its heels is halved, quartered, or wholly dismembered. Its limbs may
lack the noble proportions of a Surrey capon, but they will be well
flavoured and succulent, and you can acquire a wing and slice of the
breast, or a leg, or a yet smaller portion, as your fancy inclines.
We had heard that Majorcans were apt to tax foreigners by making
them pay more than was customary for anything purchased, but such
occurrences were quite outside our experience; though I did come
across an example of Majorcan reasoning that was so amusingly
illogical that I am tempted to repeat it here.
Finding in our picnicking style of housekeeping that a cold tongue
was a useful thing to have in the larder, I frequently ordered one
from the estimable butcher who served us. For a time the price
charged was moderate. One day without warning it was increased by a
half.
My Spanish unaided did not enable me to argue the matter, but Mrs.
Consul chancing to be with me next time I called at the shop, I got
her to inquire the reason of this sudden and unexplained change of
rate.
"Yes. The tongue was a small one, and the price high," admitted the
plump wife of the butcher, who acted as his accountant. "But then I
had charged the senora too little for those we had supplied her with
at first. And though we have many customers, each ox we kill has
only one tongue. And, as I had charged the senora too little for the
others, to be just to myself I was obliged to ask more than the true
price for the last one!"
The method of reasoning was so delightfully irrational and absurd
that I cheerfully paid the confessed overcharge, and we left the
shop laughing. Probably the worthy dame wonders to this day what we
found entertaining in the situation.
Many good and cheap eatables are to be had in Palma if one knows
where to look for them. By degrees we found out the best place to
buy the tasty little pies filled with fish, or meat, and herbs,
raisins and pine-seeds, or the funny turn-overs stuffed with spinach,
that all the bakers make; and discovered the confectioner who sold
the nicest cakes and sweets, and where to buy freshly-baked almonds,
and who had the best quince preserve.
A little investigation introduced us to articles of food that we
would never have met had we continued to live in a hotel--to the
_cocas_ that so closely resemble the Scottish "cookies"; and the
_bizcochos_, that are just crisp freshly toasted slices of the
largest sized _cocas_.
When we arrived in October, fruit was plentiful. Delicious grapes
were selling at twopence-halfpenny a kilo (about a penny a pound),
and ripe purple or golden figs were eighteen a penny. As the winter
advanced the price of grapes gradually rose. And though one day in
early December I bought for fivepence in the market four pounds of
well-flavoured yellow grapes, by the end of January the finest were
a peseta (about ninepence) a kilo.
Fresh figs gradually declined in flavour as they rose in price. And
towards Christmas the country folks, who come in on Saturday
mornings to the smaller market that is held in the Plaza de Mercado,
began to bring in rush baskets of the home-dried figs that have been
ripened in the sun and packed between fig leaves.
The continued drought raised the price of vegetables, though small
cauliflowers were still only a halfpenny each, and a good sized
bunch of carrots could be bought for the coin that is rather less in
value than a farthing. Most Majorcan carrots are purple in hue, so
deep a purple as to be almost black. They have to be partially
cooked alone, before being added to anything else, as their colour
dyes the water black. It is their only fault. Their flavour is
excellent.
Early in February we began to use the green peas and turnips that in
November I had sown in our garden; but for the lack of rain they
would have been ready a month earlier. And an occasional sowing of
spinach yielded a quick and unfailing supply throughout the winter.
The question of firing in so genial a climate is an easy one to
answer.
For cleanliness, coolness, convenience and economy in cooking there
is no fuel that compares with charcoal. As a charcoal stove has no
flue, the lighting is attended with a certain amount of smoke from
the resinous sticks that are sold specially for the purpose of
kindling. But once the charcoal is lit it gives no further trouble.
It will cook slowly or quickly, as desired, scarcely soiling the
outside of the vessels used in the process: and will stay alight,
without much attention, as long as the cook requires. Further, it
has the exceptional merit of keeping its heat concentrated within a
small area, so that the temperatures of both the kitchen and the
cook remain normal.
Our favourite sitting-room--the one that opened directly to the
veranda--had the unusual advantage of an open hearth, and a few
chilly days that occurred in November made us hasten in search of
logs for burning.
Inquiry in the neighbourhood directed us to a large saw mill in the
Calle de la Fabrica, where we ordered what to us was an unknown
quantity of firewood. The price paid was less than five shillings.
When the wood was delivered we were amazed to find that it half
filled a cart; and that, in addition to an abundant supply of both
logs and rough wood all cut into convenient sizes, the kindly
saw-miller had included four little slabs of the resinous wood used
for kindling.
The wood was built up on the floor under the lower shelves of our
roomy larder, and there, all through November, December, and the
first half of January, it lay untouched.
We had got to the point of discussing what we would do with it on
our leaving for England, when the weather turned chilly enough to
afford us excuse for indulging in the luxury of a log fire. But
though we had a fire on every occasion when artificial heat was
necessary, there were still logs remaining when at the end of April
we quitted the Casa.
A prominent feature of our district, which lay just without the
walls of Palma, was the elaborate system employed to guard against
the smuggling of contraband goods into the city.
The boundary of Son Espanolet, which joined the country, was heavily
guarded. In addition to high walls and much intricate zigzagging of
barbed wire, wherever two roads met there was a little station-house,
or, to be more exact, a shanty, for the shelter of _consumeros_, both
male and female, whose duty it was to examine all goods entering the
city limits. And at frequent intervals all along the boundary roads
was a species of sentry-box, usually containing a chair and a
water-jar, in which for sixteen hours a day a _consumero_ was supposed
to keep watch over his own bit of boundary, and to be ready, if
anything suspicious attracted his notice, to warn the others, by a
series of shrill whistles, to be on the alert.
During the long hours passed in enforced idleness at their posts,
many of the men had contrived to give their surroundings quite a
home-like appearance. A pleasant man, whose location was at the end
of our road, always seemed to have his children playing about him;
and often his wife used to take her knitting and the newest baby,
and the family goat and a big earthenware pan of amber-tinted rice,
and make quite a picnic under the trees near his watch-box.
Another _consumero_ had a stripling vine that he was carefully
training up the trellis over his shed. We sometimes saw him watering
it. And one, a tall silent man, whose station abutted on a piece of
vacant ground, had gradually erected quite a long range of hen-coops
along the base of a warm wall; and there he would stroll in the
sunshine attended by a flock of flourishing poultry, chiefly of the
Plymouth Rock breed.
But these were exceptions. The majority of the _consumeros_ seemed
content to lazy away their days and doze away their nights as
comfortably as possible. When the early winter darkness had fallen,
it was picturesque to see them lighting a brazier, or sitting
huddled up in their warm brown blankets beside its glowing embers
fast asleep.
When we had been spending the evening in town and were coming home
late, we sometimes enjoyed waiting until we were close upon one of
these muffled figures, and then, in chorus, saying politely "Buenas
noches."
[Illustration: A Consumos Station]
Then we would see the comatose form galvanize into a semblance of
life, and hear a drowsy voice from the midst of the enwrappings
reply "Buenas noches tengan."
The discovery that the monetary recompense for the sixteen hours
that the _consumero_ worked or played was only two pesetas--or about
eighteenpence of English money--showed that if he was not
overwrought neither was he overpaid.
At nightfall these guardians of our district were reinforced by the
addition of two active young _carabineros_ who carried loaded
rifles. So between the police, the armed soldiers, the sleepy
_consumeros_, the elusive _sereno_ and the ornamental _vigilante_,
the residents of Son Espanolet ought to have gone to bed with a
feeling of security.
The question of language is a somewhat grave one in Majorca, where
the inhabitants naturally, but inconsiderately from our point of
view, insist upon speaking their native tongue, which is neither
Spanish nor French, but sounds like a corruption of both.
Majorcan, which is said to be much older than _Castellano_, the
official language of Spain, is closely allied to _Catalan_. And
though many words suggest French, Spanish, and even Italian
influence, the islanders seem, by an ingenious chipping of
terminations and the addition of weird sounds entirely their own, to
have evolved a tongue which goes far towards outdoing all others in
unmelodious sounds. A peacefully animated conversation in Majorcan
suggests impending bloodshed. To overhear a quarrel would be
horrific. Happily discord is rare in Majorca. As far as our six
months of experience showed, a better natured or more harmonious
people never existed.
The dialect in use in Minorca and Iviza, though practically the same
as that of Majorca, varies in each island. So it is not surprising
that the visitor to the Balearic Islands is strongly advised to
confine his efforts to the acquirement of Spanish, not even to
attempt to learn Majorcan. And indeed the facilities for doing so
are few. We could find no Majorcan dictionary, though a weekly paper
in the language, _Pu-Put_, is published in Palma.
All the educated classes speak Spanish fluently. Yet in most of the
shops, even in Palma, and in the country districts, the native
language prevails.
Very few of the working women understand Spanish. Their lives having
been passed on the islands, they remain ignorant of any but their
mother tongue; though it is common to find their menfolk speaking
Spanish well, owing to their having been in the army, or to their
having passed the period of voluntary exile that most of them serve
almost as they do the demands of the State.
Those who know, say that Majorca is a bad place to learn Spanish in;
that in order to have a good accent the intending traveller is best
to acquire it elsewhere. And as Borrow says, you must open your
mouth and take your hands out of your pockets to speak Spanish.
Before leaving London we tried, after a very desultory fashion, to
pick up a little Spanish. The Boy, who took Berlitz lessons, got on
famously and was our mainstay from the moment we crossed the Spanish
frontier at Port Bou. But he declares that he had not been long in
Palma before he found himself speaking Spanish with a Majorcan
accent.
For my part, in point of language I found the direction of even so
small an establishment as the Casa Tranquila very puzzling,
especially at first. After carefully gleaning a knowledge of the
Spanish coinage that enabled me to count up to say ten, in pesetas
and centimos, it was bewildering to find sums calculated in _reals_
and in _perros grandes_ and _perros pequenas_.
I shall never forget the first time Apolonia, the laundress,
appeared to deliver up our clean linen and to receive her just
recompense. When I inquired how much we owed her, Apolonia told me
the sum, but she did it in Majorcan.
"Onza reals, cuatro centims, dos centims."
"Que vale en pesetas?" I asked, but Apolonia could not reckon in
pesetas. Raising her stubby fingers, she proceeded to make
cabalistic signs in the air, repeating the whole "Onza reals, cuatro
centims, dos centims," in a voice that grew louder and louder, as
though the more noise she made the more likely was she to pierce my
thick understanding.
Maria, hearing the discussion, left her dusting, and running swiftly
on her string-soled _alpargatas_, came to the rescue.
If matters had been bad before, they were now worse. Four hands were
in the air. Two voices in Majorcan, that became momentarily more
strident, kept repeating the tale of reals and centims until,
feeling undecided whether to laugh or to cry, I cut the matter short
by emptying the contents of my housekeeping purse on the table and
imploring Apolonia to help herself.
After many protestations she agreed to do so. And with much
reluctant and timorous hovering of her fingers over the coins, at
last selected the exact sum; which, before taking possession of, she
carefully spread before my eyes, calling upon Maria to witness that
she had not abused my trust.
The calculations of Mundo, the vegetable man, were--if
possible--more distracting; for having inherited the national
characteristic of honesty to an almost unnatural degree, the worthy
Mundo, in his desire to be strictly just in his dealings, had a way
of splitting farthings that sometimes proved inexplicable, not only
to his customers but also to himself.
How often, when he stood puzzling over some fraction of a penny,
have I felt impelled to say rashly: "Bother the expense, Mundo. I'll
make you a present of the half farthing!"
Fortunately for Mundo's opinion of my sanity, the spirit of economy
that tinctures the balmy air of these Fortunate Isles prevented any
such extravagant proceeding.
[Illustration: The Castle of Bellver]
V
TWO HISTORIC BUILDINGS
After we were fairly settled in our house our first excursion
naturally was to the Castle of Bellver, the ancient fortress that,
from the veranda, we saw clearly silhouetted against the western
sky.
The afternoon was glorious. The sky was a cloudless blue, the
sunlight cast deep shadows; to drive there in one of the quaint,
open-sided tramcars would have been a treat. But there had been
thunder in the night, and the apprehensive authorities had decided
that it was a day for bringing out the closed vehicles. So we sat in
the stuffy little car, and drove out through crowded Santa Catalina
and across the bridge that spanned the dry _torrente_ of San Magin,
and past the _consumos_ sheds towards the Terreno, the favourite
summer resort of Palma folks, whose charming villas clothe the
slope leading to the steep hill on whose summit stands the old
castle.
The sun was hot, the air exhilarating. Flowers--roses, zinnias,
plumbago, chrysanthemums, geraniums--still bloomed in the villa
gardens. To us it was a glorious summer day. To the Majorcans it was
already winter. The pretty houses were nearly all empty. Their
owners had returned to town.
The old road to the Castle is a stiff climb up a rocky slope. The
new road is an excellent carriage drive that winds round the hill.
We chose the steep way, and found ourselves frequently pausing and
turning to look back across the sparkling waters of the bay to
Palma, which at that moment was looking, as it so often does, like
some celestial city.
The air was fragrant with the essence of the pines that clothed the
slopes--at their feet tall pink heath and wild lavender were in
bloom.
When Jaime the First built Bellver for a summer palace, he made it
an invincible fortress. One thing only could one imagine as more
difficult than getting into the Castle, and that would be getting
out of it. Yet, had we so willed, on this balmy afternoon the
hitherto impregnable stronghold with its deep moat, its implacable
walls, might have been ours without even a show of resistance; for
when we reached the gateway we found it open and unguarded.
But fortunately for the reputation of Bellver our mood was pacific;
and we were content to linger without until an old woman, who had
espied us as she was leaving the Castle with what was presumably the
washing of the custodian in a chequered handkerchief under her arm,
ran back calling loudly for "Bordoi."
Bordoi appeared in the person of the custodian of the Castle. He was
an old soldier, gaunt, lean, courteous, and evidently possessing a
genuine pride in his charge.
The first thing to which he called our attention was the grating set
high over the entrance, through which, after the endearing fashion
of their time, the occupants of the Castle were accustomed to shower
a gentle hint to depart, in the form of arrows or boiling water,
upon the heads of any visitors whose appearance they did not fancy.
The Castle, which is in the form of a circle, is built round a
courtyard containing a great draw-well. Looking down, it was
interesting to me to see that the moist sides of the interior were
thickly coated with luxuriant maidenhair fern, such as we had years
before noticed growing inside the mouth of the well in the house of
the maker of amphorae in Pompeii.
Reaching down his long arm, the custodian picked me a frond,
explaining that it made a wholesome medicinal drink--"quite as good
as sarsaparilla."
And here an odd query occurs to me. Does the office of caretaker
conduce to dyspepsia, or does the enforced leisure of the occupation
dispose to hypochondria? During a little journey through the
Shakespeare country, for instance, it was impossible--even for such
very polite people as ourselves--to avoid noticing the boxes of
patent pills or of much-vaunted lotions that figured prominently
amongst the private possessions of the people who showed us the
places of interest.
The stern face of the old keep has frowned on many tragic sights. It
was up these rocky slopes that the headless body of the third Jaime
was borne, after his luckless attempt, at the battle of Lluchmayor,
to wrest his kingdom from a usurper. And it was there, too, that the
boy son who had fought so bravely by his father's side was carried,
desperately wounded.
In more recent times Bellver has acted the part of a State prison.
Political prisoners, numbering as many as three or four hundred at a
time, have been immured within its massive walls. It was easy to
picture them clustering in the spacious courtyard about the well, or
pacing the open-sided gallery overlooking it, or lingering on the
flat roof, from which such an amazingly comprehensive view may be
had.
Seen from beneath, the height of the Castle is dwarfed by its
encircling walls. It is only on looking down from the battlements
and seeing the immense depths of the surrounding moats that one
realizes the strength of the inflexible grip in which captives would
be held.
In these days a rescue by means of airship might be feasible. For an
aviator to alight on the vast flat circle of the Castle roof, to
pick up a prisoner, and fly off again, would presumably be an easy
matter. But in those days airships were unknown, and it must have
been maddening to be pent so near Palma that every building might be
distinguished, to be able to note the coming and going of the ships,
to view the fair fertile country in every direction, and yet know
that the deep encompassing moat rendered any attempt at escape a
futility.
In one of the rooms a memorial tablet had been inserted in the wall
in remembrance of a deposed Minister of State, who endured six years
of incarceration before dying there in 1808.
In his chamber a window, reached by steps and stone-seated, afforded
a lovely prospect across the blue waters of the harbour to the
stately Cathedral and the town. It was pitiful to see that the gaudy
tiles that paved the embrasure were worn bare, and to note that, by
some curious coincidence, the face in the bas-relief looked
longingly towards the window.
In the immense kitchen the most remarkable feature was the
chimney--a space like a large room--of which the smoke-blackened
sides narrowed up and up, until far overhead its orifice appeared a
mere eyelet of light against the sky. But this ancient fireplace had
been superseded by a long range of charcoal stoves, and the savour
of roasting oxen will never again ascend that giant chimney.
The Castle of Bellver is full of interest, but it is the roof that
holds the visitor fascinated. On its surface one can walk round and
round in perfect security, meeting a fresh and glorious picture at
every turn. To the north the high velvet hills bar the view.
Southwards, beyond the clustered roofs of the Terreno, the
Mediterranean ripples away towards the African coast. Towards the
west amid the hills lies Ben Dinat, where, after the historic
battle, the Conquistador dined well off bread and garlic; and east
is the lovely plain of Palma, with Santa Catalina and Son Espanolet
(and the quite inconspicuous Casa Tranquila) in the middle distance.
Round the battlements many names, both of the bond and of the free,
were carven. Our guide proudly pointed out three that, coming
amongst the Spanish designations, we read with a curious sense of
familiarity:--
"JOHN SUTHERLAND BLACK.
JAMES HUNTER.
JAMES HUNTER, JUNR."
The date was August, 1905. And the owners of the British names, our
guide told us, were scientific men who had journeyed to Palma to
witness the total eclipse of the sun. And in so doing they assuredly
showed wisdom, for it would have been difficult to find a better
place from which to observe the phenomenon than this wide roof that
seemed so near the sky.
When the men essayed to climb the high tower I waited below on the
roof, and was idly leaning over the battlements when a stonecrop
fast-rooted in the interstices of the wall attracted me. Wondering
what manner of plant would choose to live in that arid situation, I
was examining it closely when I discovered that, even in that
seemingly inaccessible spot, a caterpillar had found it out, and was
busily feeding on its succulent foliage.
The caterpillar might be a common one--I have little knowledge of
entomology--but it was new to me; and its appearance was so
unusually gay as to appear to merit description. The body, which
showed alternate stripes of light and dark grey, was girdled by
black bands, which were further decorated by spots of vivid scarlet;
while the head--or was it the tail?--flaunted a double scarlet
plume.
When the men again joined me, I drew the attention of the custodian
to the gaudy insect, and asked if he knew the species.
He shook his head dubiously, confessing that he had never noticed
one like it before. Then his eyes caught sight of the plant on which
it fed, and he instantly brightened up.
"I know that plant," he said. "It is valuable, senora, very
valuable. It makes a good medicine."
Our next visit was to the Lonja. In the good old days when Palma was
a great mercantile centre--the days when thirty thousand sailors
found employment from its port--a Majorcan architect designed the
Lonja to serve as an exchange.
This old-time architect and his builders must have been past masters
of their art, for though hundreds of years have slipped by since
then, and the Lonja no more serves any active purpose, it still
survives to delight by the simple grandeur of its design. Seen as it
stands with only a wide thoroughfare separating it from the
sparkling waters of the port, with its palm-trees in front and a
cloudless blue sky overhead, the antique building is one of the most
beautiful sights in a city that abounds in beautiful things.
We had been told that the Lonja was open to the public on the
afternoons of Thursdays and Sundays. So one Sunday evening, early in
our stay, the Man and I stopped in front of the great door, and
tried to push it open. It did not yield a hair's-breadth. Indeed, it
seemed to wear an expression of stolid immobility, as though
secretly defying our puny efforts to induce it to reveal the
treasures it guarded.
Sitting in a chair in the shadow of the building an old policeman
was dozing. Him the Man roused and interrogated.