Part 12

Our guide did not scamp his task. He appeared to take both pride and pleasure in it, and showed us everything, from the vestments, which were rigid with gold and embroidery, to the massive silver candelabra worth nearly seven thousand pounds, that are so heavy that when they are moved into the body of the Cathedral for use during special services, it takes four men to carry the top, and six men the base, of each.

At three different dates, when long-continued drought had induced privation, this silver has been sold for the relief of the poor; and three times has it been bought back again, and restored to its place in the Cathedral.

Until recently the embalmed body of King Jaime II. (who died in his palace of the Almudaina just across the road from the principal entrance to the Cathedral), which rested in a marble sarcophagus in front of the high altar, was shown to the public on the 31st of December, the anniversary of the day on which his father, the Conquistador, freed Palma from the Moors.

The mummified corpse is no longer publicly exhibited, and the coffin containing the remains has been removed to a recess behind and above the high altar, where it rests awaiting burial.

By special permission we were allowed to see the body of the monarch. The coffin, taken from the sarcophagus, had been placed on a stone bracket. An attendant, mounting a ladder that leant against the wall at the head of the coffin, slid back the lid. And in turn we climbed up and, bending over, peeped into the open coffin to see, through intervening glass--what? A royal robe of velvet and gold and ermine, the lace-trimmed sleeves crossed at the empty wrists, and above the neck of the garment a dark fleshless skull, with the brown skin tightened over it, closed eyes deep sunk in the sockets, and toothless jaws wide agape. A rose-pink velvet nightcap encased the shrunken head of the monarch who, six hundred years ago, reigned over Majorca.

The reign of this second Jaime, which extended over a period of more than thirty years, would appear to have been an exceptionally placid one for these warlike days. We know that he brought from Spain cunning workmen who converted for his use the castle of the Moorish Amir, the Almudaina, into a royal palace, and there a code of Court etiquette was formulated and put into practice by the new monarch.

The wife of the Captain-General, who now occupies the old Moorish palace, a few nights before we saw the remains of the former tenant of the Almudaina, gave a reception in the form of a "tea-party"--the guests to arrive at ten o'clock, the tea to be served at midnight. One wonders what the nature of King Jaime's Court functions were--at what hour his guests assembled, what the entertainment was, and when they dispersed.

The imposing marble sarcophagus in which in times past these remnants of royalty were entombed has been removed to a corner of the cloisters, where we saw it standing forlorn and forgotten.

XIV

POLLENSA

We had intended deferring our expedition to the neighbouring isle of Minorca till later in the season; until after the week or two of cold weather that we had been warned to expect in January had passed. But as the opening days of the year went by in brilliant sunshine, and the temperature continued ideal, we felt tempted to delay no longer.

It was the Man's suggestion that we should make a roundabout tour of it, visiting first the old-world towns of Pollensa and Alcudia, then sailing from the port of Alcudia to Minorca and returning from Mahón direct to Palma.

So at daybreak on the 8th of January Bartolomé appeared to drive us to the station.

The sun had risen, Bartolomé was smiling, and the hills beyond Son Españolet shone pink and heliotrope in the morning light as we drove along; yet there was a sharp little nip in the air, and the _consumeros_ were still shivering in their blankets, covered up to their noses and cowering over their braziers. Without these reminders we would have forgotten that it was the depth of winter in the Fortunate Isles.

At Palma station the customary small bustle heralded the departure of the morning train. The porter of the Grand Hotel was seeing off a French couple who were going to Manacor to visit the Dragon Caves. Among the little company of natives with their fringed shawls and white muslin _rebozillos_ the French lady, who wore a smart flower-trimmed toque on her golden hair and costly furs on her shoulders, looked oddly out of place.

On this occasion the 7.40 train left with extreme punctuality, and its rate of progress, though slow, was steady. The only other passenger in our second-class compartment was a swarthy man who wore a yachting cap, white shoes, and a striped blanket. He evidently felt cold, and as he sat curled up on the seat his appearance was a ludicrous combination of a member of the Royal Yacht Club and an Asiatic hospital patient who had risen to have his bed made.

He was journeying to Inca, apparently for the first time, and when he asked for information regarding the number of stations to be passed before his destination was reached, it seemed reversing the natural order of things that we foreigners should be able to give it.

Nearly two months had passed since we travelled over the line, and it was interesting to note the difference in the appearance of things. Then the rich red earth had been furrowed by the plough, or was in process of sowing. Now it was covered with long lines of sturdy beans, or with springing grain level and green as a tennis lawn.

The fig-trees and grape-vines were leafless now; but the evergreen carobs showed the tender shades of the new leaves at the tips of the well-covered branches. The olives wore their accustomed silver-grey, but the first pale blossoms of the year flecked the almond-trees with white.

We had taken _combinados_ tickets, and the second-class fare--two pesetas thirty-five centimos--included the ten-mile coach drive from La Puebla to Pollensa.

When we alighted at the station two diligences were waiting, one for Pollensa, the other for Alcudia. Choosing the right one the Man and I got inside with six other folk--three young men, two young women, one old man, and a baby too young to count. The Boy went on the box, luggage was piled on the roof, and the horses set to work to drag their heavy load over the dry, newly mended road.

The Majorcan way of repairing a road is to put a layer of roughly broken stones over the worn bits, then to block the smooth places with chunks of rock, so that the unhappy travellers are perforce obliged to do the work of levelling by driving over the loose stones.

But though the way was rough and jolty there was no dust, and there were no mosquitoes; and our company, including the brand-new baby, was the soul of good nature. The young men and women chatted gaily together in the harsh Majorcan dialect; the old man evincing a friendly interest in the conversation, which difference of nationality unfortunately rendered unintelligible to us. Once or twice, when the subject under discussion appeared more than usually entertaining, the Man and I whispered to each other, as we had done before in similar circumstances, "If we could only understand what they are saying!"

Our progress was slow, owing partly to the roughness of the road, and partly, as the Boy later explained, to the fact that the driver, who was a very old man, fell asleep at intervals, and only awoke when the horses stopped.

Half-way to Pollensa we exchanged drivers with the coach that was on its way to La Puebla; and our new man being wide-awake, matters progressed more briskly. The Boy told us afterwards that, seen from his place on the box, the scenery had been glorious; but from the interior of the diligence it was impossible to gain more than a general impression of lovely wooded slopes, and of distant hills that seemed to draw nearer and nearer until, suddenly, while Pollensa seemed still a long way off, we found ourselves in a narrow lane lined with tall houses. In and out of the most tortuous streets imaginable the diligence twisted, then abruptly came to a standstill at no place in particular, and we realized that we had penetrated to the heart of Pollensa.

We had no idea where to go. All the information we had been able to gather about the Pollensa _fondas_--there were no so-called hotels--was that they were reputed to be bad. But when the coach stopped, and we had alighted, and were standing with our luggage on the cobble-stones, wondering in what direction to turn for a lodging, a young man, plump, clean-shaven, bare-headed, appearing from nowhere, begged breathlessly to recommend his _fonda_.

Following him through crooked ways we reached the hostelry, which was in a little square near the market-place. Mounting a steep stair, we entered a large lavishly windowed room furnished with many round tables and chairs. It had a little bar and looked to the square; behind it was a dining-room.

The Boy, who was our spokesman, following the expected procedure, inquired the terms per day.

"Six pesetas." Our host, following an equally expected procedure when arranging with foreigners, had quoted his top price.

"No," said the Boy, whom experience had taught wisdom. "Three pesetas; that is enough. Can you not do it for that?"

The landlord waved his hands. "That depends on what you have," he replied, quite reasonably. "Three pesetas--yes, if you will be content with soup and one other dish at dinner and at supper."

"And is the little breakfast included?"

"Yes, señor. Coffee and milk."

So it was decided. Three pesetas a day was to be the price. And it was with a feeling of keen curiosity as to what our host would provide for the money that we awaited the appearance of the first meal, which was to be served immediately. Señor Calafill at Andraitx had given us the perfection of French cookery, the best of wines, at three and a half pesetas. But his house was less pretentious, being a shop only and not a _fonda_.

Our hostess, a nice, bright little woman who wore her hair in a pigtail and the _rebozillo_, bustled in and began laying the marble-topped table with fresh napkins, good cutlery, rolls, a bottle of wine, and a syphon of soda-water. Then she added a dish of fruit, and running off to the kitchen returned with the soup--a good thick Majorcan soup, full of rice and sweet peppers and chopped meat. The second course was a large dish of fish served with fried potatoes. Then we had, as a fruit course, apples and mandarin oranges. The fare might not be lavish, but it was assuredly all we required.

Our rooms, which were the best the house afforded, were small but clean, and during our stay proved quite free from mosquitoes.

When we discussed how we would spend the afternoon, the Boy and I hotly advocated walking to the port of Pollensa. A traveller from an inland town who had shared the box-seat of the diligence with the Boy had spoken enthusiastically of its beauty. His family was accustomed to spend the hot months there. The fishing, he said, was splendid, the fish being of much finer quality than those taken in the neighbouring bay of Alcudia.

"A salmonetta caught in the bay of Pollensa _is_ a salmonetta," he had declared emphatically.

The Man wisely objected to the expedition. The port, he reminded us, was seven kilometros (nearly five miles) away, and that was too far to go and return comfortably in the short winter afternoon. Besides, when we had come to see a curious old town, why not stay to look at it?

But from my bedroom window I had caught an enchanting glimpse of the port--a segment of blue water hemmed in by steep rocky mountains. It seemed so near that I flouted the idea of the five miles, and the afternoon being a glorious one we finally agreed to go.

As we passed along an outlying street an old man, who stood outside his house superintending the drying of a great tray of macaroni, wished us "Good day."

In returning his greeting the Man added a remark on the beauty of the weather, which indeed to us seemed perfect.

"No. This weather is not good. It is bad," the old man said severely. "It is rain that is needed. The country suffers. No, señor. This weather is bad, not good."

The way was a relic of the Roman occupation: a splendid wide level road that, except for a curve where it left the town, stretched like a broad ruled line between us and the blue sea. It could not really be so far as seven kilometros, I assured my vigilant conscience, which was inclined to remonstrate. It looked no distance at all.

So we went on our wilful way, journeying gaily between the thorny hedges of aloes--one up among the rocks on the hill-side was in bloom--and beside the little farms that bordered either side of the road.

The road was long--quite five miles--but there was always something interesting at hand, and the enticing strip of blue water drew us onward. The hills on the opposite side of the bay had already caught the rays of the setting sun, and looked like a bit of some dream-world.

The port of Pollensa had a quaint semicircle of houses, divided in the middle by the road we had come, which ended only on the bit of wharf that ran out into the spacious well-sheltered bay, where the British fleet had often found commodious anchorage. Save for a few local _falucas_ it was now empty.

In the little enclosed yards in front of the fisher-houses men and girls were at work weaving from bright yellow strips of bamboo the tall, beehive-looking lobster-traps in local use. Behind the houses, on the left side of the bay, rose a precipitous hill. In front, between the houses and the water, was a line of fig-trees. Along towards the seaward point were some small charmingly situated summer residences.

When we turned our faces townwards the sun had already set; and though we walked smartly, the way that in the going had seemed short appeared to lengthen as the shadows crept over the hills and darkness encircled us.

Pollensa lies, a close huddle of old sun-dried houses, in a narrow curved valley between high mountains. Until you are close upon it, it is almost entirely hidden, and that was probably the intention with which it was originally planned. During the last mile or two of the return journey, when the shades had fallen and we went on and on without apparently getting any nearer our habitation, my opinion of the distance that divided the port from the town became considerably modified. Still, we were only pleasantly tired when the first of the town lights appeared, and we found our way to the _fonda_ through the twisted streets, past many well-lit barbers' shops where, in full view of the public gaze, men were being shaved or sitting in patient rows resignedly awaiting turns that, to judge from the large number of customers and the paucity of barbers, would necessarily be a long time in coming.

Supper was ready to serve, and the moment the meal was over I went upstairs to bed--to sleep soon and sweetly, in spite of the fact that conversation in the bar-room beneath sounded surprisingly distinct--about as loud, indeed, as though the owners of the voices were talking at my ear. Morning brought explanation of the phenomenon--one of the flooring tiles just at the head of the bed was missing, and through the gap thus left the noise of the unseen talkers entered the room as through a speaking-tube.

On the following morning, which was Sunday, the weekly market was held at Pollensa. Very early, while it was yet hardly light, the little bustle of street traffic awoke me, and, looking from the window, I got a misty view of panniered donkeys and of rustic conveyances which vague shadowy figures were unloading.

When we had breakfasted we went out and, within a few steps of our inn, found ourselves in the most picturesque market-place we had ever seen.

I do not know what may be the leading article of Pollensa market at other seasons, but on this January day the outstanding feature was cabbages--of tremendous proportions. Piled in heaps and hillocks on the ground, they fairly dominated the market. Other wares there were no doubt, but the things that impressed us were the number and size of these giant vegetables and a feeling of wonder as to where the people would come from to buy them. As the morning wore on, the mounds sensibly diminished in height; but at that early hour the stacks of cabbages towered so high that sometimes only the heads of the vendors were visible above them.

In the raised portion of the market-square women occupied the stone benches, their stock of home-grown fruits and of the finer vegetables exhibited in baskets before them.

It was the scarce time for grapes. The field-produce was long over, and only garden bunches were still to be had. But without any attempt at bargaining we bought two pounds of delicious grapes for sixpence-farthing, and large golden oranges were offered us at twopence a dozen.

The town was so full of strange and picturesque figures that every moment brought fresh entertainment. At the _feria_ into which we strayed at Inca we had thought ourselves lucky in seeing one old man attired in the curious _colsons en bufer_, as the voluminous zouave-like pantaloons of bright blue cotton are called. Here in Pollensa wearers of the delightfully odd old-world dress abounded. And it seemed as though they took a special pride in the quaintness of their garb, so particular were they about the set of their neckties, so trim about the ankles, so careful as to the fit of the low black shoes that went so well with the costume.

The women of Pollensa, though less extraordinary of aspect, were also a pleasure to behold, for with scarcely an exception they wore the becoming native dress, and their heads were neatly covered with either the pretty white muslin head-dress or with handkerchiefs of gaily coloured silk.

It was somewhat disconcerting to realize, as we did quite suddenly, that it was really we who were the oddities, and that in the eyes of the crowd, at whom we were gazing so curiously, I was a ludicrous object because I wore a hat!

It was really quite an ordinary travelling-hat, but finding that the fact of a woman wearing a hat at all attracted undue attention from these unsophisticated folks, I hastened back to the _fonda_ and changed it for a chiffon scarf worn mantilla-fashion. That done, I found I could pass almost unnoticed.

Majorca boasts many picturesque old towns, but probably Pollensa is the most picturesque of all. It is a beautiful antique: a town made for the painter. Its warm golden-brown houses have baked in the hot southern sunshine until they seem ready to crumble to pieces. It is by no means a rich town. Most of the dwellings appeared to belong to the poorer classes. As the Man said--"It is a city of slums--but what adorable slums!"

The streets were all turnings, and every turn brought a subject ready for the brush. Here was a grand old cross, there a curious fountain, yonder an ancient stone washing-trough. And round every corner, that market-morning, came the quaint old men in their broad-brimmed felt hats and baggy breeches, unconsciously adding the note of human interest that completed the pictures.

Pollensa is essentially a town of hills. Mountains closely girdle it round. To the Calvario, which is perched on a height in the midst of the town, one ascends by countless wide, low steps, the town ascending also. For on one side houses struggle half-way up the steep incline, while cactus plants, the edges of their thick, fleshy leaves heavily ruched by blood-red fruit, hedge the other. On the rocky slope beyond is a thick growth of _palmettos_, the dwarf palms whose inner stems the natives eat and from whose dried fronds baskets are made.

To the dwellers in these sky-parlours the broad steps play the part of an extra sitting-room. As we climbed slowly up that hot morning, we trod closely upon many domestic scenes, but none of the actors therein objected to the intrusion. Fathers were happily employing their Sunday leisure in nursing their babies; and mothers, with the requisites placed for all the world to see, were washing their children's faces, tying up their locks with ribbon, and performing other niceties of the toilet that usually take place in the sanctity of the home. One old woman, sitting full in the sun, was reciting her prayers in a loud voice. Her occupation, however, did not appear in the slightest to detract from her interest in the passing of us _forasteros_.

The open doors of the little chapel that perched amidst its guardian cypresses on the summit spoke a wordless welcome; and we entered, to find ourselves in a beautiful sanctuary.

Above the altar was a very old carved tableau which represented Christ suspended on a heavy wooden cross, with Mary, kneeling, caressing His wounded feet. On the ceiling were various curious and evidently antique emblems of the Redemption.

On either side of the altar was a recess devoted to the display of votive offerings. Many of them were akin to those exhibited in other churches, though one case was filled with tiny flat silver figures--miniature men in trousers and tiny women in petticoats. But on the wall of the chamber to the right was an offering that aroused both our interest and our curiosity.

Suspended in a tall, narrow glass case, hung a pleat of dark brown hair, tied simply after the local fashion with a knot and ends of black ribbon. It was a pigtail such as was worn by most of the women in the town; but a pigtail of such unusual length and thickness that it might quite laudably have been the pride of its owner's heart.

Beneath was a card bearing the following inscription, written large in a fair, round hand:--

_Promesa de Francisca 30 Noviembre 1902 Pollensa._

Now who was Francisca? And why did she promise to cut off her beautiful hair? Was it to avert the fatal issue of some illness of her own? Or was it because her lover was ill, or in danger by land or sea? Or was Francisca merely afraid that he might prove faithless?

Whatever the nature of the terror Francisca dreaded, it was happily averted. The presence of the severed tresses assured us of that. But it was a particularly fine pigtail, and the sight of it tempted one to wonder what the feeling of Juan, or Pedro, or Miguel was when he first saw his sweetheart with closely cropped locks, and found that she had shorn off her glory for his sake. It is to be trusted that Francisca's hair was not her only beauty.

From the terraced slope of the Calvario one gets a magnificent view of the town. Looking down on the tiled roofs, all tawny-brown with the passing of centuries, it is easy to realize the great age of Pollensa. The city itself occupies but a circumscribed area, so narrow are the streets, so huddled together the houses. There is scarcely room for a green leaf to sprout between them. But where the town ends abruptly the real country begins, and in the parts that are not closely flanked by hills the ancient town is girdled by a belt of almond-trees. And all about it the fertile ground is cut up into small holdings, each with its little yellow-brown dwelling-house.

On every side, as far as the eye can reach, rise mountains, a glimpse of blue sea showing here and there between their rocky crags. Above one side of the town towers an isolated peak, from whose crest a magnificent panoramic view of half of the island of Majorca, and even a distant glimpse of Minorca, can be obtained.