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

Hunger sent us back to the hotel to have our first experience of the Majorcan cookery for which it is justly noted.

The cheerful dining-room opened into the square courtyard, whose walls were striped in broad lines of blue and white like the bandbox of a French milliner. On each of the six tables was a large decanter of red wine.

The first dish set before us required a certain amount of courage to tackle. It was a mound of amber-tinted rice in which was visible a weird conglomeration of fish, flesh, fowl, and chopped vegetables. The queer part was the preponderance of empty seashells, for while their contents had doubtless become incorporated with the other ingredients, the empty shells remained insistent and uninviting.

But hunger had made us reckless, and on venturing, we found the arroz con mariscos worthy the national esteem in which it is held. Highly seasoned meat of some sort followed. Then came delicately-cooked little fish; then something that defied us to discover whether it belonged to the animal or the vegetable kingdom. There were no sweets, but the dessert was abundant and delicious. Apricots, curiously exotic-looking apples that were streaked with crimson on a pink ground, great clusters of little yellow grapes that seemed as though the sunshine were imprisoned in their skins, and the tempting little baked almonds that are a speciality of Barnils'.

The rain, that in a few minutes had turned the narrow streets into rivers, had ceased as suddenly as it began. The sky was again a deep glowing blue, and the pure soft air was a pleasure to breathe, when ascending a stair we found ourselves on the flat roof of the hotel, which commanded an extensive view over the city. About us were many flat Moorish roofs, some used as gardens, others bearing great cages full of pigeons. To the south was the port with its gay display of shipping and the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean. To north, east, and west, the towers and domes and city walls encircled us. Beyond were the fruitful plains, and farther still the blue mountains.

Around us rose the softened murmur of the town, the chiming of bells, the whisper of the sea, the sound of voices speaking in strange tongues. All was charming, novel, and wholly delightful.

Chopin's description of Palma, written seventy years ago when, with George Sand, he spent a winter in Majorca, needs no correction to-day: —

"Here I am at Palma," he wrote to his friend Fontana, "in the midst of palms, and cedars and cactuses, and olives and oranges, and lemons and figs and pomegranates… The sky is like a turquoise, the sea is like lazuli, and the mountains are like emeralds. The air is pure like the air of Paradise. All day long the sun shines and it is warm, and everybody walks about in summer clothes. At night one hears guitars and serenades. Vines are festooned on immense balconies. Moorish walls rise all about us. The town, like everything here, looks towards Africa. In a word, it is an enchanted life that we are living."

Soon after midnight a deep sonorous cry awoke me from the sleep of the pleasantly fatigued: —

Alabado sea Dios…
Las doce y media…
Sereno…

it rang out in the stillness.

Jumping out of bed, I reached the open window in time to see the passing of a black figure wrapped in a great cloak, the rays from the lantern he carried throwing a wavering circle of light on the pavement beside him. It was the sereno, the guardian of the sleeping city.

Pausing before one of the closed doors, he smote on it three times with his staff. Then he turned, and passed out of sight, his long wailing cry again rising into the night.

II

OUR CASA IN SPAIN

Palma was gay with bunting in honour of the birthday of the young Queen of Spain, when on the afternoon of our second day in Majorca we set out to deliver a letter of introduction that was fated to have an important influence on our future arrangements.

Much might be, and probably much has been written on the uses and abuses of letters of introduction. Sometimes the given letter proves a boon both to him who carries and him who receives it. Was not one of our best friends made known to us through the medium of a perfunctory note from a man we had not seen for many years, and whom the presenter of the note had never even met? When we left London we bore a letter of introduction to an Englishman resident in Barcelona, and he in turn gave us a letter to an American friend of his at Palma, who was Consul for certain of the Southern Republics.

The home of the Consul was at Son Españolet, an attractive little residential suburb about a mile beyond the city walls. The busy district of Santa Catalina lies between it and the sea. Undulating groves of almond and olive separate it from the hills.

Taking the mule-drawn tram-car that plies between Palma and Porto Pi, we alighted at Santa Catalina; and, after making various inquiries, found ourselves ringing the gate-bell of the house, over whose tower fluttered the gay banner of the Consulate.

Had the Consul and his wife guessed that these three British invaders were going to trespass on their endurance for a period of six months, I doubt if they would have received us with such courteous geniality. As it was, their reception was so cordial that within half an hour of our meeting I felt emboldened to reveal what had been my secret desire – that we might rent a furnished house near Palma for the winter. Not a fine house – merely a roof under which we could stow our belongings, a centre from which our wanderings about the islands might radiate.

Could they advise us? Did they think such an idea was feasible?

The Consul shook his head.

"Not near Palma," he said. "At Porto Pi or the Terreno you might chance on one. But these are summer seaside places. Most of the houses there are shut up now. You'd find it dull and inconvenient in winter."

"This district seems delightful, and near town. Would there be a chance of our getting a house here?"

"Unfurnished, yes – furnished, no. But why not take a vacant house and hire what you need? There's only three of you. You don't want much."

"Say, Luis!" said pretty Mrs. Consul, "what about the house the Major left last week? That's empty now. Would that suit?"

For a moment the Consul looked meditative.

"I'm thinking," he said. "You're right. That's the very place. Nice little house. Got a garden. Stable too. And a fine view from the veranda."

"Is the house near? Could we see it?" we asked.

"It's close by, in the Calle de Mas. We'll see about it, right away, now."

The Consul, happily for us, was a man of action. Ringing the bell, he summoned Isidoro, his man-servant, who summoned Margarita, his cook. And Margarita, having received instructions to search the wide world till she found the caretaker of the empty house and to bring her hither, departed at once on her quest. In an incredibly brief space of time she returned in company with a little old woman and two large door-keys.

Following her guidance we walked in procession round the corners of several secluded roads, whose yellow stone walls, flat roofs, and almost tropical foliage looked Oriental under the evening glow.

Viewed from the street, the house we sought, with its green shutters and tiled roof, resembled a hundred others. But when the big keys had performed their task, and we had passed through the two centre rooms and found ourselves on a wide stone-pillared veranda looking across the orange and lemon trees of the gardens to where the Mediterranean lay azure under the setting sun, our minds held no further hesitation. We knew that it was our own house.

Merely to assure ourselves that the house had no equal, we investigated the claims of two other vacant dwellings before returning to the Consulate. One had a basement in which a native family lived – apparently wholly upon garlic. The other attempted to make up in stucco images what it lacked in view.

It was too late that night to take any steps towards securing the house. The Consul, himself a versatile linguist, knowing that our meagre Spanish could hardly be expected to prove equal to the subtleties of house-hiring, arranged to accompany the Man and the Boy next day to interview the owner, and if possible to see the negotiations completed.

I think we were all secretly uneasy until we learned that, on the personal recommendation of the Consul, the landlord had unhesitatingly accepted us as tenants, and that he had agreed to have the garden put in order, to mend any broken panes of glass in the doors or windows, to see that the well was clean, and to permit us to enter upon our tenancy at once.

And then, the house being secured, the important subject of furniture had to be considered. Knowing that with hired goods we would feel conscious of certain restrictions, we had resolved to buy what was absolutely necessary. And the question was – how much or how little furniture would three unexacting people require during six months of a picnicking existence in a gracious climate?

Already there were several indispensable articles in the house – two tables, one large enough to serve as dining-table, a bench, and a tall glass-doored corner cupboard. Beds would be needed, washstands, two more tables of the plainest description, half-a-dozen rush-seated chairs of local make for utility, lounge chairs for our laziness, and looking-glasses for our vanity.

Still under the Consul's skilled guidance we visited an upholsterer's, a dark and narrow shop where the closely packed stock took up so much room that there was hardly space for a single customer. The shopkeeper, a smiling little round man in a pink shirt, and his daughter, a smiling big round girl in a white frock, entered heartily into the spirit of our requirements; and with the Consul's aid in the reduction of prices, we speedily acquired what was necessary.

We had landed on Majorca on Tuesday morning. Before dusk fell on Thursday our house was not only taken, but the furniture purchased. Electric light is a cheap luxury in Palma, and for our comfort in the winter nights we were having it put in. Knowing that the installation of the light, the scrubbing out of the house, and the raking up of the garden would occupy a day or two, we decided to remain at Barnils' until Monday, on which morning we would journey out to Son Españolet and take possession. Meanwhile we roamed about Palma with our eyes open to the necessities of our bare establishment, picking up a broom here, a coffee-strainer there, some wooden cooking-spoons yonder.

Matters moved with surprising briskness. Monday morning found the electric light fixed, the tiled floors well scrubbed, the scant provision of furniture in the rooms, and the garden dug. So, leaving our heavier luggage to follow by cart, we packed ourselves and our smaller baggage into a carruaje, and set out for our new home. The progress thither was circuitous, as first we had to journey up and down the narrow streets of the town collecting the smaller purchases we had made.

First we called at a grocer's to pick up the supply of provisions that were to form the nucleus of our housekeeping. Then we meant to drive to the china shop where our store of crockery awaited us. Unfortunately the china shop, being situated on a street so steep that it ascended in a series of wide steps, was unapproachable by our two-horse conveyance. Leaving the carriage at the foot of the steps the Man and the Boy mounted to the shop, and by and by reappeared accompanied by a man and a maiden, all four laden with dishes.

Space in the conveyance had been limited before. Now, surrounded by earthenware cooking-pots, and basins, and jugs, and plates, we were jolted over the primitively paved streets, and out beyond the gate of Santa Catalina to the little house in Son Españolet.

Perhaps our sense of possession threw a glamour over the dwelling, but already it seemed to wear a look of home. The scanty furniture was in place, a few minutes sufficed to put the groceries on the shelves, the dishes in the glass cupboard, the earthenware cooking-pots and pans on the kitchen shelf. Then, when the table was spread with our new tea-cups, and decorated with roses and scented verbena from the garden, set in a jug, and the kettle was a-boil over our trusty spirit-lamp, we sat down, in great contentment, to enjoy the first meal in our casa in Spain.

The lines even of a foreign householder in Majorca are cast in pleasant places. From our point of view the Majorcan landlord has the worse of the bargain, his tenant the better.

We took our little house for three months, paying in advance the very moderate rent – it was twenty pesetas, about fifteen shillings, a month – and agreeing to give, or take, a month's warning. This done, our obligations appeared to cease. There were no taxes, at least none that the tenant was expected to pay. There was no water rate. The well in the garden afforded a supply of pure and wholesome rain-water. If windows were broken the landlord sent, or promised to send, a glazier to put in new panes. In the rare event of a chimney requiring cleaning, the accommodating landlord was expected to employ a mason to do the work. And with the arrival of the season locally considered best for the annual pruning of the vines – which is the period between the 15th and the 20th of January – a duly qualified gardener, instructed by the owner of the house, appeared and clipped those within our walls.

Our Majorcan home proved to be full of the most charming informalities. Its architecture was the perfection of simplicity; a child might have designed it. It was on one floor only, and measured fifteen paces square. There were neither hall nor passages, and in a short time we found ourselves wondering why we had ever considered such things necessary. All the doors were glazed. The front door opened directly into a sitting-room, whose wide glass door led to another room that opened on to the veranda. To the right of the front door was the Boy's bedroom, to the left an apartment that served as studio. From the back sitting-room opened, on one side, a bedroom that had a useful dress closet; and on the other a compact little kitchen with a cool larder that was almost as big as itself. The kitchen walls were lined breast-high with blue and white tiles; and under the window that looked towards the sea was a neat range of stoves, for the consumption of both coal and charcoal.

The two sitting-rooms boasted the distinction of wall papers, and the ceiling of our favourite room – that which opened on to the veranda – represented an azure sky among whose fluffy white clouds flitted birds and butterflies. At one side of the house was a stable, and an enclosure fitted with stone tubs and jars, meant to be used in the washing of clothes.

The veranda, or terras, bade fair to become a perpetual joy to us. It was roofed by a spreading vine, whose foliage even in November was luxuriant. The former tenants had eaten all the grapes except one bunch, of which the wasps had taken possession; and we were either too generous or too timid to dispute their claim.