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

It was as though Palma had determined to reveal herself at her best to our companion. Even the interior of the Cathedral, lit by the brilliant sunshine that filtered through the stained-glass windows, seemed grander than ever.

"I've had a splendid time," the captain said when we parted. "Though I've been here two or three times, I never saw so much of the town before."

We were leaving next morning for Miramar, and before our return the Ancona would have sailed. But we said good-bye with the promise of meeting again – a promise that was fulfilled, for on two subsequent voyages the captain was a welcome guest at the Casa Tranquila.

"The captain is a gentleman," the Boy said half-a-dozen hours later when he returned from the ship, where, by special invitation, he had been having a smoke and a chat with her master. "See what he insisted on giving me. I refused, of course, but he made me take that and this."

"That" was a batch of thrice precious literature in the shape of sixpenny editions of novels and magazines. "This" was a tin of tobacco marked "full strength," that class of dark-complexioned rum-odorous tobacco that the Boy specially affects, and whose lack in Majorca had formed the theme of his only regret.

Life on the native craft in the port is entertaining to watch. The dark-skinned rovers of the deep contrast so oddly with the mildly domestic aspect given by the presence on board of the patrón's wife, and by her way of keeping hens loose on deck, and of hanging feminine garments to dry on the poop.

One Sunday morning we had been scrutinizing their doings with the open stare that life in Spain teaches one both to give and to take composedly, when we discovered that luncheon-time had stolen unawares upon us. As we walked back down the pier we glanced inquiringly at the cafés that lined the lower part of the way; they were all crowded with jovial seamen and uninviting. We had resolved to eat at the Lirico, and were leaving the pier, when something in the situation of a little open-air eating-place just on the brink of the sea, almost in the shadow of the city wall, attracted us; and advancing to the awning, under which little groups of people were seated, we demanded food.

The proprietress, a plump, smiling woman with a purple silk kerchief on her head and a green apron, welcomed us in fluent but, unfortunately, unintelligible Majorcan. She knew no Spanish. All we could gather was that if we seated ourselves she would give us to eat. And nothing loth, we sat down at an unoccupied table whose bare boards were scrubbed as clean as hands could make them.

Beyond the shade of the roof-awning the sun was shining; the pure air filtered through its matting sides, and in our full view the waves were dashing against the rocky shore. At a table close by, three old cronies were dining. Scorning the use of tumblers, they passed the quaint wine-flask from hand to hand, each in turn throwing back his head and letting the red wine fall in a stream, from what to us seemed an unbridgeable distance, between his parted lips. Four soldiers were eating macaroni. Two men who had been fishing off the breakwater were supping thick soup.

A pretty little girl, her hair caught up in a business-like "bun," darted in and out amongst her mother's customers, her dark eyes quick to discern their wants. From inside the shanty that served as kitchen came an appetizing sound of frizzling.

Turning her attention to us, the little girl put the inevitable dish of olives and a flask of red wine on the table; then she placed a wooden fork and spoon, a plate, a tumbler, and a roll, before each of us. Then, with the suggestion of an air of ceremony, she carefully laid at the Man's right hand something resembling a folded piece of clean canvas. It was not until the meal was nearing a conclusion that we discovered it was intended to be used as a napkin.

The table thus spread, she darted into the kitchen and returned bearing a huge flat earthen dish, which held as inviting a mess as we had ever tasted. The main portion of its contents consisted of small thin slices of beef-steak, mushrooms, and strips of potatoes that had all been fried together, after the native fashion, in boiling oil. Daintily chopped green herbs lent a savoury garnish to the whole. After a momentary hesitation, due solely to lack of the customary cutlery, we helped each other with our wooden spoons, and fell to work with good will.

Perhaps there was some charm in the oddity of our surroundings, in the fresh breath of the sea air, in the sparkle of the blue water; perhaps it may have lain in the discovery that if meat is tender and well-cooked, a fork – and wooden at that – is all the implement required. Certain it is that as we cleared the last chip of potato from the earthen dish we all agreed that we had enjoyed the simple meal more than anything we had eaten in Palma.

When we asked for the bill our little waitress received the sign of departure with dismay; and the mother, running out, added her protest. Something else was evidently in active preparation.

Fully convinced that to eat anything more would be an insult to the dish we had just finished, we waited.

A moment later she triumphantly carried out and set before us a plate containing a slab of fish, thickly covered with minced garlic and floating in a pool of rich red oil. It may have been a delicacy for which the establishment was famed. Our fellow guests were devouring it with evident enjoyment, zealously sopping up the oil with their rolls, and leaving their plates polished clean. But to us it came as an anti-climax.

Carefully inculcated politeness, combined with the knowledge that from the doorway the cook was eagerly watching us for sign of appreciation, induced us to choke it down with an outward affectation of gusto. But we left the garlic and the red oil. Even an exaggerated idea of the obligations of courtesy could not have prevailed upon us to swallow them.

We paid the modest bill and fled, lest worse should follow.

A few days later we returned to the quaint open-air café. It was a lovely evening early in November. All day out of a cloudless sky the sun had beat warmly upon Palma, and the sea had glowed a soft misty azure. We had been busy indoors letter-writing, for it was a mail day. It was only after dusk that we were free and, leaving the Casa Tranquila, set off port-wards to post our letters.

The Miramar, the crack ship of the Isleña Marítima, was on the point of starting for Barcelona, and all the world of Palma was hastening towards the harbour to post letters on board; and then, while promenading the mole, to watch her departure.

After the Miramar had vanished into the darkness and the spectators had streamed towards the land, we still lingered on the breakwater. There was no moon, the stars were bright, the wavelets softly lapped the stones, and we felt placid and restful until quite suddenly we became aware that we were hungry.

Our proximity suggested the little shanty under the city wall by the sea, and thither we went.

It was the quiet hour there too. Except for three of the hussars we had seen before, the well-scrubbed tables were vacant. The soldiers, recognizing us, gave us friendly greeting, accompanied with the offer of their tobacco packets. Bright-eyed little Catalina ran to fetch the napkin, surely the sole emblem of gentility belonging to the establishment, and the señora herself appeared at the door of the shed, where she presided over the cooking-pots, to give us "Bona nit tengan" and to consult with us as to what we would like her to prepare.

She shook her head when we suggested beef-steaks and mushrooms. At that hour, apparently, beef was "off."

"Would we have soup? – Majorcan soup," she asked.

We shook our heads. No. We did not fancy soup.

Promising us fresh fish, and something with an untranslatable name, she disappeared into the shed. And, content to leave the selection to her, we awaited events.

The comrades in arms had gone, and a pale slender girl, beautiful in the small-featured, refined type so common in Palma, had taken her place at the next table. With her was a friend of the same style, but doubly attractive in that she was overflowing with vivacity. The younger girl sat silent, her hands folded, her head drooping, while the elder – who was knitting a petticoat gay with coloured stripes – chatted briskly. They did not eat, and we guessed they were waiting for some one to join them.

Sitting near them was a handsome taciturn man with a slouch hat, long curled moustaches, and a gaudy kerchief twisted about his neck. That the girls knew him was evident, for though he did not join in their conversation he seemed to listen to all that was said.

Just as we were served with crisp little fried fish, a figure, coming from the darkness where the waves were washing the stones, entered the circle of light. It was the expected man. Hanging up his rod and fishing basket, he took his place at the table beside the girls.

His skin was deeply bronzed, his garments were of blue cotton that sun and sea air had faded to a delicate hue. A scarlet sash was wound about his waist. His naked brown feet were thrust into string-soled green shoes.

Catalina, who had been watching for his arrival, ran out with a slender-spouted bottle of wine and three wooden spoons. Her mother followed close with an earthenware pipkin of the thick Majorcan soup that we had declined.

Grouped in an amicable trio, they ate from the same dish, and in turn drank from the slender spout of the green glass bottle. The pale girl remained pensively silent, but the other continued to talk, punctuating her conversation with dramatic movements of her hands. How we wished we could have understood what she was saying!

When the combined efforts of the three wooden spoons had searched the red earthenware vessel to its depths, the man who came from the sea rose and, lifting it in his hand without a word, walked to the edge of the water and threw the pipkin far into the Mediterranean. Then returning, he resumed his seat.

No one made any comment upon this inexplicable proceeding. Had the inoffending pipkin not been empty it might have seemed as though he were offering a libation to some unseen spirit of the water. But the actively plied spoons had succeeded in scooping out the last vestige of the soup.

In the meantime we had been occupied with our second course, which consisted of lengths of orange-coloured sausage, served hot with fried potatoes. And a new-comer, an old man, was eating a big plate of macaroni.

The nimble Catalina, flashing out, set a flat dish, heaped with some sort of stew, before the trio. What its contents were we could only guess. The lively maiden and the man were already poking among them with their wooden forks. The pensive girl had produced a silver fork and was delicately helping herself, fastidiously turning over the ingredients. The handsome reticent man sat motionless but observant.

They ate in leisurely fashion – nobody hurries in Palma. The gay girl rattled on in her musical voice, gesticulating with her pretty hands the while, only occasionally dropping the thread of her dramatic recital to send her fork foraging with the others, or to throw back her head and let the red wine trickle down her throat.

"Will he throw that dish away when it is empty?" we were wondering, when the señora, who was making a special effort on our behalf, appeared in person carrying a tempting combination of sweet peppers and young pork.

The question answered itself. When they had finished, the dish stood empty and ignored. The wine flask was refilled, and when we had paid our score – wine included, it came to about sevenpence each – we left the quartette still sitting under the flickering light by the edge of the unseen waves: the charming girl still lively, the pretty one distraite, the fisherman amiable, and the handsome listener still silently attentive.

It had been an odd little interlude – nothing to relate, indeed, but one of those petty excursions beyond one's own stereotyped world that make the observers feel, for the moment, as though they were living in somebody else's life, not in their own.

We finished the evening at what chanced to be the popular entertainment. If I remember correctly, it combined the attractions of a cinematograph and a variety show.

We were again out in the starlight, and walking briskly westwards towards Son Españolet, when the Boy said abruptly: —

"I wish I knew why that man threw the pipkin into the sea!"

IV

HOUSEKEEPING

Although, at Son Españolet, we were subject to no police or other rate, a small weekly tax was levied with extreme punctuality, on behalf of himself, by a functionary called the vigilante.

The most onerous labour of this alleged guardian of the public would appear to have been the collection, on Sunday mornings, of a penny from each householder. I trust I do not malign a worthy citizen, when I hint that these periodic visits were the only occasions on which most of his supporters were made conscious of the vigilante's existence.

His professed duties were to protect the interests of the residents in the district by prowling about at night, to escort timid wayfarers home by the light of his lantern, and, like the sereno, to call those who wished to be roused at an early hour. But what manner of need a community already rich in police, serenos, carabineros, and consumeros, had of a vigilante, was hard to imagine.

Nobody seemed to know who appointed the vigilantes. The Boy had a theory that our vigilante had assigned himself to the post, and that his sole exertion lay in calling to collect the fees.

On the morning of our first Sunday at the Casa Tranquila an imperative knock sounded at the front door. It was the vigilante, a good-looking white-bearded man clad in blue cotton. His designation was inscribed in bold letters on his cap-band. Having been forewarned of the custom, I handed over the expected ten centimos, which he accepted with the dignified courtesy of one who receives a right, and departed.

Two hours later the Boy, who had been out at the time of the visit, answered a second summons.

"It's the vigilante," he said, returning to the veranda where we were sitting. "Has anybody got a copper?"

"But I gave the vigilante his penny this morning," I said, hastening to the door.

At my approach the applicant, recognizing me, waved the matter aside, as though the mistake had been mine, and he was graciously pleased to ignore it.

"The houses are so many – one forgets," he said, and strutted off without loss of dignity.

On Christmas Day he paid us an extra visit, and, sending in a card with his best wishes, awaited, not in vain, a monetary expression of our good-will.

The card, which was resplendent in rainbow tints, and richly emblazoned in gold, bore a representation of a young, dapper, and exquisitely dressed vigilante who was smoking a cigar. At his feet were portrayed a noble turkey, several bottles of champagne, and other seasonable dainties. A side tableau showed the vigilante, armed with his staff of office and a huge bunch of keys, opening a street door to a belated couple who, presumably, had been locked out.

On the reverse side of the card was a long poem, which, on behalf of its presenter, claimed many good offices; notably, that he captured the evil-doer, and that, filled with fervent zeal, he watched over our repose. It concluded by stating: —

"I try to be in all A perfect Vigilante."

Apart from similar curious and amusing conventions, with which one has to become acquainted, the early days of housekeeping in Majorca find the foreign resident grappling with a succession of petty difficulties. Besides the differences of language, of coinage, of weights and measures, the dissimilarity of climate renders advisable, even necessary, a mode of living that would be quite unsuited to dwellers in Britain.

To begin with the morning – the customary Majorcan breakfast, which even at the best hotels consists of a glass of coffee, or a tiny cup of very thick chocolate, and tumbler of water taken with a single roll, or an enciamada, is a meal from which the ordinary Briton rises hungry. And one wonders why the Spanish landlord, whose table is so lavishly spread at other meals, should practise a false economy in the matter of breakfast. For, after all, a roll costs only a halfpenny. Dinner is invariably an early function, and an extensive one, for at their two later meals Spaniards make up for their abstinence at breakfast. Between the two o'clock dinner and supper, which is served at any time between eight and ten o'clock, there is a long blank, which the English visitor usually bridges with a cup of tea.

To return to the question of breakfast. At the Casa Tranquila we compromised the matter, and broke our fast on an unstinted quantity of coffee or chocolate and milk, taken with fruit, rolls and butter, and enciamadas. Majorcan breakfast rolls are of two kinds – the ordinary crisp ones, and, what we liked better, a soft species called panecillos de aceite.

Bacon is unknown in Majorca, though ham, of strong flavour and repellent aspect, may be had. It sells at twopence an ounce; and if you wish to astonish the vendor, you can do so by ordering more than a quarter of a pound.

We had been warned that we would be forced to do without butter while in the islands. But matters have progressed – in Palma at least – since the old butterless days. Now the better class grocers sell a peculiarly white butter that is made at Son Servera, near Artá; and almost every provision shop stocks a tinned salt butter that comes from Copenhagen. By the way, the purchaser must not be surprised when asked if it is "pig's butter" he wants. The salesman only means lard.

Cow's milk, another article of diet that used to be scarce in the islands, can easily be obtained. The price charged is almost the same as in London and the milk is much richer.

With the aid of a Spanish dictionary it had been a comparatively simple matter to make out a list of groceries with which to furnish the shelves of our empty larder. But I must confess that a first visit to a butcher's shop made me wonder if Majorcan sheep and oxen differed in construction from British animals, such odd forms did their dead flesh present.

Cold storage is unknown in Palma. The beasts are killed, cut up, and sold almost before they have had time to cool. And, if they were not invariably killed young, their flesh could hardly be so good as it is, the lamb especially being sweet and tender.

A fact that forcibly strikes anyone from a meat-eating country is the small quantities of animal food consumed. Where the wife of a British working-man might spend a shilling on beef, a Majorcan would spend twopence. Naturally the meat is sold in small pieces, and inspection is courted. The east-end butcher's printed command to his customers – "Keep your hands off the beef," would be scorned in the Balearic Isles. If you shop in native fashion, you walk about the shop, turning over and critically examining the pieces exposed within easy reach. When your selection is made you need not invest in any great quantity. If you fancy calf's head, custom does not compel you to buy a half head. You can have a pound, a half-pound, or even a slice.

If your taste turns to fowl, at your request the bird suspended by 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 señora 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 señora 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.