“Long flights of steps lead to the higher part of the town, some broad and shallow, the playground of innumerable boys....”
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Long flights of steps lead to the higher part of the town—some broad and shallow, the playground of innumerable boys; others steep and so narrow that the tall houses almost meet overhead.
The cobbled streets of the oldest and most aristocratic quarters of Palma resemble ravines, and are barely wide enough to admit of the passage of the heavy two-wheeled carts that come lumbering through, scraping either wall with their axles and compelling foot passengers to seek the shelter of the nearest archway. An oriental atmosphere of mystery hangs about the massive, fortress-like walls of the great houses that tower on either side, turning to the outer world a blank and inscrutable face of reserve that offers not the faintest indication of the life existing within. External windows are represented by a few heavily-barred apertures high overhead, but if you chance to find the great nail-studded porte-cochère standing open you are at perfect liberty to go in and look about you.
The universal plan of all the better houses is that inherited from the Arabs—of a patio or open courtyard in the centre of the building, from which a staircase ascends to the dwelling rooms on the first floor. In some houses this patio consists of nothing more than a plain courtyard enclosed by whitewashed walls, with perhaps a clump of bananas growing in the centre; but in the palaces inhabited by the nobility and dating back some centuries the courtyard is frequently of great beauty and constitutes the chief architectural feature of the house.
The residence of the Oleza family in the Calle de Moréy has a fine courtyard in Rénaissance style; handsome pillars of red marble support the vaultings of the house, and the gallery that spans the marble staircase rests upon a wide flattened arch bearing the family coat of arms. The ground floor is devoted to stables, coach-house, and domestic offices, and in the court stands that characteristic feature of Moorish and Spanish patios—the well, from which the household draws its water supply. The bucket is lowered from a wrought-iron support in the form of a crozier, and on being brought up brimming its contents are upset into the font-shaped receptacle of stone close by, from which they flow through an orifice into the water jar placed on a slab below.
The palace of the Marquis de Vivot in the Calle Zavella is not as ancient as many another, dating as it does from the beginning of the eighteenth century only, but its patio is the largest in Palma and certainly one of the most beautiful. It is approached by fine portes-cochères and has in the centre a paved space where carriages stand at the foot of the great staircase. From eight beautiful marble columns spring the graceful arches that uphold the house, and in brilliant relief against the black shadows of the recess stands out the clear red of two immense oil-jars containing palms.