The Fortunate Isles Part 21

Another of our charming Balearic days had ended. And so, as Pepys would say, to bed.

Our wonderful luck in weather continued. We awoke to yet another perfect morning. Immediately after breakfast the Man set off to sketch one of the countless curious antique Moorish wells--known as _norias_--used for the irrigation of the crops: wells whose chains of earthenware jars are worked by the motive power supplied by mules that, yoked to a long shaft, keep walking in a circle. The mule needs no guide, as the rein, which is tied to the beam overhead, at intervals gives a gentle tug in the required direction.

It was oddly pathetic to see the patient brutes, their eyes blindfolded by having straw saucers fastened over them plodding steadfastly round and round, while from the ceaseless filling and emptying of the chain of jars the water gushed in a miniature waterfall into the trenches dug between the long lines of growing vegetables. In this fertile plain near the sea, the crop at this mid-winter season appeared to consist mainly of cabbages and cauliflowers. And when we saw those grown at Alcudia we knew where the mammoth cabbages that had dominated Pollensa market had been reared.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A _Noria_ Near Alcudia]

The Boy had gone alone to do a sketch on the roof of the Moorish tower that had interested us on the previous night. As he sat working, there came a sound of steps ascending the crumbling stairs; and to his pleasure three pretty Majorcan girls appeared, come to fill their earthen water-jars at the old draw-well on the roof, a well that even after the lapse of hundreds of years still continued to yield an abundant supply of pure water. The girls were exactly the figures required to complete the sketch. So to their gratification and his own benefit the Boy put them in.

In the afternoon, the Man and I walked the easy mile to Alcudia, and wandered about the quaint old town, climbing both the inner and the outer walls, wis.h.i.+ng we knew more of its history, and lamenting that our limitations of language kept us ignorant of the meaning of these extensive and variant lines of fortifications. So we made no exhaustive inquiries, but prowled about and drew our own rough conclusions as to the relative values of the Roman and Moorish manner of building and defence.

Coming upon a handsome and imposing church, we went in. It was dark and silent. Straying through the outer building, which had a vast Moorish dome, we entered a curious and beautiful inner church, whose sides were lined with the nearest approach to private boxes that we had ever seen in a sacred edifice.

Returning to the outer church, we were looking at the decorations in the dimness of the side chapels. The Man had struck a match to enable us to see a grotto that was rendered still more obscure by half-drawn curtains. The sound echoing through the silence brought a lad, who was evidently intensely interested in the church and its possessions. Lighting a tall candle, he drew aside the curtains, and with something of the pride of owners.h.i.+p in his manner revealed to us the Christmas tableau of the scene in the stable at Bethlehem.

His glory in the display was so evident that we did not remark on the contempt for perspective that had represented the Virgin and Child as giants, and the wors.h.i.+pping kings and shepherds as merely pigmies; nor did we venture to hint that anything in the nature of an anachronism marked the presence of a gay satin cus.h.i.+on at Mary's feet.

The lad's soul was evidently in the work of the church. When we thanked him, and the Man offered him a coin in recognition of the willing services he had rendered us, he at first refused to take it; then, when we insisted, accepted and immediately put it into the collection-box marked "For the High Altar."

Our landlord had spoken of the remains of a Roman amphitheatre that was in the district; and finding that we were interested, he volunteered to pilot us thither. And, indeed, without his escort we would never have found the place, for it lies in the heart of a farm, the way to which leaves the main road half-way between the old city and her port.

A commonplace path between stone walls led to the farm-house, whose quite ordinary exterior gave no suggestion of the strange tracks of bygone races that lay hid in the ground all about. Having asked and obtained the permission that enabled us to trespa.s.s, we pa.s.sed on and reached a rocky slope which bore signs of having at some time been used as a quarry.

To our unskilled eyes nothing seemed to promise that our surroundings would prove other than the usual Majorcan farm placed on a particularly rocky bit of country.

Our guide, who had been walking in advance, stopping suddenly, pointed to the ground at his feet.

"There!" he said.

And looking, we saw that we were standing on the top step of a barely distinguishable semicircle that had been roughly hewn in the rock. With a beautiful disrespect for age, a stone dike had been built right across the seats. I think we counted six rows above and five below the wall. And in the arena flouris.h.i.+ng almond-trees had rooted deep in the once blood-stained soil. A hole in the ground allowed a peep into a cavern where the wild beasts used in the combats had been housed.

But the ground held other secrets. In the solid rock that rose above the sides of the amphitheatre there were many graves--once sealed; now, having been desecrated by bygone generations of Moors, merely slits gaping to the skies.

About four years earlier a strange finding had taken place within a few paces of the farm-house. An untouched Roman grave had been discovered; and our guide, who had been present at the opening, described the scene in language so graphic, and accompanied by such dramatic gesture, that we had not the smallest difficulty in following the most minute detail.

He told us how, when the hermetically sealed top stone had been lifted away, the complete body of a woman, apparently young, lay before them, as she had been placed two thousand years before, with a necklace of gold round her throat, earrings in her ears, rings on her fingers. And how, as they looked in awed silence, the body that throughout these ages had maintained a semblance of humanity, had before their eyes slowly crumbled into undistinguishable dust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ciudadela Seen from the Sea]

XVI

MINORCA

The weekly steamer from Barcelona to Minorca was due to call at the port of Alcudia at 3.30 a.m. We went to bed, but not to sleep, for half a dozen intending pa.s.sengers, five of them commercial travellers, had arrived by diligence from La Puebla, and the _fonda_ echoed with unwonted noise.

When, about three o'clock, we went downstairs, the large hall was brilliantly lit, and men m.u.f.fled in big cloaks and scarves were gulping gla.s.ses of hot coffee before leaving the shelter of a roof.

In the public room beyond, some harbourmen and one of the never-absent carbineers sat smoking.

A nondescript being--faded red cap on head, bare feet thrust into hempen sandals--summoned by the landlord, appeared from the outer darkness and, shouldering our baggage, pa.s.sed out into the night. We followed, and walking by faith, at length found ourselves standing on the pier, the unseen water lap-lapping at our feet, an increasing group of fellow-voyagers gathering about us.

Out of the dense blackness a boat with a lantern burning dimly at her prow crept beneath us and paused. Some one lit a match, revealing a short flight of steps leading to the water. Descending with fumbling feet, we reached the elusive craft below.

A curious company we were, vague, indefinable, all closely packed together, and all silent. A priest, a party of commercial travellers, and a gaunt Moorish-looking being, who was wrapped from his head--on which, as we afterwards saw, he wore, probably to save bother in packing, a wide felt sombrero with a jaunty yachting cap set a-top--to his naked ankles, in a great white blanket.

There was no moon, and the paling stars gave but little light as the two boatmen, standing up facing the bow, moved the heavily laden boat across the smooth swart water. Urged on with strong, unswerving strokes, the boat moved away from the invisible land, the while we sat dumb, motionless.

I was just thinking that in something of these att.i.tudes of utter and hopeless despair might the unwilling pa.s.sengers of Charon endure the last dread journey across the Styx, when the Boy, who was sitting next to me, whispered, "Don't we look exactly as though we were s.h.i.+pwrecked people adrift on the ocean?"

Then the bulk of the _Monte Toro_ loomed vaguely ahead, and as our bow neared the accommodation ladder the elder boatman, abandoning his oar, began collecting his fees of fivepence each (_dos reales_) for piloting us over the bay.

The illusion had vanished. We were everyday human beings once more.

Before we left London a Spanish friend had strongly advised us to travel second-cla.s.s in Balearic Island steamers. He said the second saloon accommodation was justly popular with those who knew, because, first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers being few, it was better placed and more commodious.

The Man has cherished a lifelong theory that when journeying by sea the best accommodation is not too good. But on this occasion of our crossing from Majorca to Minorca, as the weather was still tranquil, he allowed himself to be persuaded to put our friend's advice to the test. And the experience of that night was so eminently satisfactory that it not only added to our immediate comfort but saved us much money in the future.

When crossing from Barcelona our first-cla.s.s cabins, which were small and had thwart-s.h.i.+p berths, had been situated in the stern.

The second-cla.s.s cabin on the _Monte Toro_, which I shared with the only other lady pa.s.senger, was large, airy, and as gay as ivory paint, bra.s.s rods, and scarlet draperies could make it. It was right amids.h.i.+ps too, had two port-holes, and berths that for comfort could scarcely have been improved upon.

The lighter with a load of pigs being still on the way, the decks of the smart little steamer were quiet. A pet donkey, covered with a scarlet blanket, was tethered under the sheltering boat deck; a glint of gold lace in the galley revealed the captain warming himself by the cook's fire.

When I entered the cabin labelled "Senoras," a pretty girl in a pink petticoat was standing before the mirror engaged in exaggerating the bulk of her abundant dark hair by padding it out with quite unnecessary "rats" and cus.h.i.+ons into twice its natural proportions.

Lying down, I fell asleep to the lullaby grunting of the pigs that were being hauled on board. When I awoke it was daylight, and a glance through a port-hole showed that we were nearing a flat coast.

The pretty pink petticoat had already gone on deck, and putting on a cloak and hood, I followed to join my people in a sheltered corner of the promenade deck, from where we surveyed the coast that we were approaching with the deliberate rate of speed that characterizes Balearic Island steamers.

The general aspect of Minorca, the flat country, the white houses, the windmills, vividly recalled our first glimpse of Guernsey as we had approached it early one winter morning many years ago.

Ciudadela, which is the oldest city in the island, was the capital in the time of the Moors. It was to the rulers of Ciudadela that King Jaime sent his demand for the submission of Minorca. From our place on deck we could see Cape Pera, the eastern point of Majorca, twenty miles distant, where the young King and his knights kindled the huge bonfires that, by alarming the Moors into the belief that a hostile army lay encamped there ready to invade them, gained him a bloodless subjection. Ciudadela, which was the seat of a bishop in 423, is still the ecclesiastical capital of Minorca, though Mahon has long superseded her in all else.

The sea is rarely smooth on the Minorcan coast. It was within a short distance of Ciudadela that, not many days later, the _General Chanzy_, bound from Ma.r.s.eilles to Algiers, was wrecked with the loss of every soul on board with the solitary exception of one young man, whose escape was surely the most marvellous on record.

As we lay to outside the very narrow entrance to the harbour, the five _comerciantes_, who were preparing to go on sh.o.r.e, eyed askance the tossing c.o.c.klesh.e.l.ls of boats that were advancing ready to convey them to land. By taking the motor-car that ran the twenty-eight miles connecting Ciudadela with Mahon, which is on the opposite extreme of the island, they would save three precious hours. With the prospect of a charming sail along the coast before us we did not envy them.

After a protracted delay the boats succeeded in approaching near enough to the accommodation ladder to enable the commercial men to embark. And they were off, clutching at the sides of the little boats, as with rueful faces they joggled sh.o.r.ewards over the choppy waves.

Our chilly friend of the enveloping blanket and the naked ankles, who was a deck pa.s.senger, had, as the Man reported, spent the night perched on a grating over the engine-room--a situation where he would surely be warm enough. Where he performed his toilet no one knows, but as we neared Port Mahon he appeared transformed from a s.h.i.+vering bundle into a dandy. Neat black socks covered his ankles, and his brown coat, orange s.h.i.+rt, and green velveteen trousers revealed a nice taste for colour. His yellow-white blanket had disappeared, but he still wore his two hats.

Meanwhile the pigs, whose lamentations had rent the silence of the night, were being hauled, pulled, jerked, pushed, and dumped along the deck, over the side, and into the lighter that was to take them ash.o.r.e, as they went raising their voices in shrill protest. As the Boy remarked, quoting Uncle Remus, "These pigs know whar dey come from, but dey don' know whar they gwine!"

As the _Monte Toro_ steamed slowly round the low cliffs that seemed to descend sheer into deep water, so little sign of broken beach or of outlying reef was there, we could see how through the ages the restless sea had nibbled and gnawed at the edges of the cliffs, which in many places were deeply honeycombed, and even hollowed into caves.

There were no first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers. The accommodation reserved for them just over the screw was vacant. Third-cla.s.s included an interesting quartette of stubby Spanish soldiers, and one slim naval stoker, whose flexible movements and sportive bonhomie were in striking contrast to the stolid immobility of his companions.

Possibly the stoker felt more at home on s.h.i.+pboard. Certainly he had all the life of the party; for while the others m.u.f.fled their heads in shawls, and squatted on their carefully spread cotton pocket-handkerchiefs, he was never still, helping an overburdened young mother by shouldering her small boy and taking him round to visit the pet donkey, making friends with the s.h.i.+p's dog, or playing good-humoured tricks upon the others.