With a Camera in Majorca

by Margaret D'Este

The heavens were black with clouds when we set off on the morning of March 27th, but before we had been gone half an hour our lucky star shone out, and the weather executed a complete volte-face such as one is led to believe any climate but our own would be ashamed of. Brilliant sunshine dried up the puddles with that amazing rapidity peculiar to porous soils, and the day suddenly decided to be quite, quite fine.

So excellent may be the results obtained from flying in the face of Providence—if only it be done at the right moment.

Merrily our little horses jingled along the splendid carretera real—the royal road—that leads to Andraitx; now we follow the coastline and catch glimpses of blue waves and fringes of white foam between the stems of the pine-trees; now we turn inland among the olive groves—where the old trees pirouette airily or stand with feet gracefully crossed upon the hill slopes, amidst pink and white cistus and bushes of wild mignonette. In three hours we reach Andraitx, where the carriage road terminates, and having no further use for our victoria we send it back to Palma, with instructions to meet us the next day but one at the village of Estallenchs beyond the mountains.

Andraitx, the old Andrachium of the Romans, is a prosperous-looking town lying in a green valley of almond orchards; most of the inhabitants are sea-faring folk, and down by the shore—five miles distant—we found a little colony of houses where fishermen in red Phrygian caps were mending their nets until the gale should abate. It was assuredly no day to put out to sea so long as white foam was running up the face of the cliffs, driven by a wild west wind.

The church of Andraitx is one of the oldest in the island; it stands upon rising ground above the town, its great blank walls plain—even in a land of plain exteriors; and beside it stands the fine old Possession-house of Son Mās, said to date back to the time of the Moors. The Possession-houses of Majorca were originally the country seats of the Spanish nobility; once inhabited by the great landowners, they have now descended to the level of farmhouses and have become the residence of the principal tenant farmer upon the estate, who goes by the name of the Amo, or master. These fine old buildings usually stand in the centre of some large property, and are almost invariably fortified and adapted to stand a siege.

Very picturesque is the straggling yellow pile of Son Mās, with its high walls and machicolated tower. Passing under a heavy stone archway we cross a large courtyard, where pigeons are stepping through stately minuets upon a vine pergola, and ascend by a flight of steps to a broad open gallery, supported on pillars, that runs along the front of the house. We are shown the spacious kitchen and living rooms of the present occupants, and are then led through suite after suite of disused apartments—whitewashed, stone-flagged, shuttered, given up to bats and cobwebs. In the rooms occupied by the Señor, when on rare occasions he pays a visit to his estate, are a few pieces of the old furniture—some wooden chests, such as take the place of wardrobes in Majorcan households, a carved bedstead, and a few old paintings—fast going to decay. Soon there will be nothing save the stone scutcheon in the courtyard to preserve the memory of the founder of Son Mās.

Behind the house is an enormous reservoir containing a water supply that would outlast any conceivable siege to which the inhabitants might be subjected. The cement roof of the tank forms a wide terrace—some ninety by thirty feet—and two well-shafts, thickly lined with maidenhair fern, give access to the water.

A winding staircase leads to the summit of the old watch-tower, where from an open loggia under the roof the besieged could hurl down missiles upon the foe before the gate. In an unguarded moment I attempted the ascent of this tower, and never shall I forget the sensation of that climb; losing sight of my feet from the very start—my head being always three turns higher up the steps—and momentarily expecting to stick fast for good, I thrust myself in spirals up the narrowest corkscrew stairs it has ever been my fate to encounter. Judging by my own sensations I should guess the staircase to have measured nine inches in width—but it is possible it may have been rather more.

As we sat at supper that evening there came a knock at the door and the Alcalde was announced; a shy little man fingering a felt hat slipped into the room and made us a low bow; he was the Burgomaster, come to pay his respects and to inquire if we had all we wanted. While entirely appreciating the kindness that prompted his visit we could willingly have dispensed with it, on account of the immense exertion required to express ourselves in Spanish at all, and the impossibility of doing so as we should wish. We gathered that he was placing himself and all he possessed at our disposal, and we did our best to rise to the occasion; but sentiments of gratitude are sadly lamed by a limited vocabulary. We tried to improve our position by asking if he could speak French, and expressing our disappointment when he negatived the question. The interview was punctuated by rather painful silences—and it was with a certain sense of relief that we saw our friendly visitor bow himself out again on being assured there was nothing he could do for us.

All that night a terrific storm raged. Mingled with the rattling of hail and the crash of thunder came the sound of the Sereno hammering at the house door to wake the fondista, and shortly afterwards we heard the latter come upstairs and pound lustily upon the door of an adjoining bedroom; some señor had to be called to catch the diligence, which—according to Spanish custom—leaves Andraitx at the extraordinary hour of two o’clock in the morning.