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

The dialect in use in Minorca and Iviza, though practically the same as that of Majorca, varies in each island. So it is not surprising that the visitor to the Balearic Islands is strongly advised to confine his efforts to the acquirement of Spanish, not even to attempt to learn Majorcan. And indeed the facilities for doing so are few. We could find no Majorcan dictionary, though a weekly paper in the language, Pu-Put, is published in Palma.

All the educated classes speak Spanish fluently. Yet in most of the shops, even in Palma, and in the country districts, the native language prevails.

Very few of the working women understand Spanish. Their lives having been passed on the islands, they remain ignorant of any but their mother tongue; though it is common to find their menfolk speaking Spanish well, owing to their having been in the army, or to their having passed the period of voluntary exile that most of them serve almost as they do the demands of the State.

Those who know, say that Majorca is a bad place to learn Spanish in; that in order to have a good accent the intending traveller is best to acquire it elsewhere. And as Borrow says, you must open your mouth and take your hands out of your pockets to speak Spanish.

Before leaving London we tried, after a very desultory fashion, to pick up a little Spanish. The Boy, who took Berlitz lessons, got on famously and was our mainstay from the moment we crossed the Spanish frontier at Port Bou. But he declares that he had not been long in Palma before he found himself speaking Spanish with a Majorcan accent.

For my part, in point of language I found the direction of even so small an establishment as the Casa Tranquila very puzzling, especially at first. After carefully gleaning a knowledge of the Spanish coinage that enabled me to count up to say ten, in pesetas and centimos, it was bewildering to find sums calculated in reals and in perros grandes and perros pequeñas.

I shall never forget the first time Apolonia, the laundress, appeared to deliver up our clean linen and to receive her just recompense. When I inquired how much we owed her, Apolonia told me the sum, but she did it in Majorcan.

"Onza reals, cuatro centims, dos centims."

"Que vale en pesetas?" I asked, but Apolonia could not reckon in pesetas. Raising her stubby fingers, she proceeded to make cabalistic signs in the air, repeating the whole "Onza reals, cuatro centims, dos centims," in a voice that grew louder and louder, as though the more noise she made the more likely was she to pierce my thick understanding.

Maria, hearing the discussion, left her dusting, and running swiftly on her string-soled alpargatas, came to the rescue.

If matters had been bad before, they were now worse. Four hands were in the air. Two voices in Majorcan, that became momentarily more strident, kept repeating the tale of reals and centims until, feeling undecided whether to laugh or to cry, I cut the matter short by emptying the contents of my housekeeping purse on the table and imploring Apolonia to help herself.

After many protestations she agreed to do so. And with much reluctant and timorous hovering of her fingers over the coins, at last selected the exact sum; which, before taking possession of, she carefully spread before my eyes, calling upon Maria to witness that she had not abused my trust.

The calculations of Mundo, the vegetable man, were – if possible – more distracting; for having inherited the national characteristic of honesty to an almost unnatural degree, the worthy Mundo, in his desire to be strictly just in his dealings, had a way of splitting farthings that sometimes proved inexplicable, not only to his customers but also to himself.

How often, when he stood puzzling over some fraction of a penny, have I felt impelled to say rashly: "Bother the expense, Mundo. I'll make you a present of the half farthing!"

Fortunately for Mundo's opinion of my sanity, the spirit of economy that tinctures the balmy air of these Fortunate Isles prevented any such extravagant proceeding.

V

TWO HISTORIC BUILDINGS

After we were fairly settled in our house our first excursion naturally was to the Castle of Bellver, the ancient fortress that, from the veranda, we saw clearly silhouetted against the western sky.

The afternoon was glorious. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sunlight cast deep shadows; to drive there in one of the quaint, open-sided tramcars would have been a treat. But there had been thunder in the night, and the apprehensive authorities had decided that it was a day for bringing out the closed vehicles. So we sat in the stuffy little car, and drove out through crowded Santa Catalina and across the bridge that spanned the dry torrente of San Magin, and past the consumos sheds towards the Terreno, the favourite summer resort of Palma folks, whose charming villas clothe the slope leading to the steep hill on whose summit stands the old castle.

The sun was hot, the air exhilarating. Flowers – roses, zinnias, plumbago, chrysanthemums, geraniums – still bloomed in the villa gardens. To us it was a glorious summer day. To the Majorcans it was already winter. The pretty houses were nearly all empty. Their owners had returned to town.

The old road to the Castle is a stiff climb up a rocky slope. The new road is an excellent carriage drive that winds round the hill. We chose the steep way, and found ourselves frequently pausing and turning to look back across the sparkling waters of the bay to Palma, which at that moment was looking, as it so often does, like some celestial city.

The air was fragrant with the essence of the pines that clothed the slopes – at their feet tall pink heath and wild lavender were in bloom.

When Jaime the First built Bellver for a summer palace, he made it an invincible fortress. One thing only could one imagine as more difficult than getting into the Castle, and that would be getting out of it. Yet, had we so willed, on this balmy afternoon the hitherto impregnable stronghold with its deep moat, its implacable walls, might have been ours without even a show of resistance; for when we reached the gateway we found it open and unguarded.

But fortunately for the reputation of Bellver our mood was pacific; and we were content to linger without until an old woman, who had espied us as she was leaving the Castle with what was presumably the washing of the custodian in a chequered handkerchief under her arm, ran back calling loudly for "Bordoi."

Bordoi appeared in the person of the custodian of the Castle. He was an old soldier, gaunt, lean, courteous, and evidently possessing a genuine pride in his charge.

The first thing to which he called our attention was the grating set high over the entrance, through which, after the endearing fashion of their time, the occupants of the Castle were accustomed to shower a gentle hint to depart, in the form of arrows or boiling water, upon the heads of any visitors whose appearance they did not fancy.

The Castle, which is in the form of a circle, is built round a courtyard containing a great draw-well. Looking down, it was interesting to me to see that the moist sides of the interior were thickly coated with luxuriant maidenhair fern, such as we had years before noticed growing inside the mouth of the well in the house of the maker of amphoræ in Pompeii.

Reaching down his long arm, the custodian picked me a frond, explaining that it made a wholesome medicinal drink – "quite as good as sarsaparilla."

And here an odd query occurs to me. Does the office of caretaker conduce to dyspepsia, or does the enforced leisure of the occupation dispose to hypochondria? During a little journey through the Shakespeare country, for instance, it was impossible – even for such very polite people as ourselves – to avoid noticing the boxes of patent pills or of much-vaunted lotions that figured prominently amongst the private possessions of the people who showed us the places of interest.

The stern face of the old keep has frowned on many tragic sights. It was up these rocky slopes that the headless body of the third Jaime was borne, after his luckless attempt, at the battle of Lluchmayor, to wrest his kingdom from a usurper. And it was there, too, that the boy son who had fought so bravely by his father's side was carried, desperately wounded.

In more recent times Bellver has acted the part of a State prison. Political prisoners, numbering as many as three or four hundred at a time, have been immured within its massive walls. It was easy to picture them clustering in the spacious courtyard about the well, or pacing the open-sided gallery overlooking it, or lingering on the flat roof, from which such an amazingly comprehensive view may be had.

Seen from beneath, the height of the Castle is dwarfed by its encircling walls. It is only on looking down from the battlements and seeing the immense depths of the surrounding moats that one realizes the strength of the inflexible grip in which captives would be held.

In these days a rescue by means of airship might be feasible. For an aviator to alight on the vast flat circle of the Castle roof, to pick up a prisoner, and fly off again, would presumably be an easy matter. But in those days airships were unknown, and it must have been maddening to be pent so near Palma that every building might be distinguished, to be able to note the coming and going of the ships, to view the fair fertile country in every direction, and yet know that the deep encompassing moat rendered any attempt at escape a futility.

In one of the rooms a memorial tablet had been inserted in the wall in remembrance of a deposed Minister of State, who endured six years of incarceration before dying there in 1808.

In his chamber a window, reached by steps and stone-seated, afforded a lovely prospect across the blue waters of the harbour to the stately Cathedral and the town. It was pitiful to see that the gaudy tiles that paved the embrasure were worn bare, and to note that, by some curious coincidence, the face in the bas-relief looked longingly towards the window.

In the immense kitchen the most remarkable feature was the chimney – a space like a large room – of which the smoke-blackened sides narrowed up and up, until far overhead its orifice appeared a mere eyelet of light against the sky. But this ancient fireplace had been superseded by a long range of charcoal stoves, and the savour of roasting oxen will never again ascend that giant chimney.

The Castle of Bellver is full of interest, but it is the roof that holds the visitor fascinated. On its surface one can walk round and round in perfect security, meeting a fresh and glorious picture at every turn. To the north the high velvet hills bar the view. Southwards, beyond the clustered roofs of the Terreno, the Mediterranean ripples away towards the African coast. Towards the west amid the hills lies Ben Dinat, where, after the historic battle, the Conquistador dined well off bread and garlic; and east is the lovely plain of Palma, with Santa Catalina and Son Españolet (and the quite inconspicuous Casa Tranquila) in the middle distance.

Round the battlements many names, both of the bond and of the free, were carven. Our guide proudly pointed out three that, coming amongst the Spanish designations, we read with a curious sense of familiarity: —

"John Sutherland Black.

James Hunter.

James Hunter, Junr."

The date was August, 1905. And the owners of the British names, our guide told us, were scientific men who had journeyed to Palma to witness the total eclipse of the sun. And in so doing they assuredly showed wisdom, for it would have been difficult to find a better place from which to observe the phenomenon than this wide roof that seemed so near the sky.

When the men essayed to climb the high tower I waited below on the roof, and was idly leaning over the battlements when a stonecrop fast-rooted in the interstices of the wall attracted me. Wondering what manner of plant would choose to live in that arid situation, I was examining it closely when I discovered that, even in that seemingly inaccessible spot, a caterpillar had found it out, and was busily feeding on its succulent foliage.

The caterpillar might be a common one – I have little knowledge of entomology – but it was new to me; and its appearance was so unusually gay as to appear to merit description. The body, which showed alternate stripes of light and dark grey, was girdled by black bands, which were further decorated by spots of vivid scarlet; while the head – or was it the tail? – flaunted a double scarlet plume.

When the men again joined me, I drew the attention of the custodian to the gaudy insect, and asked if he knew the species.

He shook his head dubiously, confessing that he had never noticed one like it before. Then his eyes caught sight of the plant on which it fed, and he instantly brightened up.

"I know that plant," he said. "It is valuable, señora, very valuable. It makes a good medicine."

Our next visit was to the Lonja. In the good old days when Palma was a great mercantile centre – the days when thirty thousand sailors found employment from its port – a Majorcan architect designed the Lonja to serve as an exchange.

This old-time architect and his builders must have been past masters of their art, for though hundreds of years have slipped by since then, and the Lonja no more serves any active purpose, it still survives to delight by the simple grandeur of its design. Seen as it stands with only a wide thoroughfare separating it from the sparkling waters of the port, with its palm-trees in front and a cloudless blue sky overhead, the antique building is one of the most beautiful sights in a city that abounds in beautiful things.

We had been told that the Lonja was open to the public on the afternoons of Thursdays and Sundays. So one Sunday evening, early in our stay, the Man and I stopped in front of the great door, and tried to push it open. It did not yield a hair's-breadth. Indeed, it seemed to wear an expression of stolid immobility, as though secretly defying our puny efforts to induce it to reveal the treasures it guarded.