The Fortunate Isles Part 22

The sky was flecked with white clouds--the first we had seen for many days--and the houses scattered over the flat and almost treeless table-land were all white--gleamingly white, after the old russet towns of Pollensa and Alcudia. Here and there we could see one of the great beehive-like heaps of stones that the sailors have christened "watch-towers." Though Majorca was only twenty miles distant, we already felt in a new world.

There was something oddly familiar in the nip of the air. And while we breakfasted on a satisfying "home" meal of omelet, ham, hot b.u.t.tered toast, and coffee, we recalled what we had heard of the lingering effects of British rule in Minorca, and felt inclined to give it the credit of the breakfast, even though the ham was served raw, and decanters of wine and jars of wooden toothpicks jostled our coffee-cups.

When we again went on deck there were signs that the short voyage was approaching its end. The bearded mate of the _Monte Toro_, who had made the trip in a red nightcap, had, with a toothpick behind his ear, appeared in a uniform cap, though he retained his velveteen coat. And the most stolid-looking of the soldiers, producing a comb and a tube of pomade, proceeded to make quite an elaborate toilet on deck. Still seated on his outspread handkerchief, he combed and recombed his hair, and greased it with extreme thoroughness; though it must be admitted that when it came to was.h.i.+ng he contented himself with a cursory dipping of his hands in the water-bucket. His face he left to Nature.

The pride of Port Mahon is its three-mile-long harbour. As we steamed up its length the trim fortifications recalled certain of our own naval and military stations, notably Portsmouth. But never did Portsmouth show such a glory of scarlet-blossomed aloes as burned on the face of these fortified rocks.

Our first impression of Mahon was one of unexpected brilliance.

Until we were well up the harbour the town was invisible. Then, as it came in sight with its dazzlingly white red-roofed buildings perched high on the crest of the brown serrated rock, the unexpected picturesque beauty of the scene filled us with surprise and delight.

Already the military influence that is so noticeable a feature of Mahon coloured the scene. Boats manned by soldiers were rowing to and from the forts on the opposite sh.o.r.e. Soldiers were standing on the quay as we stepped down the gangway--for, happily, there is no need to land by small boats in a harbour of such accommodating depth. And as we followed the porter bearing our luggage up the rough twisted slope of the Calle Vieja--that old street whose haphazard construction is so different from the carefully planned new ones--we pa.s.sed a group of officers going down. Throughout our stay in Mahon I do not believe we ever glanced up or down a street that was not enlivened by the glamour of a uniform.

There isn't a river or even a stream on the entire island, yet, in spite of the apparently limited supply of fresh water, the whole effect of the town, with its green shutters, red-tiled roofs, its pavements and carefully whitened houses, is that of extreme cleanliness. To judge by results, the pail of whitewash must be almost an equal factor in a Minorcan housewife's daily task with a broom or a duster. During our few days in Mahon we became quite accustomed to seeing women touching up the street fronts of their dwellings with a whitewash brush.

Minorca is said to be rarely visited by tourists, consequently it offers but small choice of hotels. The one we had been recommended to try--the Fonda Central--was a favourite stopping-place with commercial travellers. There could be no doubt of that. Their iron-clamped chests of samples lumbered the pa.s.sages and stairway.

Their sprightly presence filled the large princ.i.p.al table in the dining-room.

At a hotel that is popular with these gentlemen of the road the cooking is said to be certain to be good. At the Fonda Central it could scarcely have been excelled. The proprietor, a reverend-looking senor, superintended it in person. And his efforts on their behalf were heartily appreciated by his guests, the summons to a meal at the Fonda Central invariably falling on eagerly expectant ears.

"_Arroz_ to-day?" I overheard one guest inquire as he entered the dining-room for luncheon. And having received an affirmative reply, he sat down, adjusted his napkin, grasped his spoon, and awaited its appearance with an expression of antic.i.p.atory satisfaction.

The rooms were scrupulously clean, the table service brisk and punctual. Yet the house was hardly one that could be recommended to ladies. Owing to the popularity of the hotel, all the available s.p.a.ce had been turned into sleeping accommodation; there was no sitting-room proper. One of our bedrooms that faced the street and had two good writing-tables made us partly independent, and we had a side table to ourselves at meals, but I was the only woman in a company that numbered over two dozen.

The beds were comfortable, but there were no bells in the rooms.

When our chamber-man wanted to attract our attention, he did it by clapping his hands loudly in the corridor outside our doors. And when we wanted anything the Boy went downstairs and demanded it.

Going out to explore the town, we could not help noticing certain of the lingering effects of the British occupations which came to an end early in the last century. The windows almost invariably had the regulation English window sashes, and many of them showed white lace curtains or little muslin window blinds; and the front doors opened into pa.s.sages, not into either _patios_ or sitting-rooms, as in Majorca.

The British craving for sweets seemed to have proved infectious. At the hotel luncheon we had been agreeably surprised by the appearance of a sweet course, and the shop windows revealed a tempting array of bon-bons and of jams and pickles, commodities in which Majorca is sadly deficient. And one grocer had quite a number of tins of Crosse & Blackwell's Scotch oatmeal. Tobacco pipes, which are seldom seen in Majorca, were both in use and displayed for sale.

Wandering up and down in the short January afternoon we came upon many odd nooks and steep streets that had a picturesque character all their own. From the top of the quaint Calle de San Roque we got an extensive view inland, with Monte Toro, some eleven hundred feet, the higher of the two Minorcan hills, in the distance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Calle San Roque, Mahon]

Down by the curve of the bay we found the Alameda, a charming little Italian-garden-like promenade, where on summer evenings Mahon society a.s.sembles. It must be pleasant and shady there under the trees by the cool water. Even in winter it was attractive, with its close-cropped low hedges and great clumps of the vivid scarlet-blossomed aloes.

Just beyond the Alameda is a great cistern, from which is drawn much of the water for supplying the town. And from that point mules toil patiently up the rock-sided slopes, laden with barrels of water for the solace of thirsty folks.

Next morning, while breakfasting, we arranged our plans for the day.

The Man was bent upon going at once to sketch the town as we had first seen it from the harbour. The Boy and I agreed to ramble about during the morning; and after luncheon we all arranged to go in search of some of the famous stone monuments, respecting whose origin n.o.body appears to have been able to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion.

But before breakfast was ended the sky had become darkly overcast.

We reached our rooms to find hail tapping with ice-tipped fingers at the window panes, to see lightning flas.h.i.+ng, and to hear the rattle of thunder.

Our plans perforce being modified, we waited indoors until the storm had abated a little, then sought the _Ateneo Cientifico Literario y Artistico_, of whose existence the landlord had told us. The town, which has many cultured inhabitants, boasts three Athenaeums. Two are for the use of the general public. The third, which we visited, is said to be the centre of literary and artistic Mahon, and is something of the nature of a club.

The Museum is open to the townsfolk only on stated days. This did not happen to be one of those days. It was to the fact that we were foreigners that we owed our instant admission. And while the storm raged without, we enjoyed a private view of the many interesting things in the _Ateneo_, notably the old ware and natural history specimens.

A very fine private collection of marine flora is housed in the Museum, but it is shown only when specially inquired for, and we were unfortunate in calling at a time when the custodian of the keys chanced to be absent.

Among the pictures and drawings was a merciless but irresistibly amusing caricature of what had presumably been the English Governor of the date, riding upon a donkey. The nice young lad who was showing us round blushed a little when he saw us examine it. Though he did not say so, we felt that he would have liked to apologize to us for its intrusion in the show; but our withers were unwrung.

The members of the _Ateneo_ were delightfully cosmopolitan in their interests. Besides the current Spanish papers the snug reading-room showed a comprehensive array of contemporary literature, from the _Graphic_, the _Studio_, _Review of Reviews_, and _Harper's Weekly_, to French, German, Belgian, Italian, and South American journals.

When we left the _Ateneo_ the hail had ceased; and though the wind was still high, the Man hurried off to see what he could make of his subject, while the Boy and I strolled into the vegetable market.

The big open enclosure in the middle was empty. Round the covered sides women were sitting beside their little heaps of fruit and vegetables. After the prolonged drought from which the island was suffering, it was perhaps only natural that the supply of fresh vegetables should be limited. But with the recollection still vivid in our memory of the mountains of green cabbages that we had seen at Pollensa market, the stock appeared especially meagre.

The cactus, a shrub whose existence is almost independent of moisture, flourishes on the dry rocky soil, and the specimens of its fruit that, prepared in some way, were served at dinner on the previous night, seemed larger and much finer than any we had seen in Majorca. But even at its finest the p.r.i.c.kly pear is hardly a thing to pine for.

One thing that struck us as a particularly charming survival of English tastes was the discovery of cut flowers--chiefly little cl.u.s.ters of roses--for sale on several of the stalls. And one woman offered us st.u.r.dy pansy roots for planting. Up to this period of our stay in Palma I had never seen either cut flowers or flower-plants offered for sale in the market, though, indeed, we saw them later.

The wind had been steadily increasing. It would have been decidedly more comfortable to pa.s.s the afternoon indoors, but we were determined to seek some of the countless prehistoric remains with which Minorca is lavishly sprinkled. And after an unavoidable delay we started. The delay, be it explained, was caused by waiting for the cleaning of the Boy's boots. The service in the Fonda Central had certain limitations. It did not brush boots. The night before, the Boy had put his outside his bedroom door, and had taken them in in the morning untouched. Before lunch he sent them downstairs with special instructions that he wanted them cleaned at once. But when luncheon was over and we were ready to go out there was no sign of the boots.

Inquiries brought plausible promises of their return in ten minutes--in five minutes--at once. But still they failed to put in an appearance. At length a peremptory demand for their return clean or dirty sent Pedro flying down the street, to hasten back triumphantly bearing the cleaned boots. They had been sent to a shoemaker's to be brushed!

From the deck of the steamer as we rounded the coast we had caught many pa.s.sing glimpses of the great stone heaps called _talayots_, and imagining that they would be easily found, we rashly set off, without either guide or direction, in search of them.

After walking a little way along the San Luis road, which we had taken partly by chance, and partly, I think, because there the wind would be at our backs, we saw in the distance a large _talayot_, and rejoiced at having so quickly come within easy reach of what we were looking for. Our rejoicing was premature, for when we sought a path that would lead us there we failed utterly to find it. On either side of the long straight road were high walls a yard thick, enclosing small stony fields. Beyond these were walls, and yet again walls. It was our first near view of Minorcan country, and the impression was one of stones, stones, and yet more stones--stones absolutely without limit.

The att.i.tude of the few olive-trees within sight showed the prevalence of the north wind. They bent away from that direction, their foliage twisted awry, looking exactly like people cowering before a blast that has blown their cloaks over their heads.

The gale was waxing stronger. _Our_ cloaks were blown over our heads, but still we struggled on. A peasant boy, on being interrogated, directed us to proceed farther, then take a road to the left. Hopefully following his instructions, we "gaed and we gaed," like the cla.s.sic Henny-penny, until we ultimately found ourselves entangled in a maze of these same thick walls of stone.

And a maddeningly ingenious maze it proved. For as we wound about, the _talayot_ appeared to dodge us, sometimes popping up before us, sometimes lurking behind; often seeming comparatively near, more often looming at a wholly unexpected distance away, and always encircled by these impenetrable gateless walls of stone.

Finally, leaving me on the lee-side of a wall--it wasn't really the lee-side: in such a wind there is no lee side; but they thought it was the lee-side--the men departed, determined to scale the offending obstacles and to get there somehow. After a time the Boy returned to free me from the brambles round which the tempest had twisted my veil and chiffon scarf, holding me prisoner; and to report that, after some climbing, the Man and he had succeeded in reaching the _talayot_, and that they thought if I didn't mind some rough scrambling I _might_ manage to get there.

So ten minutes later, breathless, wind-tossed and earth-stained, with torn gloves and scratched boots, I too reached the goal of our desires, to find it nothing but an immense heap of stones, with no trace of opening or any apparent reason for existence.

The Man, who, in spite of the decided opposition offered by the elements, had succeeded in scaling the top of the _talayot_, declared it to be merely a greatly magnified cairn, and there and then announced his adoption of Dr. Guillemand's theory that the primary reason for the origin of these much-disputed heaps was simply the need for clearing the fields of stones. I must confess that to me the really interesting thing regarding these vast memorials of a vanished race is the fact that, while everybody is free to conjecture, no one, not even the wisest, can boast the smallest knowledge of their meaning.

Just behind the _talayot_, separated from it by certain thick walls, stands another relic of prehistoric times in the shape of a _taula_, or table stone--one huge slab placed horizontally on the top of a ma.s.sive upright stone. And while the Man held on to something with one hand and tried to sketch with the other, I sheltered from the blast on the farther side.

It was curious to see flowers blooming even in these conditions.

Amongst the loose stones at the base of the _taula_ the periwinkle was in bloom. On the patch of stone-littered soil we had crossed we noticed some small lilac daisies, their heads bent close to the ground. And all about the broad tops of the maze of stone d.y.k.es clambered the curious and beautiful clematis-like creeper that delights to luxuriate in the most arid position it can secure, and is said to pine away and die when transplanted to a garden.

The sole incident of our return journey was the sudden appearance of a cap, which, floating high in air, advanced towards us round a corner towards which we were battling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mahon, Minorca]

XVII

STORM-BOUND