(page [99])
There are many excursions in the neighbourhood that good walkers can easily accomplish on foot. Between the harbour and the town of Alcúdia are the remains of a Roman amphitheatre, supposed to mark the site of the old Pollentia—long disappeared; on a rocky slope, converted into a wild flower garden by a gorgeous tangle of yellow daisies, convolvulus, borage, asphodel and mallow, can be traced partial tiers of seats and flights of steps cut in the rock; and in a depression of the ground are seen the caves originally destined for wild beasts, but now inhabited by nothing more ferocious than a family of black pigs couched upon a bed of seaweed.
Here and there among the flowers one stumbles into a grave; there are rows upon rows of these Roman graves—narrow, shallow tombs cut in the surface of the rock and half filled with earth. Fragments of Roman pottery, broken lamps, skulls and bones are constantly picked up, and two years ago a grave was found intact by some men who were quarrying freestone. Like the rest, it was quite shallow, and in it was found a quantity of gold jewellery that had evidently belonged to a Roman lady. We were shown the ornaments, which comprised a brooch set with rubies, an oval locket—which at one time had apparently contained a portrait—a long chain necklace with clasps, set with small pearls and two emeralds; two handsome gold and pearl earrings, and a few smaller trinkets. In another tomb was found a gold bracelet, and a silver coin said to be of the reign of Tiberius. All these are now in the possession of the finder.
Close to the Roman cemetery are some other graves, half hidden by rough grass. As our guide turned over the earth with his foot he disclosed a jawbone furnished with a row of splendid molars; from the style of burial and other indications these graves have been decided to be Moorish, but as far as we could learn no systematic investigation of the ground has yet been attempted.
The following morning we drove to the Castillo de Moros, in one of the usual tilted carts, drawn by a big mule that for some time showed no sign of being able to go at any pace but a walk; our remark, however, that a horse would have been swifter, put the driver on his mettle, and, declaring that his mule had great velocity, he urged the animal into a fast trot which was kept up as long as the condition of the road rendered it in any degree possible.
Skirting the town by an arrow track cut in the bedrock, and dating probably from Roman times, we struck out across country to the Moorish fort that stands on a promontory overlooking the bay of Pollensa. In spite of its age the little Castillo is in good preservation; moat and bastions are almost intact, and a squat pylon of yellow freestone gives entrance to the building and to a broad, flagged terrace on the side towards the sea. Goats browse around the ramparts among palmetto and lentisk, cactus and asphodel; and framed in the embrasures of the masonry is the gorgeous blue of the bay, with the long serrated ranges of Cap Formentór visible in the far distance.
Below us, silhouetted against the distant headland of the Cap de Pinár, stood one of the nórias, or Persian wheels, introduced by the Moors and still used in the island for raising water from wells. Bushes of pink stock clambered into the ancient stone aqueduct, which led away from the nória across the bean fields; some sheep were grazing the stony ground, watched by a boy in an enormous straw hat, who stood in the shade of a clump of pines. It was a pretty pastoral scene, typical of the peaceful tide of life that flows on around the Moors’ old fort.
The southern shore of the Bay of Pollensa is very beautiful, and by an amazingly bad road it is possible to drive a considerable way along it, to the Cap de Pinar, a wild headland where we spent a delightful hour; at our feet—far, far below—lay the waters of the bay, and beyond it the trackless sierra of Cap Formentór stretches its arm northwards till it ends in a bold cliff that plunges sheer into the sea. Behind us is a mountain range, on the slopes of which is visible the pilgrimage church of Our Lady of Victory, and looking inland we can see the pale blue pyramid of the Puig Mayór.
It was a fête day, and crowds of holiday makers were returning from the Cap—whole family parties laden with palmetto roots slung over their shoulders; the heart of this dwarf palm is considered a delicacy by the Majorcans; the plant is chopped out of the ground with an axe, and the lower leaves trimmed off close, leaving only a tuft of young shoots at the top, which gives the root an almost precise resemblance to a pineapple. But it is a woody form of nourishment, and not a taste to be acquired after childhood I should imagine.