The Fortunate Isles: Life and Travel in Majorca, Minorca and Iviza

When we reached Puerto Cristo the carriage drew up beside two empty vehicles at the back door of a little fonda that is said to be famed for its omelets and its pretty girls.

Passing through a room where a table was set for lunch, we reached a trellised enclosure overlooking a charming little cove on whose waters a boat was sailing.

The silent guide, who had lingered indoors to prepare his acetylene lamps, appeared with them already lit; and, following in his wake, we set off, past a few fisher houses in whose doorways sun-tanned boys were baiting lines, across a bridgelet that spanned a slender arm of the sea, and up a rough track over a moor so brown and bare that it might have been in Devon. Judging by outward appearance, it was the last place where one would have anticipated finding a cave of even the smallest dimensions.

As we went we met two parties of Spaniards who had been seeing the caves and were now returning. It was for them that the carriages waited and the omelets were being prepared at the fonda of the three pretty girls.

Just as we were wondering if our taciturn guide would ever consent to humour us by producing a cave, he headed for an opening in a stone wall. Entering, we were confronted with a barred window and a locked door set in the side of a slope.

Producing a key, the guide unlocked the door, then when we were all inside he carefully re-locked it. A breath of warm exhausted air met our faces. The guide, still preserving his impenetrable reserve, removed his coat, and the Boy, fortunately remembering the advice of an experienced friend, counselled us to follow his example. An hour and a half of hard going was before us. The temperature, which was high even in the entrance hall, was likely to increase as we got farther underground. So the men in shirt-sleeves and myself in a thin net blouse meekly pursued our dumb conductor down a flight of roughly cut steps that seemed to lead right into the bowels of the earth.

Walking in advance, the guide flashed his light upon all sorts of varied wonders, from caverns so hideous and grimy that they looked as though coated with the refuse of a coal mine, to banks of glittering crystals or stalactites of glistening semi-transparent amber.

At one point he drew aside, and stood mutely pointing in advance. Thinking he meant us to move on, I was walking forward, when he drew me back just in time to prevent my stepping into a lake so clear and pellucid as to be absolutely imperceptible.

That was the beginning of the water effects that lend enchantment to the Caves of the Dragon. The Dragon himself is but a poor thing, diminutive and wholly unworthy his surroundings. We saw him. He was pointed out, sneaking up a pillar, a truly undignified position for any creature owning the romantic and awe-inspiring cognomen of dragon. And, speaking confidentially, the humble name of lizard would suit him better.

The lakes and pools are indisputably lovely, and the charm of the Cave of Delights quite roused our enthusiasm. Imagine an azure lake overhung by myriads of glistening pendants. Near the centre a low pile of stalagmites suggestive of a fortress rose out of the water; from the miniature fortress extended a reef in the form of a cross. Stepping thereon, the guide set fire to a piece of ribbon which illumined the farthest recess of the cave, revealing new and unguessed beauties, and rendering the scene one of almost supernatural loveliness.

Then came more caves and yet more. Up steps we went or down steps, getting hotter and hotter in these airless depths as in single file we "ducky-daidled" after our laconic conductor. Once, deep in some gruesome cavern, he announced that the name of the place was the Cave of the Catalans, and in reply to our question explained, with something of animation in the recital, that some years ago, before the entrance to the caves was guarded by lock and key, two young visitors from Spain had conceived the idea of exploring the caves without the aid of a guide. Twenty-seven hours later they were discovered in that repellent spot, deep in a dismal subterranean passage.

It must have been soon after hearing this suggestive story that some one asked the guide if he could find his way out without a light. And when he confessed that he could not, we all secretly wondered how long the gas in the lamps we carried was calculated to burn; but we were all too considerate of the feelings of each other to express our thoughts.

It was distinctly reassuring to remember that if the worst had befallen, if the man on whose guidance we trusted had been seized with illness or had met with an accident and the lamps had gradually flickered out, all we need do would be to sit down and wait; for the driver of our carriage, finding we did not return, would have routed out another guide, and we would soon have seen the lights of the search party gleaming among the pendants and pillars.

At one point we were refreshed with water from a cleft in the rocks, served in a tumbler that was kept inverted over a conveniently placed stalagmite. Then we resumed the tramp. The sights seemed to be endless, and one of the best – the Lake of Miramar – was reserved for the last. About fourteen years ago this extensive waterway was made the subject of special exploration by M. Martel, the French expert. With the aid of a collapsible boat he spent a week in investigation, and at its close was obliged to leave the farthest reaches of the caves yet unexploited.

Hot, clammy and tired, we had returned to the cooler air, and, resting upon the stone benches within the doorway, were refreshing ourselves with tea hot from a Thermos bottle, when the guide, suddenly dropping the mantle of reserve that had cloaked his pilotage, told us the story of the discovery of the Dragon's Caves.

As he sat, a coca in one hand, a square of chocolate in the other, he became almost loquacious for so taciturn a being. The history proved curiously limited for such remarkably extensive caverns.

It began one wet day about thirty years earlier, when his father, who had been out shooting, took shelter in a cleft of the rocks to eat his breakfast. Happening to drop a loose pebble through a chink in the ground, he was surprised to hear by the sound that it had fallen into a cavity of unexpected dimensions. That accidental observation led to the research that opened the Dragon's Caves to the admiration of a curious world.

Clothed and cool, though dusty and soil-stained, we regained the open air, where a group of small orchid plants growing beside the path attracted us. They were the fly orchis, and unusually perfect specimens. The neatest, most insect-like little flies I have ever seen poised amid the green leaflets on the slender stems.

A glorious sunset was flooding the sky with colour as we lurched towards Manacor over the brutal road. The tall towers of the church of this city of the plain stood out sombre and imposing against glowing roseate banks of cloud.

We had been discussing the puzzling appearance of the building, which had a faint resemblance to the Russian style of ecclesiastical architecture, and none at all to any other known school. Scaffolding still encircled the high steeple, and as we drew near the church it appeared as though exciting operations were in process. A constant stream of people entering the edifice was jostled in the passing by a rush of men, lads and boys, who were hurrying out propelling or dragging hand-carts and trolleys laden with blocks of stone, of which heaps were already piled about the exterior of the church.

A useful rule in travelling, if you want to see what is going on, is to follow the crowd. Moving with the throng into the church, we stood astounded at the scene of destruction before us.

The interior of the lofty building was a riot of wild commotion. The air was full of fine dust. By the light of the lanterns which showed dimly through the obscurity, we saw the great white dome rising to the sky; and on the floor beneath, two huge pyramids of broken stone and mortar.

On the crest of the mounds vague figures were visible, working with almost feverish energy to remove the vast heap of débris. The air was vocal with the noise indispensable to violent and concerted action. And the raucous sound of the wheels grinding on the stone floor as a willing band seized each laden truck to propel it out of the church added to the unholy din.

The whole scene was so unexpected, so foreign to the manners of the twentieth century, that to our bewildered minds it almost appeared as though history had slipped back and we had become spectators of some iconoclastic mob engaged in the sacking of the church.

It was a relief to find the labour sanctioned by the presence of priests, who looked with benign approval at the frenzied efforts of the workers.

One of the number, seeing that we were strangers, and probably guessing at our bewilderment, kindly approached, and, with quiet pride illumining his fine old face, volunteered an explanation of the exciting scene before us.

The clergy of Manacor, seeing the need of enlarging their already important church, had appealed to the people. The people promptly agreed to help, and the work of extension was quickly proceeded with, the labour being entirely local, even the statues that adorned the niches having been carved by one of the priests.

The walls of the new church, gradually rising, enclosed the ancient building, in which service continued without intermission to be conducted. When the new walls were complete, the floor of the edifice was thickly covered with pine branches; and after Mass had been celebrated on the very morning of our arrival at Manacor, the ancient walls that had so well served their purpose were pulled down.

After the inevitable blinding dust had settled a little, the labour of clearing away the débris began. And we had returned from the Dragon Caves just in time to witness the multitude of helpers exerting their utmost strength to restore by lamplight the interior of the church from chaos to order.

When we first viewed the scene of demolition the labour required appeared so herculean that it seemed as though toil that was merely human could make but little impression. But four hundred willing hands can accomplish marvels, and when we returned two hours later one great mound had been mostly cleared away, and the other was visibly diminished.

With unabated enthusiasm the work was proceeding. When roused to their utmost effort there is no lassitude about these sturdy Majorcans. Strapping lads, shouting the while, seized each laden barrow and dashed off to empty it outside. Small boys imagined they were helping by pushing behind with an admirable assumption of strength, and adding their shrill voices to the clamour. Some of the smallest, with an air of importance, carried out single stones.

Near where we stood a hole had been opened in the floor, and into the vacuum beneath a band of youthful assistants was emptying baskets of small stones and dust.

Most of the labourers were of the thick-set Majorcan type, but at regular intervals a tall handsome young man – a veritable son of Anak – clad in a pink shirt, light blue trousers, and a wide felt hat, appearing out of the mist, advanced to the edge of the gaping hole and discharged into it the contents of a large basket of rubbish. He seemed to work alone, speaking to no one, and moving with the silent precision of a machine.

The women kept strictly aside, taking no part in the work. In dark corners of the ancient chapels that had been left untouched, a few black-robed old women knelt in prayer. And near us a group of pretty girls stood tittering and whispering. At one moment human nature proved too much for some of the youths who had been passing us in relays, bearing on their heads great bundles of the pine branches that had been laid down for the preservation of the flooring. Making a species of organized sortie, they rushed towards the girls, brushing their faces with the ends of the dusty greenery. The girls, giggling and squeaking, fled before the onslaught, but soon stole back to resume their position as spectators.

When work ceased for the night an incredible change had taken place in the interior of the church. And next morning, as we dressed, the sound of boys' voices chanting came in through our open windows. The people were already worshipping in their new church. For one evening only had service been suspended.

During the labours of the previous night the women had perforce remained quiescent. It was now their turn to help. Active females carrying brooms were to be seen hastening through the sacred portals, to emerge later vigorously sweeping clouds of dust before them. One small girl had a baby tucked under one arm, while she industriously plied a broom with the other.

When we took a final peep into the church before seeking the afternoon diligence for Artá, the yawning fissure in the floor had been cemented over, and rows of benches stood ready placed for evening service. An inconsiderable heap of rubbish in a side aisle was all that remained of the apparent desolation of the day before.

XX

ARTÁ AND ITS CAVES

We met the diligence for Artá at Manacor station, where the single-line railway ends on a track so grass-grown as to suggest that it had, inadvertently, strayed into a field. Were the engine to diverge a yard or two from the rails it would wreck the stationmaster's goat, make havoc of his family washing, and devastate his prickly-pear patch.

The Artá diligence, a spacious vehicle, supplied with good horses and a capital driver, leaves the station yard immediately after the arrival of the afternoon train from Palma. Should a sufficiency of passengers arrive by the morning train, a diligence would start then also; but the afternoon coach is a certainty. The distance is 20 kilometros, and the fare is three reales (sevenpence-halfpenny).

The Man and I had secured the front seats. The Boy was inside with a typical set of travellers by diligence – a priest, a soldier, one of the very new recruits who had a six days' leave to visit his home; a specimen of the pleasant elderly countryman who is the inevitable accessory of such a journey, and two commercial travellers that we stopped to pick up as we passed a draper's shop in town.

Our driver was a man of decision. Little time was lost over starting. Five minutes after the train had entered the station we dashed out of it at a pace that threatened to make the distance between us and Artá seem far too short.

It was a perfect evening for driving. There was no wind, and the rain of the previous night had laid the dust. The road was a good one, broad and level – very different from that over which we had bumped and joggled on the previous day. The sinking sun cast a glamour over a land that was at any time beautiful. The swift motion was gloriously exhilarating. Perched up on the box seat, the Man and I felt radiant with the sheer joy of being alive as we drank in the sweet bean-scented air, and watched the approach of the picturesque groups of farm folk who were returning townwards from their day's work in the fields. Our driver, Canet by name, seemed to be popular. Sunburnt faces looked up to smile him a greeting. Laughing girls crowded into ramshackle carts exchanged gay repartee in the passing.

As we drove onwards the surroundings became less flat, and in the distance a range of sugar-loaf hills – the mountains of Artá – appeared. About half-way on the journey we jingled through a nice little town, San Lorenzo, where grape-vines grew on the walls of the houses that lined the narrow streets, and old, old wives sat on the doorsteps taking their ease.

Beyond San Lorenzo hills rose about us, and the road ran between tracts of uncultivated ground. Here, too, the road was busy with returning labourers in delightfully quaint groups. Many of the men wore their blue cotton shirts outside, like blouses, and all wore wide-brimmed hats of straw or felt.

Each family party was accompanied by an animal – an ass or an ox, a goat or a black pig. What struck us as being funniest of all was to see the understanding way in which, in every instance, the pigs trotted sedately beside their owners, exactly like well-bred dogs.

Then the road rose high between pine woods whose undergrowth was thick with the withered blossoms of heath, and we traversed a mountain pass up which the men walked, before rattling inspiritingly down the farther side.

We were still some distance from the town, and the wayfarers we overtook had their faces turned towards it, when it became quite dark – too dark to distinguish anything except vague outlines of mountains.

Leaving the smooth white road along which we had sped so bravely, we entered a narrow street thickly strewn with a misery of sharp jagged stones that made advance a penitential progress for both man and beast. And Canet, turning towards us, said impressively: —

"We are in Artá!"

Our destination in Artá was the Fonda de Rande, which had been warmly recommended by our friend the padre at Palma, but when the coach drew up in front of the Café Mangol we alighted, to find ourselves literally in the embrace of its voluble landlord. By pledging our word to hire a carriage from him on the morrow we obtained our release, and with Canet acting the dual part of guide and porter, we retraced our steps for a few yards along the dark, stony streets.

In speaking of the Fonda de Rande the padre had described the Señora Rande's cooking as being excellent, her charges moderate, and her house the cleanest in Artá. After two nights' experience we not only endorse his statements, but go further, and say that her house is the cleanest in all Majorca, and that is saying a very great deal.

Within half an hour a meal was before us – a dish of pickled fish, another of fresh fish, hot lamb cutlets and fried potatoes, sweet oranges, and plums of the señora's own drying.

Our rest that night was luxurious. The beds were soft, the blankets light and downy. We slept until the hour when a man promenaded the town blowing blasts on a seashell to call the people to their work.

Before we had left our rooms ponderous steps resounded in the passage outside our doors. It was the proprietor of the diligence, brother to the host of the Café Mangol, come in person to ask at what time we would require a carriage for our visit to the caves.

Having promised to be ready an hour later, we descended to the dining-room, where, after we had drunk our glasses of coffee, the señora insisted on refilling them: an attention without precedent in our experience of Spanish hostelries.

Breakfast over, we sallied out in quest of provisions for our little expedition, a somewhat difficult matter, for the shops at Artá are even more independent of signs than those of the other Balearic towns.

A little questioning revealed a quite unexpected house to be a baker's. The apartment next to the street was fitted up with a counter; but its window was closely shuttered, its shelves empty. To all appearance the entire business of the establishment was carried on in the bakehouse at the back, where, in full view of a pile of egg-shells and other evidences that proclaimed the genuineness of the ingredients employed, we bought little square sponge-cakes hot from the oven.

Boldly entering another shop, which we knew to be a greengrocer's by the orange-hued gourd and basin of parsley on the doorstep, we found it half shop, half weaver's workroom. In one part the mistress and her daughter sold vegetables, boots, and many other requirements of both outer and inner man. In the other the portly father wrought at his hand-loom, weaving the strong dark-blue cotton material so much in use locally.

Having bought a supply of sweet little mandarin oranges at twopence a dozen – just half the Palma price – we returned to the fonda to find the carriage, with Canet and the two horses that had made such light work of the diligence, waiting in readiness to take us to the caves.

It had been so dark when we entered Artá that it was not until we left the town and looked back that we realized how picturesquely it was situated. The blue mountains form a wide circle round it, and in the centre of the clustered houses a hill crowned with church towers rises grandly.

Artá is a district of rural occupations. The fresh butter of the island is made at Son Servera, a village close by. On our way coastwards we met many interesting and paintable figures. Here an old man with a scarlet and yellow handkerchief tied under his hat, and a shaggy goatskin bag slung over his shoulder, herding a flock of kids; there a handsome girl, whose petticoat had faded to an adorable shade of crimson, and whose fingers were busy plaiting the strands of the palm-leaves as she watched by a cow that looked, as so many of the island cattle do, like an Alderney.

The fields on either side of the road were planted with flourishing trees of almond and olive and fig. Assuredly in their season no traveller need go hungry in any Majorcan road. He has only to help himself. They say that if a native sees a stranger taking his fruit, in place of upbraiding he will volunteer with sincere good-will to show him the tree the flavour of whose fruit is finest.

At a lonely bit of the way a contented-looking little group, consisting of a fine, stalwart lad in light-blue cotton, a smiling matron in workaday dress, and a plump black pig, stood at the corner of a field by the road to watch us go past.

As we neared them the radiance that illumined their faces found reflection in those of the Boy and Canet.

"It's the soldier who travelled in the diligence last night," the Boy explained. "That must be his home. He is one of the new recruits, and had six days' leave to spend with his mother. Don't they seem to be enjoying it?"

And they did. Even the black pig radiated supreme contentment.

High up on the left as we journeyed we saw a little ancient-looking town grouped about the lower slopes of an eminence whose height seemed to be crowned by a castle surrounded by defences. It was Capdepera, a relic of antiquity of which we knew but little, and instantly resolved to learn more.

The way to the Dragon Caves had been across a bald moorland. That leading towards the Caves of Artá was down a fertile valley, that through the efforts of skilled husbandmen had been brought to a high state of cultivation. In a field by the wayside clumps of narcissus were blooming unappreciated, and as we came near the cliffs we saw that their rocky sides were yellow with a species of gorse which grew in cushioning clumps.

When we were within easy distance of a fine, sandy bay, flanked on the east by a towering cliff, a man left the solitary house which stood in the middle of the valley and came towards us.

"That is the guide," Canet said, pointing his whip-handle in his direction.

The guide to the Caves of Artá was a lean, middle-aged man, whose well-cut face suggested an innate appreciation of humour. When we stopped he mounted to the box, and we went on slowly, for the sandy road was heavy.

A little farther on we drew up again. A woman, supporting with both hands a tray containing something edible, had left the house and was hurrying towards us across the field. When she got near we saw that the tray contained three of the large pastry turnovers that, in outward appearance, at least, so strongly resemble Cornish pasties.

"I could do with one of these turnovers. I wonder if she sells them?" said the Boy, as she climbed to the box beside her husband and the genial Canet.

"A turnover wouldn't come amiss," agreed the Man. "I suppose she sells them."

But the woman did not offer her provender to us. The guide got one. I suspect Canet of getting another. The third was probably the cook's own dinner.

Leaving the carriage, we turned to the left of the lovely bay, on whose sands rollers were breaking, and walked along the mile of delightful path that runs along the side of a precipitous pine-covered cliff. Beneath us roared the sea; from above came the murmur of wind-tossed pines, with whose perfume the air was fragrant, but the way was warm and sheltered.

Our guide, who accompanied us, kept modestly in the rear. It was only when we waited for him, and discovered that he was engaged lunching on one of the hot pasties, that we understood his reluctance to join us. To judge by eyesight, the pasty was stuffed with spinach and prunes. To judge by another sense it was stuffed with garlic.