“Whither away, O Father?” we asked with respectful salutation.
“Over the whole world, my children,” replied the old man, turning upon us a rugged face framed in long grey locks.
We learnt that he was a native of Spain, and had for years been on a pilgrimage to the most sacred shrines in all lands; he had been in the Holy Land and in Egypt—had visited St. James of Compostella, and Rome, and Lourdes—and now was on his way to the shrine of Our Lady of Lluch. His wallet contained his papers—viséd at his various halting places—together with a few treasured relics from the Holy Sepulchre; of money he had no need, since the faithful everywhere would give him food and a night’s lodging, for the labourer is worthy of his hire. But he dare not tarry, for he had yet far to go, and with a “Buen viaje!” we drove on and soon lost sight of the solitary pilgrim who in this strange fashion was working out his own salvation.
The town of Sollér lies almost at sea-level, in a spacious valley ringed round with mountains around whose grey peaks buzzards and ravens—dwarfed by distance to the size of midges—circle and slant for ever to and fro.
Warm and sheltered, rich with orange and lemon groves, date palms and loquats, and entirely enclosed with hills but for an opening down to the little port on the north, Sollér is Majorca’s garden of the Hesperides. Though it is only April 3rd, the roses are running riot in the gardens of Son Angelāts, a fine house on the outskirts of the town belonging to a Marchésa who only resides there in summer time; it has terraces overlooking Sollér, and large grounds laid out with orange groves, tall palms, and flowering shrubs; roses cover the terrace walls and climb up into the grey olive-trees from whence they fall back in festoons—and the gardener breaks off branch after branch for us as we go along, great yellow Marshal Niels, pink La France, crimson tea roses, butter-coloured Banksias, miniature roses de Meaux, and fragrant Madame Falcot; we have more roses than we can carry. The borders are full of pansies and polyanthus, Parma violets and carnations; we are given bouquets of spirea, freesias, peonies, and heliotrope, and we drive away with our little carreta decked out as if for the Carnival.
The Marchésa has beautiful grounds—carriages and horses, and many servants; and to these possessions she adds, with true Southern incongruity, a most remarkable approach to her entrance gate; several yards of decayed cobble paving—bestrewn with loose blocks of stone and full of deep holes—over which a small stream swirls rapidly, intervene between her carriage gate and the road outside. The bumps and crashes with which our cart forded the water nearly threw the pony down, and we feared at one time that a wheel was coming off, but we got through intact. That the marchioness should enjoy this episode as part of her daily drive strikes even the natives, I think, as a little strange.
The modest little hotel La Marina at Sollér is a great improvement on the ordinary village fonda; the cooking is good, the bedrooms plainly but suitably furnished, and the proprietor and his daughters spare no pains to make their guests happy. Mules can be procured in the town for mountain expeditions, a carriage and pair is kept for hire, and there is a toy carreton belonging to the hotel in which one may drive out alone—feeling somewhat like a coster going to the Derby; the minute white pony hurries one along at extraordinary speed and stops for nothing but the Majorcan word of command—Poke-a-parg!
The port of Sollér, about half an hour distant, is a little land-locked harbour with a fishing village of narrow streets and picturesque houses. Majorca’s northern coast is in general so precipitous and inhospitable that the safe anchorage offered by the Sollér harbour was a great attraction to the corsairs of the Middle Ages, and many and terrible were the struggles that took place in the sixteenth century between them and the inhabitants of Sollér; on one of these occasions they sacked and then burnt to the ground the great Oratory of Santa Catalina, which stands on a headland at the mouth of the harbour. After this a castle was built, whose guns commanded the entrance to the port; but of this nothing remains except part of a tower, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-house.
There are many expeditions to be made on foot and on muleback into the mountains that surround Sollér; stalwarts can make the ascent of the snow-crowned Puig Mayor—Majorca’s highest peak, five thousand feet above sea-level—or visit the Gorch Blau, a ten hours’ expedition, with several miles of rock steps to come down on the way back, but both of these require strength and endurance. Then there is the Barránco, a ravine, clean cut as with a knife, upon the summit of a grey mountain ridge from whence a splendid view is obtained; and there is the Torrent de Pareys on the north coast, to be reached by boat on a calm day in about two hours.