them to their house-fronts and balconies as a protection against lightning.

The _Fiesta de Rámos_ takes place in the Rambla, where for three days the wide gravelled walk is occupied by a double row of wooden booths, between which a seething throng of townspeople streams up and down; there are toys and sweets and fruit stalls—dolls and dolls’ furniture, and charming baskets of all sizes, down to the familiar covered market basket made in smallest miniature by the neatest of fingers; there are merry-go-rounds and a Japanese giant, drums, trumpets, and squeaking whistles, and for three days there is a pandemonium of noisy instruments which to the children is the seventh heaven of delight.

In the spring, too, the annual swearing-in of the new recruits takes place, and is a picturesque sight; all the troops in the town—cavalry, infantry, and artillery—are assembled on the great Plaza Santa Catalina outside the walls, where is erected a large red and yellow marquee surmounted by a royal crown and flanked by cannon, stacked rifles, and warlike trophies of swords and bayonets. Inside the tent is an altar with lighted candles, and when all the high civil and military officials of the town have arrived, mass is celebrated—the elevation of the Host being marked by three shrill bugle calls, at which the whole body of troops and spectators fall on one knee and uncover—the cavalry lowering their swords.

After this, a priest walks round the lines, and halting opposite each regiment reads a short address, at the close of which a simultaneous assent bursts forth from the ranks of the new conscripts. When all have been sworn in, the recruits—who on this occasion numbered three or four hundred—defile in front of the colours, kissing the flag and uncovering as they go by.

And with this the ceremony is over for the year.

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