“At the port of Andraitx fishermen in red Phrygian caps were mending their nets....”
(page [67])
Stepping into our carriage with a gracious and comprehensive bow to the throng around, we were whirled away at a gallop down the crowded street, and quitting the town we struck out for Santa Margarita on our return to Palma. Long processions of country carts were returning from Mass, with men and women seated upon sacks at the bottom of the vehicles; but the fields were deserted save for an occasional swineherd tending his beasts among the carob groves.
Near Sineu we passed a large corral of young mules with their mothers; so proudly do these quaint, long-eared infants follow the handsome black mares that one is irresistibly reminded of the inquiry put by an interested listener to the man who was boasting of his mother’s beauty—“C’était donc Monsieur votre père qui n’était pas beau?”
The night was spent at Sineu, and returning to Palma the following morning we settled down at the Grand Hotel for a week before starting on our second driving tour, which was to introduce us to the North-western corner of the island.
For the next few days the weather behaved as badly as it occasionally will do in southern lands where its reputation is at stake. The Palma natives became first apologetic, then exasperated;—“Fie, for shame!” screamed an old woman angrily, addressing the rain from her shop door where we had taken shelter in a downpour—“Fie, for shame! What, then, will the English ladies think of us!”
But the spirit of perversity had entered into the Spring; she sprinkled snow upon the mountains, and kept the mail-boats imprisoned at Barcelona; she drenched the shivering population till the very swallows sat disconsolately on the clothes lines, drooping their wet wings; and she persisted in making such ugly threatening faces that it looked as if we should never start for Andraitx at all. Reason certainly pointed to our remaining at Palma; we were warm and comfortable at the Grand Hotel—we got far better food than we ever did on our travels, and the Dark-room itself was more commodious than might be our future quarters in some village fonda. On the other hand time was passing, and we had yet much to see; finally we decided to risk all and to go.