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

Beside the rows of close-cropped dark heads moved priests and black-robed teachers. And on the outskirts of the throng hovered bigger boys, torn betwixt two opinions – whether it were better to continue to assert their claim to have reached an age exempt from such childish matters, or to yield to their natural desire to join the palm-bearers and have a place in the procession that was to follow.

One urchin, but recently advanced to the dignity of his first long trousers, held half-concealed a scrap of olive, to which he added by furtive gleanings from the fallen blossoms that littered the floor, garnering a battered, but still recognizable rose here, a gaudy marigold there, until he had achieved a trophy that, if not one to court careful examination, yet at a little distance presented quite a respectable appearance.

When the rose-red umbrellas had dripped themselves almost dry, and the branches supported by the hot hands of restless boys were waving faster than ever, the black-robed teachers and a nun, moving noiselessly amongst their pupils, began to marshal them into a double line.

Standing at the side, in company with grandfathers whose fine old weather-beaten faces gazed proudly intent at those who were to carry their names to succeeding generations, we watched as the little forest of branches, borne sedately, passed in front of the altar, and then moved in procession round the church. The smallest boys walked in front, and many of them were burdened with the care of umbrellas in addition to the proud glory of the decorated branch that wobbled in their tired hands; while boys of larger growth, unable to resist, yielded to a natural desire to shoulder their boughs as muskets.

Very few girls took an active part in the proceedings. The half-dozen who did belonged to the class that have hats for Sunday wear, and the palms they carried had cost money. Little girls whom fortune had denied the envied possession of either ugly hats or ornamental palms looked on with longing in their soft dark eyes as the favoured ones marched by.

When the complete circuit of the edifice had been made the palm-bearers moved to a side, and a band of clergy advancing paused just within the great doors, through which certain of their number had slipped outside.

Standing thus, their resplendent robes of purple and scarlet thrown into strong relief against the old wood of the door, the group began chanting. When they ceased there came from without the sound of answering voices. Again were the voices within raised in recitative. From outside came again the reply.

Then, reverberating solemnly through the deep silence that ensued, came the sound of a thrice repeated knock on the closed door. At the summons the wide doors were thrown open and the outside band admitted. Then, the symbol of the release of repentant souls from purgatory having been thus impressively enacted, the band, now chanting in unison, moved towards the high altar.

The ceremony of the blessing of the palms is a beautiful one, and one of which no child who has taken part can ever forget the meaning.

The last we saw of it was a hale old grandfather, who carried in his arms, under the shelter of his big rose-hued umbrella, a sleepy little boy, whose weary hand still grasped his flower-wreathed olive-branch as they took the path leading to the mountains.

The earnestly prayed for rain, when it did come, came in unstinted quantity. It had rained all night, and on Monday rain was still falling, but more softly – almost, one might say, reluctantly – on the little white-robed first communicants who, sheltered by the umbrellas of mothers or aunts, were threading their way delicately among the pools of water that lay as traps for their white-shod feet.

But the Majorcan climate is too beneficent to spoil the notable day for the young communicants. Before noon the clouds had drifted away from the mountains; and though the sun did not appear, the air was mild and balmy, and through the wonderfully absorbent nature of the Sóller soil the streets speedily became dry enough to enable the dainty white shoes to trip about almost without blemish.

And all day long, everywhere one looked, young girls, some in expensive raiment, others in evidently home-made garments, but all with long white veils flowing from their wreathed heads, moved sedately from house to house, accompanied by an admiring train of female relatives, as they paid visits of ceremony to all their friends.

And as for the boys! – words fail to tell of the glories of their harshly new suits, their shining patent leather boots, of their spreading collars, of the elaborate bow of gold embroidered white ribbon that decorated their left arms; or, greatest of all – of their self-importance.

They, too, had their public promenade, and paid their visits. They, too, had their attendant group of appreciative relatives. On meeting any friends the little party would pause, and the graceful ceremony of asking forgiveness for past misdeeds be gone through, when the young communicant, bending and kissing the hand of the elder, would say, "If I have ever done you any harm, forgive me now."

My men had gone off to see Biniaraix, a hamlet of brown houses grouped about the white tower of a church on the mountain-side, and to enjoy a reminiscent glance at Fornalutx, the quaint hill-town where, on our previous visit to Sóller, we had spent a well remembered afternoon.

So the Good Fairy and I, left to our own devices, passed the afternoon in rambling about this town of amazing contrasts. As I said before, Sóller is endowed with a curiously absorbent soil – a soil that acts as a charm in cases of inflammatory rheumatism and is prime factor in the remarkable longevity of the inhabitants. The roads were already so dry and pleasant to walk on that, but for the evidence of the torrente, which was a raging river, it would have been hard to credit that for two days and nights thrice-blessed rain had fallen without intermission. Snow covered the crest of the Puig Mayor and lay heavy on its shoulders, yet down in the valley the soft air was sweet with the fragrance of orange blossoms, and all about the golden or copper-coloured fruit hung in profusion on the trees. Truly Sóller is a place of piquant contrasts.

The trespasser is welcomed in Majorca. There are no notice-boards – except a few vedados to warn against hunting – no padlocked gates. So we wandered about, following bypaths that led from one small "possession" to another; and never, after we left it, returning to the highroad until it was time to return home.

That the Good Fairy is widely beloved was evident at every turn. Her diplomatic powers are great, but she had to exercise them all to avoid spending the afternoon indoors in the hospitable homes of her humble acquaintances, who, catching a glimpse of her as she passed, hastened out to entreat her to enter.

Living in this place of natural delight must be cheaper even than in Palma. One courteous dame took us all over her house, that we might see the views from her windows. The house, which was in the town, was a comparatively new dwelling in a good airy street. It had a large high-ceilinged zaguan– the entrance chamber that is a combination of hall and reception-room – from which opened a neat kitchen. A few steps up from the zaguan was a cosy parlour from which a stair led down to the terras. Above, on the first floor, were two bedrooms, and on the second floor two more, all well lit and affording exquisite views. Being in town the house had no garden; but the terras with its big jars of plants seemed a favourite place for taking the air.

When I indulged my curiosity by asking the rent, the good dame told us that for all this excellence she paid twenty-four dollars a year – less than five pounds; and the rent included taxes!

As we strolled farther afield the wealth of the land was heaped upon us. Our hands overflowed with the Balearic violets, that are the sweetest in the world, and the Balearic pansies, that are, I verily believe, the poorest. For pansies love a cold damp soil, and rarely flourish south of the River Tweed; and the Tweed is a far, far cry from these sun-loved isles.

We had sprays of orange blossom given us too, and ripe oranges, whose golden sides the beneficent sun had tanned to copper. And we sat in a garden and ate them, while the aged donor, who still possessed the fine features and limpid eyes of her bygone youth, talked to us, illustrating her stories by a pantomime of feature and gesture so expressive that even I, with my meagre knowledge of her language, could hardly fail to grasp their meaning.

In the kitchen of her house the wide hearth was almost shut in by a three-sided settle, whose seats were strewn with fleecy white sheepskins. On the kitchen shelves the native ware of brown, decorated in crude patterns of red and yellow, was arranged with unconscious artistic effect.

Mounting gradually higher, we rested at a point where the town lay open before us. Hills rose steeply behind us; in front the ground sloped down in terraces; and, far beyond, the fruitful gardens and russet houses of the town rose again towards the snow-crested mountains, or at one point fell gradually to the cleft beyond which showed the sea.

Becoming suddenly conscious that we had let the tea hour slip past unheeded, we were hastening back to the hotel, when, crossing the bridge that spans the torrente, we caught the promise of a sight that made us quickly return to the open space of the market square that we might obtain a less interrupted view. Over the roofs of the houses the snow-capped mountain summits, struck by some magic shaft from the hidden sun, glowed rose-red, and the unearthly beauty of the transfiguration held us mute and spell-bound.

The curious thing was, that though little groups of people stood gossiping in the market-place no one appeared to have eyes for this refulgence but ourselves. Seeing us standing gazing silently towards the mountains, they turned also to see what had attracted our attention, then turned away uncomprehending.

XXII

DEYÁ, AND A PALMA PROCESSION

The last lingering trails of rain-clouds had vanished and the sun shone from a cloudless blue sky when next day we drove off behind Pepe and his pair of white horses to picnic at Deyá, the curiously distinctive little town that perches on a hill betwixt mountain and sea, half-way between Sóller and Miramar.

The road was a good one, and as the way, though steep, was set in zigzag fashion, its ascent would have been easy but for the barbarous way in which, acting with the empty cunning of these would-be crafty island road-menders, someone had littered the road with lumps of stone, thus forcing the passing vehicle to act the ignominious part of road-roller by threading its way out and in over the newly mended parts. Sometimes the stones were so evilly placed as to impel us to venture perilously near the edge of the precipitous track.

It was a relief as we slowly mounted upwards to come upon the perpetrator of the crime in the very act of further blocking our path. Taken thus red-handed, he was not one whit dismayed, but complacently stepped aside to let us pass.

The opportunity was not one to be missed. Half drawing up and turning round on the box, Pepe launched towards him a few objurgations in trenchant Majorcan. And the Good Fairy, putting her head out of the carriage, added the weight of her gentle reproach.

"What is this you do?" she asked in her pretty Spanish. "Placing stones on the road to welcome the strangers! Is this the way you show them the delicacy of the Spaniard?"

Thus doubly reproached, the caminero stood transfixed; and our emotions having found vent, we drove on, leaving him with his hand raised to his brass-bound hat, his mouth open but speechless.

Having reached the summit, we began the descent, losing sight of our grand mountains, but gaining a glimpse of the Mediterranean, which glowed in that warm blue that makes one wonder – until one tries the temperature – why sea-bathing should be confined to the summer months.

The tawny-roofed houses of Deyá cluster on a high rock that rises like an island from out a sea of valley which is girdled by precipitous mountains. Streams in cascades were rushing down in a joyful pell-mell, the cherry-trees were heavy with blossom, and the pomegranates were opening their first delicate copper-tinted leaves as we drove along the highroad that follows the curve of the valley.

The attentive chef of the Marina had made us independent of fondas, and Pepe had promised to find us a good place to lunch in. So when he drew up at a path that branched off from the highway on the Miramar side of Deyá, we took our hamper, from which the neck of a bottle protruded alluringly, and started to explore it.

The path ended at a gate that opened into private grounds. In any other country the most presumptuous among us would have hesitated before invading the garden of unknown owners. But we were in the Fortunate Isles and the charm of their unconventionality influenced us. Walking in, we found some conveniently placed stone seats under the shade of a huge lemon-tree, and there we spread our feast of lamb cutlets, potato omelets, cakes and fruit.

The house, of one corner of whose quaintly terraced garden we had taken possession, appeared to be untenanted. Its windows were closely shuttered, its stable empty; but soon from the highest terrace an old head peeped at us. A little later it appeared on a terrace lower, then nearer still, the attached body becoming gradually more and more visible, until the owner appeared before us in the person of an aged woman whose frivolously abbreviated petticoats seemed incompatible with her sober face.

It was the caretaker, come not to warn us that we were intruding, but to urge us to leave the place we had chosen for one where there was a proper table and much water.

We resisted her enticements and she trotted off, her appearance a ludicrous combination of propriety and indecorum, with her serious face swathed in its black kerchief and her lavishly displayed light drab ankles.

She did not quite abandon us, however; and when the men had gone off to paint she returned, and was so evidently desirous that we would not leave before seeing the marvels of the garden, that we consented to allow her to show them.

And, indeed, the arrangement of the grounds revealed much ingenuity. The spot where she would have had us eat was a stone-built mirador, through a shallow cave, at whose back a mountain torrent had been induced to flow. As she had promised, there was both "a table" and "much water." In summer the suggestion of coolness imparted by even a trickle of water would be charming. Then, with the torrent rushing at breakneck speed, the effect was a little overpowering and the noise positively deafening. Our chosen place under the big lemon-tree might not be so extraordinary, but it had a placid charm that soothed while it did not detract from the matter in hand.

The nephew of our unconsciously serio-comic cicerone, in the person of a one-eyed calender– I beg his pardon, gardener – joined us to reveal fresh attractions of summer-house and rivulets, and of a grotto where, amid a perfect cascade of maidenhair-fern, a graceful statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was embowered. From every point the view was lovely, but I defy anybody to find a spot about Deyá that does not afford a lovely prospect.

When we left the place our lady of the stockings, eager to do something for the generous tip the Good Fairy had slipped into her hand, insisted on carrying our hamper. And during the remainder of our afternoon at Deyá, whether we went up hill or down dale, amongst the picturesque houses clustered on the church-crowned hill or through the gardens that lined the side of the river, we seemed always to be encountering her. Whether she was paying a round of visits to display her coin, or bound on an exhaustive shopping expedition to squander it, we did not know; but at every turn of the road we seemed to see the twinkle of those drab ankles.

One of the many charms of Deyá is the proximity of the sea, which laves the foot of its valley. Another is its delicious irregularity. I do not believe there are a half-dozen yards of straight road in Deyá. Every house has its own elevation, its individual bypaths. Another and an invaluable charm to artists is the manageable quality of its pictorial effects. The extensive grandeur of Miramar is almost unpaintable, but Deyá has a complete picture at every turn. We saw many in the course of that afternoon stroll. Women washing, men gathering oranges, a handsome woman in a petticoat of vivid scarlet leading a recalcitrant black goat: all ready for transference to canvas.

The hours flew past. Almost before we knew, dusk was falling and we were on our way back to where the snow-capped Puig Mayor presides over the wonderful Sóller valley.

We had been a little apprehensive, expecting a repetition of the somewhat hazardous morning journey. But the Good Fairy's appeal to the chivalry of the Spaniard had borne immediate result. Every stone had been laboriously removed from the path. So without hindrance we rattled gaily down into the valley, where lights were already twinkling through the dusk.

The final day of our visit to Sóller brought yet another experience of unusual interest. Our hostess had still another surprise in store for us. We had viewed the high mountains from beneath, now we were going to see them from the crest of one of their number.

Pepe took the reins in his skilled hands and guided the surefooted mules, who, for this expedition, replaced the white horses, up a perilous road that curved about the mountain-side, rising higher and ever higher until we looked down over the many terraces of olives into the valley that lay placidly basking in the afternoon sunshine.

Our ascent was necessarily very deliberate. As we wound slowly up we passed neither dwelling nor human being; and those of us to whom the way was new began to wonder why any road should have existed on so lonely a height. Then when we had got so high that it seemed as though an eaglet's aerie would be the most likely habitation, the road ended on a flat plateau, and we found ourselves driving into the outer courtyard of a farm-house so old and weather-beaten that in appearance it resembled the rocks and crags that surrounded it.

We alighted unnoticed. Doves were flying overhead. A dog greeted our advent with an interrogative growl; fowls clucked about unheeding. Pepe, rolling himself up in a striped blanket, curled up on the box to await the hour when it might be our pleasure to return. And we walked on, wondering if we had left the everyday world behind in the valley and had all unwittingly climbed to the palace of the sleeping beauty.

A stone-cast from the house was a mirador known to our conductress. Securely seated therein, poised right on the edge of the mountain-crest, we looked at the vast panorama. Crags rose high about us. Behind and above us towered an unfamiliar side of the Puig Mayor, its massive shoulders deep in drifted snow.

Far beneath, looking like some gaily coloured map when seen from that height, lay the port of Sóller with its lake-like harbour and pigmy headlands. And northwards spread the far-reaching sea, whose grandeur no altitude could dwarf.

The sensation of being above the world was gloriously exhilarating. When a bird flew overhead we almost felt as though we too had wings, and two lines from Davidson's Ballad of a Nun kept running through my mind:

"I am sister to the mountains now, And sister to the sun and moon."

Leaving the mirador, we wandered happily about the plateau. Among the grass a strange flower was blooming, and it seemed quite natural that this amazing location should boast a flower of its own. It was an orchid whose sugarloaf-shaped spike was covered with florets of dull purple, close-packed after the manner of a grape hyacinth. In many of the plants the flowers burst into a tuft at the top. It was strange and not pretty, but curiously in keeping with its isolated situation.

When we returned to the house Pepe, swathed in his blanket, was still deep in the slumber of the man of tranquil mind: but the mistress of the house was at hand. Approaching, she greeted us with grave courtesy. She had the remains of much beauty. The soft bloom of girlhood lingered on her matronly cheeks, and the retrospective look of one accustomed to deep solitude was in her fine dark eyes.

On her invitation we entered the house, whose tall sides surrounded an inner courtyard. One end of the big cool kitchen was partitioned off with high-backed settles, and right on the middle of the floor of the "cosy corner" thus formed a pile of logs was glowing. Looking up, we saw that overhead the roof contracted until it became a wide chimney, through which a glimpse of blue sky was visible. A gun hung on the whitewashed wall, and on one of the seats which was thickly spread with skins a shepherd lad was resting.

Returning to the mirador, we watched the sun sink in a golden glory over the misty blue sea. Then, lamenting the inevitable close of another perfect day, we drove back down the vagrant deviating way, feeling as though we had for a brief space been translated to a new and inspiring world.

It was with sincere regret that on the morning of Holy Thursday we bade the Good Fairy farewell and, with Pepe again as charioteer, started on our drive back by way of Deyá, Miramar, and Valldemosa to Palma, where we had an afternoon engagement.

The scenery of this coast road must rank with the finest in the world, and on that March morning it was looking its loveliest. There was no wind, and both sea and sky were of that deep warm azure that makes so fitting a background to Balearic Island vistas.

On reaching the first houses of Deyá, we stopped the carriage, and alighting, climbed the easy ascent to the church. Halfway up the slope a French artist was painting, filling in his canvas with a delicate mosaic of heliotropes and pinks and purples.

He was enthusiastic about the pictorial quality of his surroundings. "Deyá," he declared, was "un paradis pour les peintres."

When we peeped into the church Mass was being celebrated, and from the dusk of the interior the eyes of young communicants looked gravely at us from under their white wreaths.

Amid the clustered houses halfway down the hill a quaint old building proclaimed itself the Casa Consistorial. A worm-eaten stair led to the town hall. The iron-barred door of the dungeon opened at a touch, revealing its abandonment to the base uses of a lumber-shed. As far as we could see, the sole person in charge of the municipal chambers of Deyá was a year-old infant who occupied a low chair in the wide-roofed porch. He, however, maintained a magisterial dignity of demeanour throughout our cursory inspection of the premises.

As we left the valley the lofty crags and olive-clad slopes of Miramar rose about us. Their appearance was already familiar, and it was with a positive thrill of pleasure that we saw them again. Across the smooth surface of the Mediterranean a liner was passing, and we wondered what impression the passengers would get of the island.

We reached the Hospederia to find that for the moment the solitude that in November we had found so attractive had vanished. Evidently some periodic household inspection was in process, for in the wide doorway women sat mending house-linen, and children clinging to their skirts glanced shyly at us.

Fernando was absent, but Netta remembered us, and brought a large glass jug of the matchless Miramar water out to the mirador overhanging the sea just beyond the house whither Pepe had already carried our lunch.

Valldemosa was looking lovely in the fresh green beauty of spring, when an hour later we drove through its steep streets. The terrace gardens of the old Carthusian monastery were sweet with bud and blossom; and on the road beneath, a couple of bearded brown-robed Franciscan monks, treading softly on sandalled feet, gave us greeting.

As we left the gorge whose precipitous sides rose high overhead, an eagle, clearly outlined against the azure sky, gave the finishing touch to the wild beauty of the spot.

After the soul-inspiring grandeur of the everlasting hills, the plain, in spite of its luxuriant verdure, seemed tame; and even Palma appeared almost uninteresting. But it must be admitted that we were approaching it by the back way – by the kitchen entrance, so to speak – and in strict justice Palma should be entered by the front door, which is the port.